Chicago Cultural History
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Tim & Tom: it wouldn’t be funny if it weren’t so true
As part of the Chicago Humanities Festival, this Saturday meet Tim & Tom… a “Salt & Pepper” comedy team born in the hotbed of sixties Chicago… Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen met for the first time in tumultuous 1968 Chicago. As the heady promise of the sixties sagged under the weight of widespread violence, rioting, and…
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Summertime and Billy Stewart: Fruitful and Fleeting
Summer has left our once-warm grasp. In memorium, Darkjive presents Chess Records’ Billy Stewart with a 1966 version of the classic song “Summertime” (from Porgy and Bess). I love how Billy Stewart’s scats interplay with insistent horns and halting guitar licks. The drummer on the cut is a very young Maurice White (of Earth, Wind, and Fire). Originally from…
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Baby Be Mine: Johnny Williams’ Record Row Gold
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…
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Messing With the Kid
After Eighty Years, Kiddieland of Melrose Park closes to the public this weekend. A rift between two branches of one extended family tore beyond repair, resulting in the closing (one branch owns the park, while one owns the land the park is built on [and didn’t extend the park’s lease]). Many of the rides were…
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Ronald Fair: Griot of Chicago Tales
1932— Ronald Fair is perhaps best known as a teller of crisp, satirical, and unsentimental Chicago Tales: inner city stories of struggle, morality, and overcoming (not unlike his own Chicago story). Born in Chicago on October 27, 1932, Fair attended public school. He was inspired as a young man by fellow Chicagoan Richard Wright to begin writing.…
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Tapes Lost to Time: Chicago Stories
I am bothered by tapes that disappear, the same tapes that record our collective story. The sort that get erroneously misplaced, taped over, or buried (true stories, all). It’s happened often in Chicago to bits of media that palpably documented Chicago Cultural History. It seems to have happened too many times for my taste. Here’s a…
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Operation Breadbasket, the seed of PUSH
I have dedicated a number of posts here at Darkjive to the PUSH Expo, a 1970s exercise in Black Economic Empowerment (or Black Power as it was then known). The PUSH Expo phenomenon was borne from the seed of Operation Breadbasket (a department of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference), but the roots…
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Hey, White Girl! Susan Gregory’s Chicago Story
The intersection of race and class. In Chicago. In the late 1960s. That’s the backdrop of a memoir (rather cheekily) titled “Hey, White Girl!” written by Susan Gregory (Norton, 1970). In the book, teenage Susan transfers from well-heeled, suburban New Trier High School to attend infamous-even-then Marshall High School on Chicago’s West Side for her senior year.…
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“We are a Fist”
Wednesday, August 19th from 7-8:30pm Ronnie Kitchen and Martin Reeves – both released from prison on July 7th after being incarcerated for twenty-one years for crimes they did not commit – will share their personal stories with the community at Imagine Englewood If (1854 W Garfield Blvd). This is a special Café Society event co-sponsored…
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Billy Butler: Brotherly Soul
From Jerry Butler’s little brother, Billy, it’s “I’ll Bet You”. Jerry Butler, of course, was a member of the Impressions (as well as one of the most successful solo acts in Chicago Soul history). Billy never quite made it out from the shadow of his superstar brother, but he made a few valiant efforts: among them, “Right Track”, and…
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