Tired of enduring the diatribes of the eternally disenfranchised Generation X? Let the 1995 Chicago Blues Festival introduce you to Generation MCMXV.
This weekend’s 12th annual blues extravaganza in Grant Park celebrates the massive contributions of blues greats–both alive and dead–who were born in 1915. An inordinate number of artists who shaped the idiom’s post-war development were sired 80 years ago, in what must have been a great cosmic coincidence.
“I’m into octogenarians as being a specific benchmark in
the chronology of history,” says Barry Dolins, festival coordinator and deputy director of the Mayor’s Office of Special Events. “It’s unbelievable that Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Memphis Slim, Johnny Shines, and Wynonie Harris were all born in 1915.”
Several still-active legends who let out their first melismatic wail that year will grace this edition of the fest. Chief among them is Brownie McGhee, who interrupts his retirement to participate in the event.
As has long been the custom, the free three-day festival spills across three stages near the intersection of Jackson Boulevard and Columbus Drive. The intimate Front Porch and somewhat larger Crossroads stages operate simultaneously during the afternoon; the Petrillo Music Shell is the place to congregate in the early evening.
Running down the weekend’s highlights:
Friday
After opening with Othar Turner and his Rising Star Fife and Drum Band (they start off the festivities all three days) at noon, two members of that “Class of 1915” will be working the Front Porch. Echoes of mysterious Delta pioneer Robert Johnson may haunt the stage, since both slide guitarist David “Honeyboy” Edwards and fret master Robert Jr. Lockwood rambled with the late legend.
Plenty of appreciably younger notables are also slated to play the Porch Friday afternoon. Feisty harpist Junior Wells, bassist David Myers, and effervescent pianist Detroit Junior all make welcome appearances. So will Keb’ Mo’, a promising Los Angeles-based guitarist who combines a strong country blues influence with contemporary shadings on his recent debut album for the Okeh label.
Another long-standing tradition is being upheld: The first evening of entertainment at the Petrillo Music Shell is devoted to talent with Chicago connections, although only one of the four artists now lives in the Windy City.
Opening Friday evening’s program (dedicated to the late Chicago blues king Muddy Waters) at 6 p.m. is Lockwood, whose dazzling guitar dexterity shows no hint of deterioration. The longtime Cleveland resident gleaned a great deal from Johnson but took it further, mixing swinging jazz progressions into his stylish technique.
The resume of belated Chicago blues recruit Floyd McDaniel, another 1915-born artist, is daunting. The guitarist inhabited the 1930s New York jazz scene before cutting R&B hits during the early ’50s with the Four Blazes and then serving a lengthy stint with a latter-day incarnation of the Ink Spots. The horn-fueled Blues Swingers, who backed McDaniel on his revelatory 1994 Delmark debut album and will back him this evening, have a firm grasp on the vintage jump blues genre.
Once a familiar staple on the Chicago circuit, guitarist Fenton Robinson now lives Downstate. His sublime vocals and jazz-inflected guitar are the virtual antithesis of the customary raw Chicago blues sound. But don’t let that put you off: His “Somebody Loan Me a Dime” is a modern blues classic, and his fretwork remains uncommonly fertile.
Friday night headliner Bobby Rush spent his formative years soaking up the Chicago blues sound and making obscure 45s for a variety of record companies. Blues fans savor the singer’s funky 1971 hit “Chicken Heads,” but he’s fashioned a ribald niche for himself as a strutting purveyor of salacious R&B. What otherwise promises to be a mellow evening abruptly shifts gears here.
Saturday
Beginning at 11 a.m., the Front Porch hosts a 25th anniversary celebration for Living Blues magazine. The publication started out as a labor of love by a handful of Chicago aficionados and is now published bi-monthly in glossy color at the University of Mississippi. Former Living Blues editor Jim O’Neal will be on hand.
