Theresa Needham is 80 now. Her basement bar at 4801 S. Indiana Ave., Theresa`s Lounge, made Needham famous in the blues community, but it never made her rich and so she scrapes by on a Social Security check. She takes medication for high blood pressure, arthritis and gout.
What`s worse is that from time to time she is stricken by what might be called the homesick blues.
Home for 34 years was that sunken lounge of blues lore. And now that the 16-hour days filled with music, chatter, trouble and friendship have given way to a quieter existence, it takes some getting used to, even five years into retirement.
”I get awful lonesome sitting around the house doing nothing ” she says. ”I have a cat I play with.”
But at night, sometimes, Theresa`s opens for business again.
Needham`s thoughts drift back to 48th and Indiana, down four steps to the entrance. The rusted lock on the door slips open and the cobwebs on the windows fall away.
”Oh, I have a lot of memories,” she says. ”Some nights I don`t go to sleep thinking about it.”
The memories include Junior Wells on stage, playing harmonica, and behind the bar, playing bartender. A young Buddy Guy asking for a gig, getting turned down, then coming back a couple of months later itching to prove himself. (He did, and the next step was international stardom as a guitar great.)
She remembers Howlin` Wolf and Muddy Waters and Big Walter Horton, and lesser-known but beloved bluesmen such as Louis Myers and Sammy Lawhorn.
There are the regulars from the neighborhood and the outsiders from the North Side and as far away as Europe and Japan filling the place, blacks and whites crammed side by side and nary a hint of racial tension.
There`s a musician asking for a loan. He gets it. There`s a customer asking for trouble. Out from behind the apron comes Theresa`s blackjack. He just might get it, so he scurries out.
There are the nights, too tired to walk home, she would curl up in a booth after closing time to catch some sleep, only to be awakened at 8 a.m. by somebody pounding on the door, imploring her to serve a morning libation.
Time hasn`t cleaned up the memories of Theresa`s infamous malfunctioning bathroom or turned patrons into lovable characters from ”Cheers.”
But appreciation for Theresa`s rough-and-tumble, friendly-and-humble atmosphere only seems to grow. So does appreciation for Theresa herself.
Annually for the last five years, she has been feted at B.L.U.E.S., 2519 N. Halsted St., by owner Bill Gilmore. He first ventured into Theresa`s as a teenager and calls her ”one of Chicago`s blues pioneers” and her tavern
”the best known blues club in the world.”
This year, the ”Christmas for T” benefit and blues show netted her about $800.
But more than that, Needham is thrilled to be reminded that she is not the only one with vivid memories.
”If I wasn`t remembered by `em, I guess I`d just lay down and die,” she says.
Prodigal sons
The release on compact disc last year of ”Junior Wells on Tap” by Chicago`s Delmark Records, which remixed and reprogrammed that LP, gave listeners a peek inside Theresa`s.
The cover shot shows Wells behind the bar at T`s, as it was known, pouring a Schlitz. New liner notes pay homage to Theresa`s-”a surprisingly small tavern several steps below street level with no bandstand, no ticket window, unreliable plumbing, an assortment of beer and liquor signs for brands the house never (or no longer) carried, and Christmas lights all year round.” In the credits, Needham gets a special line, ”Spiritual Assistance:
Theresa Needham.”
The CD release has compelled reviewers in Living Blues magazine and the Chicago-based Magic Blues magazine to mention T`s with reverence.
”Theresa`s wasn`t just a corner bar that had live music,” wrote Lois Ulrey, in the fall issue of Magic Blues, reviewing ”Junior Wells on Tap.”
”Birthdays were celebrated there and sadly so were wakes. The regulars at T`s were a family, with Theresa the matriarch, and Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, the prodigal sons.”
”Everybody who`d ever been there really missed it,” says Jim O`Neal, founding editor of Living Blues magazine and owner of Rooster Blues Records in Mississippi. Like a lot of other white blues enthusiasts, he discovered Theresa`s in the `60s.
