You're Tuff Enough

by Bill Dahl Another period of the veteran Chicago harp man's career that awaits CD documentation -- and one of the most exciting. Wells's late-'60s output for Bright Star and Mercury's Blue Rock subsidiary frequently found him mining funky James Brown grooves (with a bluesy base, of course) to great effect -- "Up in Heah" and his national smash "You're Tuff Enough" are marvelous examples of his refusal to bend to purists' wishes (though there's a glorious version of Bobby Bland's blues-soaked "You're the One" that benefits handily from Sammy Lawhorn's delicate guitar work).