All Entries in the "Sweet Home" Category
Sweet Home: September 2010
An Outpouring Of Blues
The fall traditionally signals back to school, work, and more activity than the lazy days of summer usually demands. Well the blues has stepped it up as well, with a slew of recent releases and reissues from the masters.
Sweet Home: August 2010
Bourbon At A Young Age
As a child in New Orleans, Tovi Khali didn’t quite know what she wanted to be when she grew up, until she first glimpsed inside Bourbon Street blues clubs. “I’d be outside watching the singers and I knew I wanted to do that,” says Khali. “If it weren’t for the blues, [...]
Sweet Home: July 2010
Blues Baby
The blues had a baby and it called her Shemekia. Nursed on her father Johnny “Clyde” Copeland’s legacy of throbbing, funk-filled blues and groomed on the nuanced belting of Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Mahalia Jackson, and O.V. Wright, Shemekia Copeland represents the greatest contemporary blues hope since Stevie Ray Vaughan. At 31, she’s a [...]
Sweet Home: June 2010
Blues Soldier
The Simpsons Sing The Blues was Chris Canas‘ first blues CD purchase. The 1990 album, featuring the infamous “Do The Bartman,” qualifies as an extremely unusual pick for an accomplished blues musician like Canas, but it’s an intriguing reflection of his background. The Detroit-born singer/guitarist/cornetist’s introduction to the blues came with his uncle blasting [...]
Sweet Home: May 2010
Delta Crush Blues
It’s telling that blues guitarist Chainsaw Dupont lists as turning points in his music career not listening to B.B. King as he was growing up in the Mississippi Delta or touring with Junior Wells in the ’90s, but hearing Sly & The Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and jamming [...]
Sweet Home: April 2010
At The Gates Of Dawn
A home represents the place where you feel nurtured and secure. It’s the one place where you know you are valued. Chicago offers the blues a home on many levels, but there’s no place where it’s valued more than on Steve Cushing’s “Blues Before Sunrise” radio program.
Sweet Home: March 2010
Gospel Woman Blues
Although she didn’t hear secular music until she was a teen, Valencia Bey always knew she wanted to be a blues/rock diva. She grew up in Chicago but her musical chops were formed in the Mississippi Delta, where she’d spend summers with her grandparents. There, she absorbed the intricacies of gospel music that [...]
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 [...]
