Search Results for: Brunswick Records

A mix of music featuring all local Chicago Soul from the Brunswick Label. The label was originally from New York; but moved most of its operations to 17th and Michigan on Chicago’s Record Row in the mid 1960s. From there, producer Carl Davis steered an all star cast of local talent, like Barbara Acklin (above). […]

Chicago saxophonist Eddie Harris is perhaps best remembered as an unabashed experimentalist, famously playing the Varitone electronic saxophone on albums like Plug Me In (1968). He also utilized an early tape looping mechanism (now so en vogue) on 1969’s Silver Cycles. So, Eddie Harris Sings The Blues (1972) stands less as an outlier than as a further testament to his legacy of sonic risk tasking.

Back in 1980, Chicago was still a national hub for music (like LA, Nashville, and New York are today). During that time, Producer/Promoter/Entrepreneur Eddie Thomas ran the influential Dogs of War DJ record association. Based out of Chicago, they were a record pool famous for breaking a number of seminal disco recordings. Essentially, a record pool […]

Tonight is a Chicago soul music blowout on the Reclaimed Soul Radio Show! Host Ayana Contreras will play cuts from the catalogue of Brunswick Records. The label moved to 17th and Michigan on Chicago’s Record Row in the mid 1960s, and producer Carl Davis steered an all star cast of local talent. We’ll hear music […]

First off, I LOVE this record.  A little back story: “Hey, It’s Over” by Windy City is a record that came out in 1974 on local Innovation II records, later issued on Warner Bros.  Produced by Willie “Mr. Brunswick”* Henderson and Arranged by James “The Soul Educator” Mack*, it has a great shuffly, brassy, breezy sound that fits […]

Join DJ Ayana and selected friends and celebrate the music that moves us! Brown Sugar Soul:  This Thursday 6:00pm-8:00pm Where: Brown Sugar Bakery Address: 328 E 75th St Chicago, IL   Map Cost: Free-Fifty Music spun on wax.  Real 45s cut to make you move. Soul & Funk classics and rarities… plus caramel cake!  You bring […]

Presented below is “I’ll Take you Just as You Come” by The Nialations released on Brunswick’s BRC label.  Though it was released in 1973, it’s drenched in a honey-sweet feminine doo-wop sensibility that’s as at home in East L.A. as it is on the South Side of Chicago.  The track is an Alonzo Tucker production, who was once a […]

Above, enjoy DuSable High School’s own Johnny Williams with Baby Be Mine, a classically Chicago-styled mid-tempo shuffler.  A delicious record, it was recorded at Brunswick Records here in Chicago (1449 South Michigan Avenue, to be exact) for their Subsidiary label, Bashie.  Get a whif of those cheering flutes on the tail end.  A beast.  Pictured […]

I wanted to share this record with you….because I love it.  From the 1971 (Chicago born-and-bred) album, “Love is a Merry-Go-Round”: it’s Ginji James with “Love Had Come to Stay”.  It’s sitting-in-the-park music from Brunswick Records (recorded on South Michigan Avenue in Chicago).  Sitting-in-the-Park music is that music you hear in your head when you’re […]

For those of you who feel as though Darkjive is a Chicago anomoly, here’s the Memphis Edition.  Whereas Chicago had Chess and Brunswick as Marquee Soul record labels in the mid-twentieth century, in Memphis, it was Stax and Hi (and their subsidiaries).  Whereas Chess at one time owned WVON, Stax owned WDIA.  I love the […]