|
Chicago Blues Festival
The Chicago Blues Festival is an annual event held in June, that features three days of performances by top-tier blues musicians, both old favorites and the up-and-coming. It is hosted by the Chicago, Illinois, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (formerly the Mayor's Office of Special Events), and always occurs in early June. Until 2017, the event always took place at and around Petrillo Music Shell in Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park, adjacent to the Lake Michigan waterfront east of the Chicago Loop, Loop in Chicago, Illinois, Chicago. In 2017, the festival was moved to the nearby Millennium Park. History of the festival Chicago has a storied Blues#1950s, history with blues that goes back generations stemming from the Great Migration (African American), Great Migration from the Southern United States, South and particularly the Mississippi Delta region in pursuit of advancement and better career possibilities for musicians. Created by Commis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lois Weisberg
Lois Weisberg (May 6, 1925 – January 13, 2016) was the first Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for the City of Chicago, from 1989 until January 2011. She was profiled by writer Malcolm Gladwell in a 1999 ''New Yorker'' essay, "Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg"; Gladwell, who called Weisberg a "connector" and included the essay about her in his book ''The Tipping Point'', asked: "She's a grandmother, she lives in a big house in Chicago, and you've never heard of her. Does she run the world?" Weisberg was appointed by Mayor Harold Washington to head the city's Office of Event Planning (in the Department of Cultural Affairs) in 1983. She helped establish the Gallery 37 program, which gathered Chicago youths to a vacant block in downtown Chicago to make art; she also created the Chicago Blues Festival, the Chicago Gospel Festival, multiple citywide neighborhood festivals, and the Chicago Holiday Sharing It Program. She launched Chicago's Cows on Parade exhibit, the first in the US. Befor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Aces (blues Band)
The Aces was one of the earliest and most influential of the electric Chicago blues bands in the 1950s, led by the guitarist brothers Louis and Dave Myers, natives of Byhalia, Mississippi. Career The Myers brothers originally performed as the Little Boys. With the addition of harmonica player Junior Wells, they became the Three Deuces and then the Three Aces. With the enlistment of the drummer Fred Below in 1950, they became the Four Aces and finally the Aces. Influenced by jazz, their music led to the rise of the blues shuffle beat and helped launch the drums to a new prominence in blues bands. In 1952, Wells quit to join the Muddy Waters band, filling the vacancy created by the recent departure of Little Walter from that group. Walter quickly signed the remaining Aces as his new backing unit, renaming the trio the Jukes to capitalize on his current hit single, " Juke". A series of seminal recordings followed — "Mean Old World," "Sad Hours," "Off the Wall," and "Tell Me Mam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert King
Albert Nelson (April 25, 1923 – December 21, 1992), known by his stage name Albert King, was an American guitarist and singer who is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential blues guitarists of all time. He is perhaps best known for his popular and influential album ''Born Under a Bad Sign'' (1967) and its title track. He, B.B. King, and Freddie King, all unrelated, were known as the "Kings of the Blues". The left-handed King was known for his "deep, dramatic sound that was widely imitated by both blues and rock guitarists." He was once nicknamed "The Velvet Bulldozer" because of his smooth singing and large size–he stood taller than average, with sources reporting or , and weighed –and also because he drove a bulldozer in one of his day jobs early in his career. King was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2011, he was ranked number 13 on ''Rolling Stone''s 100 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago Reader
The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative weekly newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. It was founded by a group of friends from Carleton College. The ''Reader'' is recognized as a pioneer among alternative weeklies for both its creative nonfiction and its commercial scheme. Richard Karpel, then-executive director of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, wrote: e most significant historical event in the creation of the modern alt-weekly occurred in Chicago in 1971, when the ''Chicago Reader'' pioneered the practice of free circulation, a cornerstone of today's alternative papers. The ''Reader'' also developed a new kind of journalism, ignoring the news and focusing on everyday life and ordinary people. After being owned by same four founders since 1971, by the early 2000s profits and readership of the ''Reader'' were dropping, and o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Shore Drive
Lake Shore Drive (officially Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable Lake Shore Drive, and called DuSable Lake Shore Drive, The Outer Drive, The Drive, or LSD) is a multilevel expressway that runs alongside the shoreline of Lake Michigan, and adjacent to parkland and beaches, in Chicago. Except for the portion north of Foster Avenue (5200 North), Lake Shore Drive is designated as part of U.S. Highway 41. Previously, from the Chicago River south to 57th Street, it was named Leif Ericson Drive in 1927, for Norse explorer Leif Ericson. The roadway was also nicknamed Field Boulevard. The entire road was renamed Lake Shore Drive in 1946, and its scenic views of the waterfront, beaches, parks, towers and high-rises have become symbolic of Chicago. On June 25, 2021, the Chicago City Council approved a compromise ordinance renaming the outer portion of Lake Shore Drive for the city's first non-indigenous settler, Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable. __TOC__ History Early history Lake Shore Driv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz Blues
The 12-bar blues (or blues changes) is one of the most prominent chord progressions in popular music. The blues progression has a distinctive form in lyrics, phrase, chord structure, and duration. In its basic form, it is predominantly based on the I, IV, and V chords of a key. Mastery of the blues and rhythm changes are "critical elements for building a jazz repertoire". Background The blues originated from a combination of work songs, spirituals, and early southern country music. The music was passed down through oral tradition. It was first written down by W. C. Handy, an African American composer and band leader. Its popularity led to the creation of "race records" and the popularity of blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainy. The style of music heard on race records was later called "rhythm and blues" (R & B). As the music became more popular, more people wanted to perform it. General patterns that existed in the blues were formalized, one of these being the 12-bar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soul Music
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening, where U.S. record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa. It also had a resurgence with artists like Erykah Badu under the genre neo-soul. Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the lead vocalist and the chorus and an especially tense vocal sound. The style also occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls, and auxiliary sounds. Soul music reflects the African-American identity, and it stresses the importance of an African-Ameri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alex Dixon (blues)
Alex Dixon (born April 23, 1975) is an American blues musician, songwriter, producer, label owner and industry executive who is the grandson of Willie Dixon, one of the most important figures in the history of American music. Early life Born in Chicago, Alex was raised by his grandfather and grandmother Marie in the family's South Side home, which was the epicenter of the city's blues community from the 1950s through the early 1980s. Alex started playing piano at age six, taking lessons from several of the most important keyboard players of the era, including Leonard Caston, Willie's former partner in the Big Three Trio; Lafayette Leake, a longtime member of the Muddy Waters Band; Little Brother Montgomery, a self-taught innovator whose career began in the 1920s; and his uncle, Arthur "Butch" Dixon, who toured for years with Willie as a member of his Chicago Blues All-Stars. At age seven, Alex began performing with his grandfather at schools across the South Side of Chicago ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Bill Morganfield
William "Big Bill" Morganfield (born June 19, 1956) is an American blues singer and guitarist, who is the son of legendary McKinley Morganfield, also known as Muddy Waters. Biography Morganfield was born in Chicago, Illinois. He had little contact with his father. Instead he was raised in Southern Florida by his grandmother, and now lives in Atlanta, Georgia. As a child he listened to his father's records, but also to more popular fare such as The Jackson Five. He came to music later in life, having first worked as a teacher after earning a bachelor's degree in English from Tuskegee University and another in Communications from Auburn University. He did not begin playing music seriously until after his father's death in 1983, and then spent six years studying guitar. A well-received performance with Lonnie Mack at Atlanta's Center Stage convinced Morganfield that his career move was a good one, but dissatisfied with his craft, he returned to studying traditional blues forms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
