Originally influenced by B.B. King and Louis Jordan, Little Al Thomas is a household name in Chicago's South Side Blues clubs. Thomas was born in Chicago in 1930 and grew up on historic Maxwell Street, where blues musicians would perform on the sidewalks among the vendors and restaurants. He began singing gospel at the Zion Hill Baptist Church, all the while enjoying and learning from the recordings of Tampa Red, Lonnie Johnson, and John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson. Thomas, nicknamed “Little Al” for his relatively diminutive stature, worked by day in a steel mill and sang in the clubs at night as an avocation. By 1960 he began opening shows for Bobby “Blue” Bland. He spent much of the 1960s and ’70s working with guitarist Lacy Gibson, and the pair shared a long residency at the Clock Lounge. In 1987 he began working regularly with the Crazy House Band at The Spitz Lounge on Sunday nights, and the music began to blossom after that. His critcally acclaimed debut record "Southside Story" on Cannonball Records was hailed as an "instant classic". Southside Story was followed by a blistering live record from the Lucerne Blues Festival in Switzerland, "In The House" on Crosscut Records.