Welcome to Chicago Music Forever

With Chicago Music Forever, the Reader hopes to capture some of the many histories that have shaped the city’s multifaceted music community. Music journalism is often ephemeral, and that’s not a knock on it—the same quality that makes show recommendations useful also means they rarely have long shelf lives, and very few album reviews or artist interviews still feel relevant 20 years later. What would it look like to create music stories with an eye toward future audiences?

The Reader already does this to some extent, of course. Our archives contain a great deal of Chicago music history that’s just as informative now as when it was written, and we continue to publish such stories every year. 

The ten new pieces at the heart of Chicago Music Forever add to the Reader’s record of this history, describing not just current events but also developments that span nearly 150 years. One chronicles the development of duranguense in the city’s Mexican American community around the turn of the 21st century; another details the Catholic school parties on the south and west sides that helped incubate the house-music scene in the 1970s and ’80s; a third describes Chicago’s emergence as an epicenter for the manufacture and distribution of musical instruments after the Great Fire.

By filling in gaps and corners and illuminating subterranean connections, this sort of storytelling can make it easier to grasp Chicago’s music history as an almost infinitely detailed and constantly evolving tapestry. In defiance of the segregation that blights the city, it demonstrates that no single thread exists apart from the others.

Aside from these ten pieces, this page contains an evolving selection from the Reader archives, which heavily favors material without an expiration date: oral histories, deep dives, memorial tributes, and obituaries. We’ve also included a link to our continuously updated community calendar of upcoming music events. Thank you for visiting, and we hope to see you again soon. —Philip Montoro, music editor

Chicago’s instrument industry helps the world make music

Chicago has had a role not only in shaping the sound of popular music for more than a century, but also in who’s made it and how.

by Jamie Ludwig

Chicago’s 1920s nightlife incubated world-changing musical and social experiments

Clubs and cabarets on the south side and beyond provided spaces for early jazz innovation as well as challenges to racial and gender norms.

by Jacob Arnold

How a gospel vocal style walked into Chicago and out to the world

R.H. Harris of the Soul Stirrers connected gospel to blues and jazz in the 1930s and ’40s, and through his influence on Sam Cooke he’s still shaping pop music today.

by Noah Berlatsky

Before Detroit had Motown, Chicago had Vee-Jay

Vee-Jay Records was one of the country’s most successful Black-owned labels, helping launch the careers of artists as diverse as Curtis Mayfield, the Four Seasons, and the Staple Singers.

by Robert Marovich

Chicago’s Black musical visionaries charted paths for their communities in the 1950s and ’60s

Sun Ra, Phil Cohran, and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians have influenced art and culture for more than half a century.

by Bill Meyer

P.S. Studios, where a musician recorded musicians

From the late 60s through the early 90s, trumpeter Paul Serrano and his independent south-side studio produced hit jazz, soul, blues, and gospel.

by Ayana Contreras

Mandingo Griot Society: a global exchange born in Chicago

Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso teamed up with Chicagoans Adam Rudolph, Hamid Drake, and Joseph Thomas to prefigure what would be called “world music.”

by Aaron Cohen

Catholic school house

In the 1970s, teenagers at Catholic-school parties on Chicago’s south and west sides helped pioneer house-music culture.

by Duane Powell

Malachi Ritscher gave Chicago’s fringe music his whole heart

Experimental Sound Studio houses a vast and varied collection of jazz, rock, and experimental recordings created by the late anti-war activist.

by Kerry Cardoza

Duranguense: made in Chicago

The city’s Mexican American community transformed the regional genre into a transnational hit.

by Gisela Orozco

From the Reader‘s Music Archives

Chicago Music history

Give your money to Mary Lane

The 84-year-old Chicago blueswoman should be a legend. She can barely pay her bills.

Summoning the ghosts of Record Row

For two decades, a short stretch of Michigan Avenue hosted a concentration of creative entrepreneurship whose influence on Black popular music is still felt today.

An oral history of the Green Mill

The neon-lit bar at Lawrence and Broadway, now a legendary jazz club, has been around for 107 years—and has more stories than any tavern in town. Here are a few from the past three decades.

Why the AACM and AfriCOBRA still matter

MCA curator Naomi Beckwith discusses a new exhibit called “The Freedom Principle” that connects the legacy of the Black Arts Movement to current cultural and political battles.

An oral history of the Chosen Few Picnic, the ‘Woodstock of house music’

How a family Fourth of July party grew into an annual event that attracts more than 40,000 fans

Building on the pillars of Blue Groove Lounge

The history of DJ Jesse de la Peña’s foundational Chicago hip-hop series, in the words of the people who made it work

The saga of Punkin’ Donuts

How a doughnut-shop parking lot became a confluence of Chicago youth subcultures—and what killed it off

Thirty years ago, a Black queer zine captured the scene that birthed house

Robert Ford and Trent Adkins shaped the bold, subversive, gossipy, funny, deeply engaged voice of Thing, felled by the AIDS pandemic in 1993.

How Homocore Chicago propped open the gate for queer punks

Today’s activist bookers face dramatically different hurdles, but Joanna Brown and Mark Freitas gave them all a running start with this 1990s concert series.

The best Chicago albums of the 2010s

The Reader polled dozens of critics to arrive at an absolutely indisputable ranked list of several hundred records that will definitely not start any arguments.

