I just can't lose the blues, not even to save my soul," Son Seals sings in a voice that simultaneously growls and shouts, transforming despair into a declaration of independence. Midnight Son, released in 1976 on Alligator, confirmed Seals's premier status among this era's bluesmen. Living in the Danger Zone, Seals's first studio album in six years, reunites him with Alligator and delivers a...

It's easy enough to dismiss the blues as something tucked safely away in the past. That has been the critical attitude for the last few years, an attitude which stems from an apprehension of the blues as a vehicle for romance, a catchall symbol for the kind of pain and suffering and life experience which a young white audience in the Sixties imagined it would never gain. As that audience grew up,...

Son Seals arrived at the top of the class of young Chicago bluesmen seven years ago with his first Alligator album. The imaginative songwriting, passionate singing and abrasive guitar playing that attracted attention then are still in evidence on Chicago Fire, but Seals' conflagration is dampened by well-meaning but ultimately obtrusive overproduction.

Seals and coproducer-label owner Bruce Iglauer...