Willis Earl Beal

‏Despite Willis Earl Beal’s rapid ascent to indie stardom (and an unsuccessful run on “The X-Factor”), the website for this locally-based troubadour still announces that he will send you a drawing if you write to him at his Logan Square P.O. Box or sing you a song if you ring him by telephone. These stark pleas for human contact were famously hand-sketched on fliers distributed across Chicago and Albuquerque, the two cities where Beal has lived on and off the streets — working odd jobs and producing intimate, self-recorded compositions suffused with the rawest emotions that the blues, soul, and folk traditions have to offer. Thanks to a cascade of media attention touched off by enthusiastic profiles in Found Magazine and the Chicago Reader, Beal’s outsider art now has a home inside the venerable XL Recordings label, which released the slightly deranged debut LP Acousmatic Sorcery to global audiences this past spring. (Friday, 4:15-5:15, Blue Stage) –text: Mark Calaguas