Exploring Chicago Blues: Inside the Scene, Past and Present

by Rosalind Cummings-Yeates

Overview

Blues history is steeped in Chicago's sidewalks; it floats out of its restaurants, airport lounges and department stores.

It is a fundamental part of the city's heritage that every resident should know and every visitor should be afraid to miss. Allow Rosalind Cummings-Yeates to take you inside the Checkerboard and Gerri's Palm Tavern, where folks like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon and Ma Rainey transformed Chicago into the blues mecca. Continue on to explore the contemporary blues scene and discover the best spots to hear the purest sounds of Sweet Home Chicago.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626193222
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	04/08/2014
Series:	Music
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Rosalind Cummings-Yeates is a journalist and arts critic with the same Chicago and Mississippi roots that helped create the Chicago blues. She has been an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago for over ten years, and she writes a monthly blues column for the Illinois Entertainer, Sweet Home. A three-time Grammy nominee and retired governor for the Chicago Grammy chapter, Billy Branch is a harmonica virtuoso and legendary Chicago blues musician. With a career that spans forty years, he has performed all over the world spreading the Chicago blues gospel.

Table of Contents

Foreword Billy Branch 11

Acknowledgements 15

Introduction 17

Part I Chicago Blues History

1 From Mississippi to the Windy City: The Great Migration and the Blues 21

2 The Black Belt of Bronzeville 27

3 Chicago Blues Papas 29

4 Chicago Blues Mamas 41

5 Chicago Blues Landmarks 53

Part II Chicago Blues Now

6 We Gonna Pitch a Wang Dang Doodle: Blues Clubs for a Real Blues Experience 65

7 Got My Mojo Workin': Who to See 77

8 A Spoonful: Soul Food Restaurants with a Blues Vibe 97

9 Blues with a Feeling: Suggested Listening 103

10 I Am the Blues: A Day in the Life of a Chicago Blues Musician 111

Bibliography 121

Index 123

About the Author 125