Sweet Home
Global Blues – Live!
There was a time when live recordings were considered inferior to studio sessions because of the poor sound quality, the somewhat annoying concentration of applause, and the possibility the artist would turn in a less-than-perfect performance.
Soul Man
The Torch (Watchdog), the third album by guitarist, singer-songwriter Ronnie Baker Brooks, is a musical gumbo of blues, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, funk, rock, and hip-hop with a touch of folk and rockabilly added to the mix. The son of blues legend Lonnie Brooks, Ronnie was raised on the blues but brings a contemporary sensibility […]
It’s A Jazz Life
If You Got To Ask, You Ain’t Got It (Bluebird/Legacy) is a meticulously organized three-disc musical chronicle of the short but prolific career of stride piano master, composer, vocalist, and bandleader/ entertainer Thomas “Fats” Waller. Waller was a musical genius who came streaking through life comet-like, leaving behind a musical legacy still felt today.
Three Little Pigs
Blind Pig Records‘ 30th anniversary collection, Pearls From Swine, is a two-CD-plus-DVD package celebrating the Chicago blues and blues rock label’s upcoming pearl anniversary in 2007. From its humble beginnings in 1977 in the basement of the Blind Pig, an Ann Arbor, Michigan blues club, the label has grown into one of the world’s foremost […]
Mississippi Amersterdam
Big Bill Broonzy: Amsterdam Live Concerts 1953 (Munich) is a double-CD package of musical and historical significance. The recordings capture Chicago via Mississippi legend Big Bill Broonzy in an intimate setting before appreciative crowds at the Ons Huis (Our House) club on February 26th and 28th, 1953. The liner notes provide a glimpse of Broonzy’s […]
The Storyteller
In an era when blues records lean toward the pseudo-authentic, Keb’ Mo’s Suitcase (Epic) pretty much tells it like it is. Singer-songwriter, poet, and multi-instrumentalist Mo’ combines the traditional with the contemporary employing Dobros, mandolins, and National Steel guitars with Hammond B3’s, Latin percussion, and electric guitars to tell our stories.
IE Has Moved!
Please note our new Chicago office address: 657 W. Lake Street Suite A Chicago, IL 60661 Our new phone numbers are 312-930-9333 (Editorial); 312-930-9363 (Advertising).
What About Chicago?
The Blues Foundation held its annual Blues Music Awards (formerly the W.C. Handy Awards) on May 11th in Memphis. Congrats to Chicago awardees Buddy Guy (B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year), Mavis Staples (Soul Blues Female Artist Of The Year), Eddie Shaw (Instrumentalist – Horn), and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith (Instrumentalist – Drums). Hubert Sumlin, […]
Whole Lotta Blues Goin’ On
This year’s Chicago Blues Festival (June 8th to 11th) should be subtitled “Blues From All Over.” In its 23rd year, this is the most diverse lineup yet, showcasing talent from across the map, with special attention paid to Mississippi and New Orleans. Looks like the City Of Chicago is doing its part to support Hurricane […]
Feeling The Blues
“He’s so good, man.” – Muddy Waters talking about Otis Rush in Robert Palmer’s Deep Blues.
Introducing The Blues
By Beverly Zeldin-Palmer During the month of February, a slice of Chicago’s rich musical history was revisited in the Vittum Theater’s musical production, I Dream In Blues. The play, dubbed a “bluesical” was conceived by singer and storyteller Katherine Davis and Tom Arvetis, artistic director of the Vittum. It is Davis’ autobiography in words and […]
Stop, Thief!
Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering The Fisk University-Library Of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942 is an important book. Edited by writers Robert Gordon and Bruce Nemerov, it introduces an unpublished manuscript by Fisk University professor, composer, and musicologist John Wesley Work III, sociologist Lewis Wade Jones, and graduate student Samuel Adams. The three Fisk scholars had […]
A Change Is Gonna Come
“Sam Cooke was a golden child around whom a family mythology was constructed long before he achieved fame or added the e to his last name.” — Peter Guralnick, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke.
Three Generations Of The Blues
The ’60s meet the new millennium with new releases by icons B.B. King, Otis Rush, and the Chicago Blues Reunion.
Let It Shine
What’s a beatnik?” My young friend Emily, a Medill senior, asked me recently. We were discussing Halloween costumes, and I mentioned that back in the late ’50s I loved to dress up as a beatnik on Halloween: tight black clothes, heavy black eyeliner, and long black hair (courtesy of my mother’s long black scarf). Beatniks […]
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