Fat Possum Records is another Mississippi blues institution, albeit a recent one. The Capricorn-distributed label, dedicated to recording raw Delta blues, brings its Mississippi Juke Joint Caravan to the Front Porch (starring hypnotic guitarists Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside). The Delta motif continues when guitarists Big Jack Johnson and Lonnie Pitchford go acoustic as the New Africa String Band.
Over at the Crossroads, talented Texas guitarist Sherman Robertson, who put in time with various zydeco aggregations before reverting to his blues roots with a slick 1994 album on Atlantic’s Code Blue subsidiary, precedes the 3:45 p.m. arrival of Bay Area stalwart Johnny Heartsman. The shaven-headed Heartsman is a true triple threat–he plays exceptionally classy guitar, sturdy keyboards, and a most unlikely third ax: the flute.
Willie Dixon’s memory is honored on the main stage, which opens at 5 p.m. with another all-Windy City lineup. Ruby Andrews is best known as a seductive soul singer whose 1967 hit “Casanova (Your Playing Days Are Over)” was a Top 10 R&B seller. Lately, she’s drifted into bluesier terrain.
Since returning recently from an extended European residence, Eddie C. Campbell has reasserted himself as one of the city’s toughest West Side-styled guitarists, with last year’s solid album for Blind Pig, “That’s When I Know,” to his credit.
Luther Allison still lives the life of an expatriate, maintaining a home base in France. But his blistering guitar style, also hailing straight from the West Side, has seldom sounded more inspired. “Soul Fixin’ Man,” his 1994 Alligator album, ranks as one of his best. While Allison won’t be able to indulge his penchant for three-hour sets, expect lots of histrionics.
1994 was a year filled with highs and lows for Otis Rush. His stunning album for Mercury/This Way Up, “Ain’t Enough Comin’ In,” poised the southpaw string-bender for the type of career surge that he’s deserved for decades. As has often been the case for Rush, things didn’t work out that way. But he’s back in top form, so expect the hair on the back of your neck to stand if Rush launches into his haunting minor-key classic “Double Trouble” during his headlining set.
Sunday
The main event at the Front Porch this day is surely the 1:45 p.m. appearance of blues immortal Brownie McGhee.
The Tennessee-born guitarist began recording in 1940, later moving to New York where he and his late partner, harpist Sonny Terry, recorded prolifically throughout the ’40s and ’50s. The venerable acoustic duo was later embraced by the folk-blues crowd. Guitarist Jerry Ricks will accompany McGhee.
The Porch closes in a most appropriate way: a memorial piano set dedicated to the late Chicago piano patriarch Sunnyland Slim, whose 88s artistry graced so many previous fests. Leading the tribute, scheduled to become an annual tradition, is grand old ivories ace Jimmy Walker, who was born 10 years earlier than the “Class of 1915.”
Sunday’s 3:30 p.m. headliner at the Crossroads is former Chicago soul singer Garland Green, who scored a massive R&B smash in 1969 with his pleading ballad “Jealous Kind of Fellow.”
The final evening of this year’s Chicago Blues Festival (dedicated to the late piano powerhouse Memphis Slim) is its most varied. Brownie McGhee (with special guests) returns to open the main stage at 5 p.m. before one of our city’s most reliable quartets, the gloriously rough-hewn Magic Slim & the Teardrops, mounts the proscenium.
It’s hard to predict the outcome when Madison, Wis.-raised singer Tracy Nelson (formerly of the ’60s San Francisco blues-rock group Mother Earth) unleashes her pipes in the company of versatile vocalist Maria Muldaur (whose last two Black Top discs found her exploring New Orleans traditions). Add the presence of keyboardist Al Kooper and this summit meeting could progress in any number of directions.
Chicago’s public radio outlet, WBEZ-FM 91.5, broadcasts live from the main stage all three nights. Although the station has aired the blues festival since its inception (feeding it across the country via satellite), funding was lacking to broadcast this year’s edition until Alligator Records stepped in to provide corporate sponsorship.
