Live Around the World: The Best of Junior Wells

1	Broke and Hungry 7:49
2	Hoodoo Man 4:16
3	What My Momma Told Me 5:06
4	Sweet Sixteen 5:17
5	Got My Mojo Working 5:43
6	Little Red Rooster 5:57
7	Messin' With the Kid 3:37
8	Take Off Your Shoes 6:49
9	Waitin' on the Night Train 7:18
10	Little by Little 5:49
11	Help Me 9:57

Barnes & Noble

Chicago blues harmonica player and singer Junior Wells was a showman; his stage prancing was so slick it made Mick Jagger seem like a neutered rooster, while his vocals smothered Otis Redding’s in roots. The recordings that capture Wells at his peak are the Vanguard releases of the ‘60s, when he worked with Buddy Guy. In the ‘70s, when he held down the house band seat at Theresa’s in Chicago, Wells had a more world-weary sound that held his audience’s attention with rhyming stage patter and honey-suckled singing. Then, after many years of surviving in the blues ghetto of empty, one-night club dates, Wells emerged in the ‘90s a newfound hero of the Chicago legacy. Live shows from this later era are captured on this enlightening overview. From the funk of “Broke & Hungry” in Osaka to a laid-back Paris reading of “Little Red Rooster” and an extended jam on “Help Me” in Boulder, Wells still has a dynamic stage presence. Though age has added a rasp to his voice, he whispers, shouts and growls though classics like “Hoo Doo Man,” “Got My Mojo Working” and “Messin’ with the Kid.” The harmonica work may not be as vibrant nor as energized as it is on Wells’s ‘60s recordings, but Live and Around the World documents a man whose comeback was late but more than deserved. Roberta Penn

All Music Guide

Culled from various live recordings Junior Wells made in his final year or so, Live Around the World: The Best Of is not a "best-of." Instead, it intends to present the legendary Chicago bluesman in a late-career renaissance -- or, as Donald E. Wilcock says in his affectionate liner notes, "This album is not the last gasps of a dying legend." To a certain extent that's true, because Wells does not sound tired, weary, or disengaged. He turns in spirited, energetic performances throughout and his harp playing remains a marvel, never following expected routes, always melodic and invigorating. That doesn't mean the album itself is invigorating, something that is a worthy bookend to Hoodoo Man Blues, since it suffers from the problem that plagues so many contemporary blues albums -- clean, precise production with perfectly separated instruments, plus the band's tendency to veer into funk vamps instead of dirty grooves. Even if Wells sounds good, the music as a whole feels too polished for its own good, which is really not the way Chicago blues should sound. That said, this is certainly no worse than the average contemporary blues album and in many ways, even better, thanks to Wells. He was a powerhouse right until the very end, and if you just listen to him play, Live Around the World does seem like a fitting epilogue to his career, although it's hard not to wish that this were a collection of greasy, intimate club dates instead of slick concert dates in Osaka and Paris. Perhaps then the band would have sounded as alive as Wells. Stephen Thomas Erlewine