Tributes and services befitting a blues legend will be held Tuesday and Wednesday for the late Willie Dixon.
The body of Mr. Dixon, who died Thursday at age 76 in a Burbank, Calif., hospital, will be returned to the South Side neighborhood where his career as a blues musician began in the 1930s and flourished for 40 years. Visitation will be held from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday in Metropolitan Funeral Home, 4445 S. King Drive. A concert performance, ”He is the Blues,” by local and national blues artists will follow at the funeral home.
A horse-drawn carriage bearing Mr. Dixon`s casket will leave the funeral home at 10 a.m. Wednesday, leading a procession that will include blues musicians and 30 children from the city`s Blues in the Schools instruction program with which Mr. Dixon was heavily involved.
The procession will stop at the Checkerboard Lounge blues club, 423 E. 43rd St., where blues artists will perform, and also will stop briefly at the site of the Old Regal Theatre on 47th Street, once a mecca of black musical artistry, before reaching Liberty Baptist Church, 4849 S. King Drive, where services will be held at 1 p.m.
Mr. Dixon will be buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, 4400 W. 127th St., Alsip.
