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Home » Music » Music Feature » Page 3

Category: Music Feature

Perry Kanlan on the roof of Marina City, wearing an elaborate beaded and fringed leather duster and denim shirt and holding a cowboy hat in his hands
Posted inMusic

Rescuing the legacy of Dancin’ Man

by Jake Austen March 17, 2022April 4, 2022

On December 13, I took a long drive to Des Plaines to pick up relatives of my friend Perry Kanlan, a showbiz-adjacent eccentric known as Dancin’ Man. The time on […]

Carolina Chauffe, aka Hemlock
Posted inMusic

Hemlock wants us to stay in touch

by Tasha Viets-VanLear March 16, 2022March 16, 2022

Carolina Chauffe doesn’t like to stay in one place for very long. Some of the most dramatic turns on her life’s path have been unplanned—she’s driven by what she calls […]

Patrick Haggerty of Lavender Country
Posted inMusic

‘I don’t need fans, I need comrades’

by Annie Howard March 8, 2022

Patrick Haggerty has just made me cry. Though we’re talking over Zoom, a day before the 78-year-old heads out on tour in support of his second record, Blackberry Rose and […]

Blind Arvella Gray plays his slide guitar on Halsted just north of the Maxwell Street intersection in 1971.
Posted inMusic

Blind Arvella Gray

by Cary S. Baker March 7, 2022March 7, 2022

Editor’s note: This story originally ran in the Reader on January 7, 1972. It’s been transcribed exactly as it appeared then, and has not been updated to correct typos or […]

A collage of cover artwork from releases by Matchess, Sirr TMO, Sidaka, Juzer, Cheer-Accident, and Dreamer Isioma
Posted inMusic

The second-biggest news about Bandcamp this week

by Leor Galil March 2, 2022March 29, 2022

Friday, March 4, is the 20th installment of what’s become known as Bandcamp Friday, when Bandcamp passes along its usual share of revenue to the independent artists and labels selling […]

A collage of photos of performers at the 2022 Frequency Festival, clockwise from upper left: Jordan Dykstra, Matchess, Susan Alcorn, Tomeka Reid, Jeff Kimmel, Lia Kohl & Macie Stewart, Hanna Hartman, Ryan Packard, Bill Nace, Haley Fohr, and Ensemble dal Niente
Posted inMusic

A concert-by-concert guide to the Frequency Festival

by Bill Meyer February 18, 2022February 18, 2022

After a COVID gap year, the Frequency Festival returns on February 22. The six-day event is an outgrowth of the Frequency Series, which is programmed by former Chicago Reader staff […]

A black-and-white photo of Bam Bam front woman Tina Bell, holding a microphone to her mouth with both hands. She's shown in profile and has a sort of sideburn drawn onto the shaved side of her head and down her cheekbone.
Posted inMusic

How Chicago helped put the Queen of Grunge back on her throne

by Leor Galil February 16, 2022February 16, 2022

On January 4, 2020, Jen Lemasters started She Bop, an Instagram account dedicated to recordings by women in rock. Lemasters has a huge record collection, not least because she and […]

A photo diptych of Syl Johnson in 2010 and Jimmy Johnson at the Chicago Blues Festival in 2016
Posted inMusic

A tribute to Syl and Jimmy Johnson

by Aaron Cohen February 11, 2022February 11, 2022

Chicago shaped Jimmy and Syl Johnson, and the brothers stayed grounded here even as they became global heroes. The singer-guitarists moved up from Mississippi after World War II and played […]

El grupo duranguense Montéz de Durango, de Chicago, se convirtió en uno de los representantes mundiales del género a mediados de la década de 2000.
Posted inMusic

Duranguense: hecho en Chicago

by Gisela Orozco February 4, 2022February 4, 2022

Read in English Un estilo de música, de baile y de vestir. Todo eso es el duranguense, movimiento que surgió en Chicago a principios del siglo 21. El duranguense, un […]

Saba site beside a swimming pool in profile
Posted inMusic

An interview with Saba: ‘For me, home is the people’

by Janaya Greene February 2, 2022February 10, 2022

In late 2014, I was incredibly homesick: I’d just left Chicago for college out of state, and I was struggling to adjust to a new campus and an immediate world […]

A collage of cover art from releases by the Kahil El'Zabar Quartet, Elijah LeFlore, Dave Rempis & Avreeayl Ra, Man-Eaters, Touched by Ghoul, and Lyra Pramuk
Posted inMusic

Bandcamp Fridays reach their third calendar year

by Leor Galil February 2, 2022February 2, 2022

In case your attention’s been elsewhere, Spotify has been at the center of another uproar lately: last week Neil Young pulled his music from the streaming service to protest the […]

In 1975, Mendel High School in Roseland began hosting student parties that helped incubate house-music culture. Here a flyer from a 1986 Mendel party DJed by Ron Hardy is superimposed over a 1978 yearbook photo of a different party.
Posted inMusic

Catholic school house

by Duane Powell January 27, 2022January 27, 2022

In November 2021, news broke that filled the Chicago house-music community with pride. Hometown house legends Ten City were nominated for a Grammy for Best Dance/Electronica Album for Judgement, their […]

​​Mandingo Griot Society performs in Finland in the early 80s. The band's lineup at that time, from left to right, was bassist John Marsh, guitarist J Marcus, drummers Hank (Hamid) Drake and Adam Rudolph and (in separate photo) kora player Foday Musa Suso.
Posted inMusic

Mandingo Griot Society: a global exchange born in Chicago

by Aaron Cohen January 27, 2022January 27, 2022

Foday Musa Suso absorbed centuries of tradition growing up in Gambia. As part of the griot caste, his family had performed a centuries-long role in Gambian society, narrating historical epics […]

Chicago-based duranguense group Montéz de Durango onstage
Posted inMusic

Duranguense: made in Chicago

by Gisela Orozco January 27, 2022February 4, 2022

En Español A style of music, dance, and dress: duranguense, which surged in Chicago at the turn of the 21st century, encompassed all of this. Duranguense is a hybrid genre, […]

An illustration of Chicago buildings and an elevated train line sharing a skyline with musical instruments: a piano, a guitar, a drum set
Posted inMusic

Chicago’s instrument industry helps the world make music

by Jamie Ludwig January 27, 2022January 27, 2022

Like a giant urban phoenix, Chicago rose from the ashes of the Great Fire of 1871 to become a behemoth in architecture, the arts, and business. Thanks to its waterways […]

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