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Lightnin’ strikes a chord

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Pasadena-based bluesman Lightnin’ Willie has developed a particularly intriguing wrinkle on the genre, one that’s cool, airy, with a sinuous groove that infiltrates his audience’s consciousness and invariably gets them up on their feet.

“My approach to the blues is simple — I want to make people dance,” he said. “All the great old cats swung or shuffled and you just had to bop. You don’t know why, but you are moving, the beat makes you move to it.”

The singer-guitarist, who appears Sunday at Burbank’s Joe’s Great American Bar & Grill, isn’t merely a simple-minded dance band leader. He developed his deceptively simple, boundlessly appealing style over a lifetime of propinquitous musical experience. As a child in his native Texas, he was spellbound by the Tejano guitar that filled the air; later in life, as an itinerant teenaged “army brat,” he absorbed the folk exotic folk music of Ankara; in Germany, he witnessed a performance by, and briefly met, Jimi Hendrix; back in the United States, even more significantly, the blues-devoted musician was personally introduced to Chicago blues great Muddy Waters.

“I saw Muddy Waters a million times, and yeah he played slow and it got really intense and his music could be dangerous — but that band also swung so hard, it was insane!” He said. “As a kid in the ‘70s, I played guitar in an R&B-funk band, we toured the chitlin circuit. I was the only white guy in the band. and driving through the south with all these black cats could mean trouble. We got rustled by the cops, hauled into kangaroo courts, it was the first time I’d been exposed to that kind of racism, but I loved those guys like they were family.”

“I learned so much doing that: I learned syncopation, I learned about dynamics and how important it is to play it gently. You have to keep the pressure on, but it’s not done through volume, it’s the tension, the pressure. You’ve got a certain rhythm in you and just concentrate on that, and it makes people move and have a good time.”

His natural blues prowess has taken him far, from the high-toned stage of London’s Royal Albert Hall to the decidedly earthy bacchanal of Willie Nelson’s infamous Fourth of July picnics and Lightnin’ Willie always sounds and looks good. “I insist that we all dress nicely,” he said. “I can’t look like I just crawled out from under my car. You’ve got to look sharp, create an image. You’re in the band, you’ve got to attract attention!”

Working with “the biggest little blues band in the world,” including pianist-bassist Dennis Gurwell and drummer Jerry Olsen, Lightnin’ Willie’s shows invariably satisfy. And he concentrates not just on blues standards but, rather, his own perpetually evolving original set.

“I am constantly bringing new songs that I’ve written for the band to learn, and I feel like I’m very fortunate that I can do that,” he said. “You have to keep it simple, so everyone can understand, and I if I sing a love song, I want a happy ending — no matter how many times she leaves me, I’ll always take her back. I’m a hopeless romantic.”

“It’s funny — a lot of club owners don’t even want blues, they think it’s some kind of downer. But I always tell ’em, ‘if you don’t like it, don’t pay me.’ And I’ve never not been paid.”

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What: Lightnin’ Willie & the Poor boys

Where: Joe’s Great American Bar & Grill, 4311 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank

When: Sunday, Dec. 21, 8 p.m.

Cost: No cover, two-drink minimum

More info: (818) 729-0805
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JONNY WHITESIDE is a veteran music journalist based in Burbank and author of “Ramblin’ Rose: the Life & Career of Rose Maddox” and “Cry: the Johnnie Ray Story.”

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