It had been around since 1949, but it was when Needham switched from juke music to the blues in 1953 that the place became a rocking, bluesy, soulful jam session that lasted three decades.
The club`s sudden demise came in 1983, when the landlord of the six-flat that housed T`s wouldn`t renew her lease. The basement is empty these days.
Needham quickly reopened at a new location on 43rd Street, where the club drained her savings but never caught on. Three years later, she was out of business.
”There`s still lots of little clubs like that, but there will never be another Theresa`s, I guess,” O`Neal says. ”In some ways, the era`s gone when you could go see the top names in these small black clubs.”
`Like being at home`
Ulrey recalled how Guy and Wells, upon returning from European tours, would head straight to Theresa`s from the airport.
”They had to touch base with the people who meant something to them,”
she says in an interview.
As much time as Wells spent at T`s, it`s not surprising he says, ”It was like being at home.”
If he was in a financial bind, he knew he could turn to Needham.
”She helped a lot of people when they needed favors,” Wells says. ”She was a friend and like a mother to a lot of younger dudes that came down there and tried to play and get a start.”
Theresa`s stories about the bar tend to revolve around her interaction with the patrons and musicians, rather than the music itself.
”I was nice to everybody that came in,” she says. ”If they were steady customers and they came in wanting to drink and didn`t have enough money, I would give `em a drink and pay for it out of my pocket.”
Sometimes, she says, she`d let customers stay overnight if they were stuck at the tavern without transportation home.
Ulrey tells a story that reflects the communal feeling at Theresa`s. One night in the early `70s, police came in and checked the IDs of the white patrons, looking for minors, Ulrey says.
The officers told Ulrey, who was in her 20s but didn`t carry an ID, that they were taking her to jail. First, Guy stepped in and said that if they took Ulrey they`d have to take him too. His bandmates made the same offer.
A blackjack and a revolver
Finally, Needham spoke up.
”Hell, if the whole damn band is going, I guess you`re going to have to take me too,” Ulrey recalls Needham telling police.
The officers left empty-handed. But after they were gone, Ulrey says, Needham gave her a forceful lecture about carrying an ID.
To deal with unruly customers, Guy says, Needham carried a blackjack and revolver hidden under her apron. Needham says she also kept a large stick behind the bar and hid .22-caliber revolver inside a hand puppet she kept in a drawer.
Usually the threat was good enough to send offenders running, but when she is asked if she ever employed her arsenal, Needham slowly nods and laughs. As matriarch, though, she generally could rely on stern warnings and respect.
”They listened to her like she was their mama,” Guy says. ”I never saw anybody go after her.”
And if a customer was kicked out one night, the next day he was likely to show up to apologize, Guy says.
Needham says the bar was ”kind of like a family house.”
Those family ties have endured.
Five years ago, Needham moved in with Lois Johnson, one of the regular customers at Theresa`s. Johnson, 46, watches over Needham and accompanies her on rare excursions to B.L.U.E.S. and other blues bars.
Needham`s new home is in a deteriorating South Side neighborhood, next to a littered lot and across the Dan Ryan Expressway from the Robert Taylor Homes.
”I don`t get out much anymore,” she says. ”Ain`t nothing out on the streets but a lot of trouble.”
AMetcalfe, is trying to convince her to do just that.
Metcalfe, 43, an entrepreneur who used to manage blues artists, has embryonic plans for a blues complex in Chicago that would include a new incarnation of Theresa`s, along with senior citizen housing for blues musicians.
The idea is in the ”preproposal” stage, he says, and financing is a big question mark.
”We`re going to pull you back into the business,” says Metcalfe, son of the late congressman.
Needham, seated next to him at Johnson`s house, shakes her head.
Theresa`s role at a new place would not require long hours, heavy lifting or concealing weapons. She`d be more of a hostess than a bouncer.
Maybe that explains her ambivalence. She`s had plenty of peace and quiet the last few years.
What she really misses about the blues bar business, she says, are
”kicking people out, fussing and arguing with `em.”
