Downstate frat rockers the 4 Taus split in 1964 but reunited periodically for almost 50 years.
Tag: Ray Charles
Posted inMusic
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.
Posted inMusic
Entertainment lawyer Jay B. Ross fought for the people who made the music he loved
An expert negotiator, he went to bat for stars as big as James Brown and Muddy Waters, but he also clawed back royalties for countless forgotten artists who’d never gotten their due.
Posted inMusic
Gifts that sing—are you listening?
The best best box sets of 2017 include 11 CDs from David Bowie’s Berlin period, 529 tracks of live vintage country from Louisiana Hayride, Roland Kayn’s 14-hour electronic masterwork, and the most complete portrait yet of Hüsker Dü’s early years.
Posted inArts & Culture
Definition Theatre’s An Octoroon boldly subverts, in white-, red-, and blackface
Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins resurrects a wildly popular—and wildly racist—19th-century melodrama.
Posted inMusic
Music gifts you can actually wrap
Digital downloads haven’t yet driven box sets extinct—and this year the best include Paul Bowles’s Moroccan field recordings, vintage Ray Charles in mono, a 50-year NRBQ retrospective, and ten discs of foundational 40s bebop from Savoy Records.
Posted inBlogs
Mayor Rahm doles out some goodies to Hyde Park and Kenwood
With an eye toward winning south-side votes, Mayor Rahm agrees to move the Kenwood Academic Center into the closed Canter school building.
Posted inArts & Culture
Country music’s little white myth
The new book Hidden in the Mix details African-American contributions to country music.
Posted inBlogs
Madeleine Peyroux tiptoes around the legacy of Ray Charles
On her latest album, The Blue Room, Madeleine Peyroux pays homage to the country recordings of Ray Charles—sort of.
Posted inBlogs
Celebrating the good and bad of jazz producer Creed Taylor
A deluge of reissues of titles from Impulse and CTI Records celebrates the 50th and 40th anniversaries, respectively, of two iconic labels founded by jazz producer Creed Taylor.