Takin’ Exquisite Musicianship To The Grave
Evidence.
1. Thorn Fetish.
Posted on March 6, 2012
The Weekend in Chicago Rock
By The Beachwood Rock Local Affairs Desk
You shoulda been there.
1. Pink Torpedo at Reggie’s on Saturday night.
Posted on March 5, 2012
The Week in Chicago Rock
By The Beachwood Rock Local Affairs Desk
You shoulda been there.
1. Solemn Meant Walks at the Empty Bottle on Monday night.
Posted on March 2, 2012
Cab Calloway’s Chicago
By Steve Rhodes
An American Masters episode on Cab Calloway debuted this week on PBS to generally good reviews. While Calloway is mostly a New York figure, Chicago played an important role in his career. Let’s take a look, first with a bit of background and then some video.
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“Although Calloway came of age at the Cotton Club in Harlem (during a time when blacks were not allowed to sit in the audience), his Chicago connections are important,” Dave Hoekstra wrote in the Sun-Times.
The links that follow are mine because the Sun-Times still doesn’t know how to make them. See how they enrich the story – along with the videos. 3-D journalism, my friends.
“His older sister Blanche was the bandleader for Blanche Calloway and her Joy Boys, a Chicago-based band that included Louis Armstrong and future Calloway drummer Cozy Cole. Cab Calloway debuted in Chicago in 1928 at the Dreamland Cafe.
“According to Dempsey Travis’ An Autobiography of Black Jazz, the Dreamland was managed by Bill Bottoms, who later became the chef for boxer Joe Louis. Calloway’s first full-time gig was as house singer with Armstrong and Earl Hines at the Sunset Cafe, 35th and Calumet. The mobbed-up Sunset was the South Side’s version of the Cotton Club, with chorus girls, comedians and tap dancers.”
Posted on February 29, 2012
Chicago Vintage Guitar Expo
Lots Of Nice Gear
It was the 20th annual, held Sunday at the Doubletree Hotel in Alsip. Sponsored by Vintage Guitar magazine.
Here’s video from 6string3r, who commented on a Les Paul forum: “Lots of nice gear. Some vintage, some not so much. Had a great time though, but came home empty-handed.”
Posted on February 28, 2012
The Weekend in Chicago Rock
By The Beachwood Rock Local Affairs Desk
You shoulda been there.
1. Audiences at Lincoln Hall on Friday night.
Posted on February 27, 2012
The Week in Chicago Rock
By The Beachwood Rock Local Affairs Desk
You shoulda been there.
1. Trivium at the House of Blues on Tuesday night.
Posted on February 24, 2012
Chi-Town Funk
The World Is A Ghetto
By BJ The Chicago Kid feat. Kendrick Lamar
Don’t you know that it’s true?
Posted on February 22, 2012
Remembering Lil’ Scotty: Bluesman, Buttonman
Gutbucket Grit
“If blues music is rooted in adversity, bluesman Clarence ‘Little Scotty’ Scott had plenty to draw on,” Graydon Megan wrote for the Tribune last week.
“From surviving a scarring house fire as a youngster to making a return to full-throated blues singing after a tracheostomy several years ago, Mr. Scott never lost his good humor, his concern for social causes or, most especially, his commitment to the blues.
“‘He was the only blues singer I know of who was able to sing powerful, funky, gutbucket blues while having a trach tube – which he plugged up with a Sharpie pen,’ said his friend Steve Balkin, a Roosevelt University professor and historian of the Maxwell Street market where Mr. Scott often sang. ‘He had a real sense of street grit about him.’
Posted on February 21, 2012