All Entries in the "Sweet Home" Category
Sweet Home: February 2010
At The Threshold
There was a time when Grammy-winning, blues harp master Sugar Blue believed there were only certain types of music appropriate for a blues musician to play. He came up listening to and being molded by icons like Memphis Slim, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and Junior Wells. By the time he was in his [...]
Sweet Home: January 2010
Flaunting The Blues
The blues flows through Fernando Jones‘ veins just as thickly as blood and, given the innate rhythms that stream from his Telecaster, perhaps more smoothly. Growing up on the South Side with Mississippi-born parents and a blues-playing brother, he was driven to pick up his sibling’s guitar and pluck a few blues chords [...]
Sweet Home: December 2009
Soul Of Bronzeville
Chicago’s connection to the blues runs about as deep as the Mississippi. From Chess Records to the legendary clubs that line the 47th Street blues district, Chicago has played a significant role in the development of the blues. The Chicago Blues Museum exhibit “The Soul Of Bronzeville: The Regal, Club Delisa And The [...]
Sweet Home: November 2009
Six Generations Of The Blues
The new-millennium blues experience typically only offers glimpses of the genre’s 100-year-old recorded history. The old masters are passing on and their apprentices have been exposed to global influences that often stray from the original blues root. Earwig Music plans to fix that. On November 27th, an unprecedented opportunity to hear [...]
Sweet Home: October 2009
Delmark Delivers Blues History
Chicago remains a blues mecca, even in the face of distracting new-millennium antics of Chi-town musicians like Kanye West and R. Kelly. Despite this and a lengthy gospel, R&B, and jazz legacy, Chicago’s blues heritage towers over them all. It Ain’t Over (Delmark) showcases exactly why this is, a DVD packed with [...]
Sweet Home: September 2009
Blues Blowout
August and September brings a cavalcade of activities for blues fans. From a rare Pinetop Perkins appearance, to a Chicago blues challenge and classic record reissues, blues lovers can enjoy a blues blowout over the coming weeks.
Sweet Home: July 2009
Whole Lotta Music Goin’ On
The bright spot in an otherwise drab and dreary spring is the group of high-quality new releases that have crossed my desk for review. I am especially pleased to see that Chicago labels are recording local talent — a trend I hope continues. As I have said many times before in [...]
Sweet Home: June 2009
TURNING 20
On June 9th, 1989, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells performed a memorable set of acoustic blues at the Front Porch stage during the Chicago Blues Festival. This writer was there, MCing that particular stage. Once the show was over, I was directed to announce to the lingering crowd that they should make it down [...]
Sweet Home: May 2009
Sweet Home
Steppin’ Out
If you have been out on the town over the past year or so, hanging out at premier blues and jazz clubs such as Andy’s, Buddy Guy’s Legends, or House Of Blues, you may have happened upon up-and-coming guitarist/ vocalist and songwriter Guy King. King is a young guitar master with limitless musical [...]
Something Old, Something New
Listening to Chicago Blues: A Living History (Raisin), a two-CD set that covers 1940 to the present and features an all-star band of blues traditionalists including Billy Boy Arnold, John Primer, Billy Branch, and Lurrie Bell, led me to think about Jimi Hendrix. A space-age bluesman, Hendrix took the genre in a new direction. He [...]
Sounds Like An Angel
“There hasn’t been a lot of growing in the blues. I don’t see any reason why it cannot grow. So many blues artists were innovative. Muddy Waters, he plugged in.” [...]
Passing The Torch: Odetta & Miriam Makeba
Two vital women, American folk singer and civil-rights activist Odetta and South Africa’s voice of hope and freedom, Miriam Makeba, passed away within weeks of one another in late 2008. Makeba, 76, died of cardiac arrest after performing in Italy November 9th, and Odetta Holmes, 77, succumbed to heart disease December 2nd. Though they weren’t [...]
A Tribute To Chico Banks
The Chicago blues community gathered on Wednesday, December 10th at the West Side’s United Baptist Church to celebrate the life of one of their own. Guitarist/singer-songwriter Vernon “Chico” Banks, aged 46, passed away December 3rd of an apparent infection of a heart valve that was replaced more than a year ago.
Barack Rocks The (White) House
While watching the celebration unfold in Grant Park last month on television, in which President–elect Barack Obama celebrated his victory with some 240,000 jubilant supporters, I felt as though I was watching another type of history in the making. Racial stereotypes were being shattered left and right as the major networks and cable channels sent [...]
Reviewapalooza
Many CDs have been unreviewed during the past few months as I have focused more on the news side of the business. In a slight change of format, I will devote this entire column to playing catch up with pithy reviews of CDs from legends and newcomers alike, covering the gamut of traditional blues to [...]
