“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions,” observes Claudius in Hamlet. And for Chicago theater artists, the last two weeks of November were particularly sorrowful, as three actors who helped shape and define the work that emerged here in the late 1970s and beyond—Marc Silvia, Debra Rodkin, and Ernest Perry Jr.—died […]
Tag: obituary
Posted inMusic
Rest in power to Meta Mo of Rubberoom
In the early 90s, Chicago hip-hop first began making waves around the country. Several local acts put out albums on national labels in 1992: Smash Records released Ten Tray’s Realm of Darkness, Loud Records dropped Tung Twista’s Runnin’ Off at da Mouth, and Relativity issued Common Sense’s Can I Borrow a Dollar? That same year, […]
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Jaimie Branch has flown away too soon
“You know, even assholes need some love.” So said Jaimie Branch in a 2019 interview with Aquarium Drunkard. She was explaining “Love Song,” one of the tunes on her 2019 album Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise. And without necessarily trying, Branch was also cluing folks in to the kind of connection that […]
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Chrissie Dickinson died with too much writing yet to do and too much art yet to create
Chrissie Dickinson was a multimedia artist and award-winning country and rock ‘n’ roll critic whose work appeared in the Chicago Reader, the Chicago Tribune, Newcity, the Boston Phoenix, the Washington Post, and the Christian Science Monitor. She died on May 19, 2022, from heart failure. She is remembered here by friend and creative partner Cynthia […]
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Cynthia Plaster Caster broke the mold
Kind. Funny. Genuine. A sweetheart, an artist, a legend. If the true sign of a life well lived is a tidal wave of emotional tributes when you die, then Cynthia Albritton—better known to the whole wide world as Cynthia Plaster Caster—lived a very good life. So much so that writing about her after her passing—she […]
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Rescuing the legacy of Dancin’ Man
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 the road gave me the chance to reflect on the circumstances of my relationship with him. I formally met Perry in 2011, when my friend […]
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A tribute to Syl and Jimmy Johnson
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 blues and R&B, carving out their own spaces within those sounds. They had outwardly contrasting personalities and their careers took different paths; they worked together […]
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Parker Lee Williams helped shape Chicago hip-hop—and he never stopped building
Parker Lee Williams grew up in the 1970s on New York City’s Lower East Side, while the city’s grassroots hip-hop movement sprang to life. When he moved to Chicago as a 15-year-old in 1983, he brought along firsthand knowledge of the culture’s foundational elements. His skills with spray cans and pens helped spread his tagger’s […]
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Doom-metal pioneer Eric Wagner has left our plane too soon
Modern digital avenues for music discovery can make it hard to remember what “underground” used to mean. Before the Internet, underground music was hard to find and often hard to even know about—and that amplified its significance for the outcasts who loved it. In the mid-80s, when speed was king in heavy music, a small […]
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Remembering the quiet king of Chicago music promoters
Eddie Thomas was one of Chicago’s greatest music promoters, and he might’ve been the most humble. While his name is linked in more ways than one to Curtis Mayfield’s, throughout the 1960s and 1970s he guided myriad R&B and disco artists through the process of making records and getting them played. When I talked to […]
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Long live Squeak
I met Squeak in Saba’s grandparent’s basement. The walls were plastered with magazine covers, the space stuffed with recording equipment and video games. A memory not easily forgotten—I’ve probably told this story a thousand times, in writing and in person. It was 2016, a year after the first time I interviewed Saba and a couple […]
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Mourning Joe Cassidy of Butterfly Child
Irish dream-pop genius Joe Cassidy lived in Chicago for more than a decade and became a beloved part of our music scene.
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Bob Koester leaves a colossal legacy in Chicago jazz and blues
For nearly 70 years, Bob Koester owned the Jazz Record Mart and Delmark Records—and though his businesses could be “crazy town,” they helped nurture thriving communities.
Posted inBest of Chicago
A personal remembrance of DJ Kwest_On
The Promontory’s favorite DJ died last spring, but his soulful music can still bring life.
Posted inBest of Chicago
Billie Barrett Greenbey of gospel legends the Barrett Sisters left us in 2020
Chicago played an outsize role in the birth of modern gospel music, but few artists remain from that foundational era.