It’s not every day you hear a bluesman toss that corny campfire favorite “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” into his set. Then again, vocalist-guitarist Vance Kelly’s version is mildly risque and never fails to get his audiences laughing.
Kelly’s career is thriving, thanks to his crowd-pleasing approach. He and his Backstreet Blues Band usually play six nights a week at places from Lincoln Park blues clubs to blue-collar South Side and northwest Indiana lounges to suburban nightclubs. He also has a new CD, “Live at Lee’s Unleaded Blues,” his fifth release on Austria’s Wolf label.
Though recorded a few years ago, the album represents Kelly’s live show, in which he plays everything from the Z.Z. Hill blues standby, “Someone Else Is Steppin’ In” to the Commodores’ breezy “Nightshift.” And Kelly’s stinging six-string work on tunes like B.B. King’s “The Thrill is Gone” is just as impressive as his soulful vocals.
“I like to play a couple of blues tunes and follow them with some love ballads and then some soul music,” says the 50-year-old Kelly. “I don’t want to get stuck on one type of sound. That’s why other musicians will say, `Hey man, let me sit in with you for a set.’ Because most of them only get to play one type of music all night.”
Kelly, who performed in a childhood family gospel group, says his guitar ability is a “gift from God.” His early career certainly could’ve used some divine intervention; there were lots of ups and downs, including a chance to get signed to K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s label–torpedoed when his band failed to show for the audition.
After that debacle he spent years as a sideman before his final employer, blues saxophonist A.C. Reed, convinced him to go off on his own. After several lean years he was signed in 1993 to Wolf, which specializes in Chicago blues. Five albums later, Kelly and his band are on the circuit’s “A list.”
After all those years in the trenches, Kelly says he doesn’t take being in the spotlight for granted.
“I go out into the audience and speak to everyone,” he said. “I don’t hide in the dressing room between sets. I love when people are all around me, and when they leave one of our shows I want them to feel good.”
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Vance Kelly and the Backstreet Blues Band, 9:30 p.m. Friday at Rosa’s Lounge, 3420 W. Armitage Ave. $10; 773-342-0452.