Magic Slim live. For fans of electric Chicago blues—South, not West, although the difference is, these days, largely academic—those three words will be all you need to hear before rushing out to purchase this disc. After all, Slim, the last living link to Chi-town blues giants like Magic Sam and Hound Dog Taylor, has, remarkably enough, never issued a live set before in the States. Now, however, we have this 11-track wonder, recorded sometime in the near present at the Sierra Nevada Brewery in Chico, CA, but sounding like the South Side just the same. (It’s available on CD and DVD both, in case you really want to feel the live ambiance.)

But reverence isn’t the point here, sweat is. Like a lot of blues sidemen who graduated to the main mic, Slim’s guitar speaks more fluently than his voice, but the 68-year-old still has a great deal of control over the latter and total control of the former, walking his clean, tremeloed Fender Jazz Master up and down the back of Windy City shuffles (“Mind Your Own Business”) laments (“Please Don’t Dog Me“) and grinders (a faithful cover of Muddy’s “Still A Fool”), but also country-tinged jams (the instrumental “Black Tornado”) and straight four-on-the-floor stuff like the opener, “I’m A Bluesman.”

In fact, for a guitar-wrangling legend, rhythm matters more to Slim and his band than acrobatics: drummer Vernal Taylor, who at times seems to be residing inside the main man’s mind, guides the band through some interesting waters, putting a skip in the flat walk of Albert Collins’ “Get Your Business Straight” and perfectly balancing Slim’s own “Shake It” between an uptempo shuffle and less traditional Chuck Berry-style motorvatin’. Ultimately, this is the Magic man’s show, however, and for those who never thought they’d be able to experience it in person, Anything Can Happen proves its title. Think of it as the perfect accessory for an out-of-towners’ White Sox cap.