Vivian Carter and James Bracken formed Vee-Jay Records in 1953 to produce the “good music” that listeners of Vivian’s radio broadcasts and customers of her record store in Gary, Indiana, wanted to hear. By “good music,” her audience—largely southern-born African American migrants to the Chicago region—didn’t mean classical or pop. They hungered for electric blues, […]
Tag: John Lee Hooker
Posted inMusic
Sammy Lawhorn might be the most widely recorded blues guitarist lost to time
Folks often ask me how I’ve come up with subjects for the Secret History of Chicago Music month after month. I have lots of answers, all of them true, including digging in record bins, falling down Internet rabbit holes, and cultivating knowledgeable friends. I’m tight with experts in several genres well represented in Chicago: big-city […]
Posted inMusic
The Aces helped invent the sound of electric Chicago blues
The Aces are best known as a backing band, but they took the lead when it came to the future of the blues.
Posted inMusic
Musical and literary polymath Thom Bishop has a second career as Junior Burke
For 50 years Thom Bishop has been writing songs, lyrics, plays, movies, and more—and his new novel (as Junior Burke) starts with James Dean shooting Ronald Reagan on live TV.
Posted inMusic
Local bluesman Toronzo Cannon is one of Chicago’s finest string-bending storytellers
Toronzo Cannon’s 2016 breakout debut album for Alligator is titled The Chicago Way, but it doesn’t include a song of the same name. Since that release, the homegrown bluesman has become so enamored with the phrase that he wrote a song around it in time for his next album, The Preacher, the Politician or the […]
Posted inMusic
George ‘Wild Child’ Butler breathed new life into raw, old-fashioned blues
This stubbornly idiosyncratic harmonica player had lousy luck with recordings, but he thrived for four decades onstage.
Posted inMusic
Blues bassist Calvin ‘Fuzz’ Jones made Muddy Waters sound his best
Calvin “Fuzz” Jones, who spent most of his five-decade career in Chicago, was one of the most prominent sidemen in electric blues.
Posted inMusic
Freddie Roulette is one of the few lap steel guitarists in the blues
In a career more than 50 years long, Roulette has lent his slide stylings to the likes of Earl Hooker, Charlie Musselwhite, and John Lee Hooker.
Posted inMusic
Muddy Waters drummer Willie ‘Big Eyes’ Smith never escaped the sideman shadow
Even when Willie “Big Eyes” Smith won a Grammy at the end of his life, he shared it with pianist Pinetop Perkins.
Posted inMusic
Lefty Dizz was one of the greatest showmen in the blues
Guitarist Lefty Dizz toured abroad for decades, but even in his home base of Chicago he was never the star he played like.
Posted inMusic
Deacon Jones cofounded the legendary Baby Huey & the Babysitters—and that was just for starters
Trumpeter and organist Deacon Jones played for Curtis Mayfield, Freddie King, and Carlos Santana, and spent 18 years with John Lee Hooker.
Posted inMusic
Blues drummer Sam Lay has made five careers’ worth of music
Sharp-dressed drummer Sam Lay has played with Dylan and Howlin’ Wolf, and in 2015 he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
Posted inMusic
Underappreciated guitarist Johnny B. Moore links Delta blues with the electric postwar Chicago sound
Johnny B. Moore launched his career as a full-time bluesman in 1975 with the great Koko Taylor, and he’s still kicking today.
Posted inMusic
Blues guitarist Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis learned his raw, propulsive style from John Lee Hooker
Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis got his start walking on broken glass in a traveling variety troupe, but he became an institution at Chicago’s most famous outdoor market.
Posted inBlogs
Henry’s Swing Club has shaggy 70s charm in a sleek River North body
DMK’s bar serves strong cocktails and tasty little sandwiches.