Local Chicago Music
-
Fontella Bass: sassy soulful siren in the first degree.
Fontella Bass is an amazing lady. Not only is the trajectory of her career fascinating, but she’s arguably the archetype for what Aretha Franklin was to become: a sassy, soulful siren in the first degree. Ms. Bass comes from the St. Louis, and is a part of a group of St. Louis native vocalists that…
-
Dorothy Donegan: Chicago’s own Jazz Cover Girl
Darkjive focuses mainly on soul music born and bred here in Chicago during the golden era of Chicago Soul: the 1960s through the late 1970s. Anyone who knows me, however, knows I am passionate about a variety of music that has come out of our city: especially soul, blues, and jazz. That said, recently an…
-
Al-teen Records: Bill Meeks’ little ships of soul
Bill Meeks was, in the late sixties, a jingle writer here in Chicago who started a record label called Al-teen. The label was based at 82nd and Stony Island, and put out records by Sunday (Williams), Drake and the En-Solids, Earl Duff, The Supurbs (sic), and Johnny McCall. Many of the tunes were composed by…
-
Jo Armstead: a giant among men.
Jo Armstead is a Mississippi-bred firecracker vocalist who is also a dynamite songwriter (a field dominated by men). She told SoulMotion.co.uk: “By the time I was in my teens, I was sneaking out to cafes, juke joints, and dances on Saturday nights. Blues man Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland gave me my first opportunity to sing with…
-
Tom Tom 84 goes Hollywood.
Tom Tom Washington (pictured at left) is basically my hero. He’s also a very humble and cool individual to be around. As a Chicagoan and a music lover, his distinctive Horn and String Arrangements are like home to me. Tom Tom came up in Chicago’s Ida B. Wells Projects and studied music under the tutelage…
-
The Ones: SDYL
I catch Khari Lemuel (pictured below) and Yaw (top, right) all over the place (the Library, 75th street, Red Kiva), and recently, I heard them performing at the Brown Sugar Bakery to celebrate owner Stephanie Hart’s birthday. I dug them both separately, but as a duo (calling themselves “The Ones”), they are beyond belief. Both…
-
Betty Everett: there’ll come a time
It was last summer. I was privileged enough to hear the iconic (and prolific) arranger Tom Tom Washington play a few chords of the tune “There’ll Come a Time” on a piano stationed at a Recording Studio on 80th and Stony Island, where in the vacant lot next door they grew cabbage. It was electric,…
-
Ramsey Lewis and Earth, Wind, & Fire: sun goddess…an exercise of local royalty.
In 1974, Earth, Wind, & Fire was beginning its ascent to “Shining Star”-dom: “That’s The Way of the World” had not yet been released, but “Head to the Sky” and “Devotion” had already made them radio favorites. Maurice White, the lead vocalist on so many of EWF’s cuts (and a beastly drummer) returns the favor…
darkjive.com 