Remembering my 1973 introduction to Von Freeman

By coincidence or luck, I published the very first interview with the south-side saxophonist

Chicago rockers share their Mutiny memories, foggy and otherwise

Neo: where misfits fit in

The Lincoln Park club closed in 2015, after providing a sanctuary for generations of night crawlers—but its subcultural legacy continues to reverberate.

The Woman on the Right

An uncaptioned photo in the Numero Group’s recent book about south-side nightlife in the 70s set Jake Austen on the trail of this story about one crazy week in the life of longtime promoter Helen Wooten.

Spoon’s last dance

For six decades, Fletcher Weatherspoon has been a pillar of Chicago’s African-American social-club scene. On Mother’s Day, he handed down his crown.

Andrew Kitchen’s boogie strikes back

The Soul Train veteran and host of Attack of the Boogie celebrates the reissue of his dance show’s 1984 theme song.

It beats dancing about architecture

The Reader’s current music writer surveys all 50 years of the paper’s coverage and reports back.

Honoring the vanishing musical culture of Wicker Park

In some ways, Dorian’s is just one more boutiquey bar and restaurant. But its record store and music bookings connect it to the neighborhood’s 1990s arts community.

Keeping the beat

Chicago’s beat scene has to do without the attention the city’s rappers get, but it’s a vital incubator for adventurous, ambitious instrumental hip-hop.

The Jackson Find

This was supposed to be the story of the Jackson Five’s first single, cut in Chicago in 1967. But while writing it, Jake Austen picked up the trail of a tape nobody knew existed: the earliest known studio recording of Michael Jackson and his brothers.

Chicago label Still Music rescues decades of house history from a south-side storage locker

Jerome Derradji is restoring dozens of decaying reel-to-reel tapes and releasing their contents—including unissued tracks and DJ mixes from some of the genre’s early giants.

Obituaries, tributes, and lost legends

Dave ‘Medusa’ Shelton was a fairy godmother to Chicago’s club scene

He didn’t just found the legendary Medusa’s—he also helped everyone in his orbit shine like a star.

Did John Prine die for Donald Trump’s sins?

The cruelty, ignorance, and incompetence of the federal pandemic response have cost the life of a beloved singer-songwriter who stood against all those things.

Mic Shane helped boost Chicago hip-hop onto a global stage

He cofounded the city’s first hip-hop magazine in 1991 and worked tirelessly for decades to help the scene grow.

DJ Rashad is gone, but his influence on footwork lives on

The Chicago producer died before the music he helped define could break out, but he’s still inspiring his Teklife crew—which is releasing a compilation to benefit his young son.

Goodbye to songwriter Michael Smith

With “The Dutchman” and other widely recorded songs, he created emotional realities that let you feel along with his characters.

The House That Fred Built

Tenor-sax giant Fred Anderson and the community he sustained

Bob Koester leaves a colossal legacy in Chicago jazz and blues

For nearly 70 years, he owned the Jazz Record Mart and Delmark Records—and though his businesses could be “crazy town,” they helped nurture thriving communities.

Doom-metal pioneer Eric Wagner has left our plane too soon

The inimitable voice of Chicago bands Trouble and the Skull has been silenced by COVID-19.

Long live Squeak

A personal memorial for the Pivot Gang producer and DJ

Remembering the quiet king of Chicago music promoters

Eddie Thomas discovered the Impressions, founded Curtom Records with Curtis Mayfield, and ran the 1970s DJ pool the Dogs of War.

Remembering Chicago music champion Christen Thomas

She booked shows for a decade with the Empty Bottle and Metro teams, but that work was just the beginning of the love, joy, and support she showered on the local scene.

A memorial to Alejandro Morales

His death doesn’t just leave a hole in Chicago’s DIY music scene—it’s a loss to community activists, to affordable housing advocates, and to countless friendships.

Parker Lee Williams helped shape Chicago hip-hop—and he never stopped building

He threw the city’s first recurring hip-hop party, worked with the likes of Grandmaster Caz and Jamal-Ski, and built commercial music libraries that continue to support local artists.

Farewell to unsung house-music architect Rodney Bakerr

He led early Wax Trax! group Strange Circuits, ran underground label Rockin’ House, and wrote ubiquitous house-music rhythm patterns for Roland.

Remembering Benji Espinoza, champion of Chicago house music

His work for Quantum Distributors and the D.J. International label helped boost house into its exalted place in the global pop pantheon.

current music coverage

‘This is the kind of stuff I’ve looked for my entire time in America’

On a Sunday evening in early February at Build Coffee in Hyde Park, dozens of folks from across the South Asian diaspora gathered over samosas, chai, and sweets. Immigrants and children…

Experimental doom pioneers Khanate make a surprise return after 14 years of silence

During their initial run, from 2000 till 2006, New York City’s explosive Khanate helped usher in a new era of experimental heavy metal, setting off an ongoing wave of interest in…

Sampa the Great imbues polished hip-hop with the psychedelic magnetism of Zamrock

Sampa Tembo was born in Zambia and raised in Botswana, but she was living in Australia when she released her breakout second mixtape as Sampa the Great, 2017’s Birds and the…

Community music listings

Comprehensive listings of concerts and music events from a wide variety of event organizers—including Reader readers. Click “Promote your event” below to submit event listings.

You can also browse full, unfiltered event listings in all categories and browse a page of event listings prefiltered for arts categories.

Sign up for the Early Warnings Newsletter

See which artists are coming to Chicago with this essential music calendar of forthcoming shows and concerts—inboxed every Tuesday.

Sponsored by