It’s popular among blues enthusiasts to classify early regional styles by stereotyping them. We talk of the intense, emotionally explosive Delta blues (Charlie Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson) and the melodic, tightly structured mid-Atlantic blues of Georgia and the Carolinas (Blind Willie McTell, Blind Boy Fuller, Curley Weaver and Fred McMullen). Then there are the […]
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The man who knew too much
It’s sometimes forgotten that there’s a strong link between the blues, white folk music, and country and western. In the first half of the 20th century, different musical and cultural traditions coexisted uneasily throughout the south and intertwined in complex ways. The black plantation musician of the 1920s led a dual life. He played blues […]
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Style and substance: New Order confronts an old saw
Is New Order truly a case of style without substance?
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Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials–Chicken, Gravy & Biscuits
CHICKEN, GRAVY & BISCUITS Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials Alligator AL 4772 When west-side guitarist Lil’ Ed Williams burst onto the scene two years ago with the joyously rowdy Roughhousin’ LP, many hailed it as a return by Alligator Records to the kind of raw, unpretentious blues that made Chicago famous. Although his open-throttle […]
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Bob Dylan revisited
Bob Dylan is playing mostly covers these days. Unlike most rock performers, when he goes out on tour he rarely does more than one or two songs off his latest album (or three or four most recent albums). What he does instead is choose–with varying degrees of creativity from tour to tour and night to […]
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Lucky Peterson–Lucky Strikes!
LUCKY STRIKES! Lucky Peterson Alligator AL 4770 Despite the renewed mainstream popularity of the blues, aficionados still lament the dearth of the kind of deeply expressive, emotionally taut performances that distinguished the music during its heyday. The litany is familiar: style has won out over substance, spectacle over soul, technique over truth. Especially among young […]
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Exemplary Conducting
GRANT PARK SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at the Petrillo Music Shell July 7 and 8 Grant Park programs are often full of imagination, but Grant Park conductors usually are not. I find that the latter generally nullify the virtues of the former. While a first-rate orchestra can sound decent even with a second-rate conductor–as the Chicago Symphony […]
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Quality Time
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at the Ravinia Festival June 23, 24, 25, and 30, and July 1 and 2 Last month, James Levine opened his 17th season as Ravinia’s music director. It seems like yesterday that this unknown, bushy-haired wunderkind from Cleveland was jumping in at a few days’ notice for an indisposed Istvan Kertesz. The […]
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Band out of time: Are the Replacements too late to be rock stars?
The Replacements’ finest moment came on TV—Saturday Night Live in 1986. They were appearing to promote their fourth album, Tim, which was their first for a major label (their previous albums—Hootenanny; Stink; Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash; and Let It Be—were released on an indie label, Twin/Tone, out of their hometown, Minneapolis). […]
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New Tricks
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at Orchestra Hall May 4 and 11 One might expect Sir Georg Solti to fade quietly away during his remaining two seasons. He is gradually reducing the number of weeks he’s performing here, but qualitatively–at least if this season’s final concerts are a preview–the best of Solti’s music making may be yet […]
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Campus Contemporaries
THE CONTEMPORARY CHAMBER PLAYERS at Mandel Hall April 21 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE at Grace Place April 26 Two recent new-music events offered the chance to compare the approaches of the contemporary music ensembles of Chicago’s most important music schools: the University of Chicago’s Contemporary Chamber Players and the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble. […]
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Rufus Thomas–That Woman Is Poison!
THAT WOMAN IS POISON! Rufus Thomas Alligator Records AL 4769 Rufus Thomas is the patriarch of Memphis soul music. Although he’s best known to mainstream audiences as the purveyor of such novelty dance numbers as “Walkin’ the Dog” and “The Funky Chicken,” a special respect is due him for his role in keeping the blues […]
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The Proclaimers–Sunshine on Leith
SUNSHINE ON LEITH The Proclaimers Chrysalis FV41668 I’m not prone to racism, but the first time I got a glimpse of the Proclaimers I indulged in a riot of it. A colleague–one of these pointy-headed, British Simon Frith sociologist types–had said something about a pair of folkie Scotch twins who reminded him of Billy Bragg. […]
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Two Modern Men
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at Orchestra Hall March 17 and 28 and April 6 and 13 At a CSO press luncheon recently, conductor Leonard Slatkin was lamenting the fact that no conductor in recent memory has matched the tireless efforts Serge Koussevitzky once made in championing new music. “For that matter, Leopold Stokowski did his bit […]
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O Lou of little faith
There are two great figures in American rock ‘n’ roll: Elvis Presley and Lou Reed. Bob Dylan has a catalog that stands with anyone’s in rock ‘n’ roll, but he isn’t a single figure so much as he is a compendium of figures. Elvis and Lou are important because they represent the two poles of […]