Music
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More and More: Little Milton’s plea for more as the cost of living was skyrocketing.
Whew. That was a long blogpost title, huh? I know. But, let me explain: In late 1967, Chess Records’ Checker subsidiary released this record entitled “More and More” by Little Milton, where the chorus sings and growls: “More and More… all the time!” Ironically, the flip is a meandering soulful blues cut called “The Cost…
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The Listening Room: at Seattle Art Museum, the artists’ medium is wax.
Record Store — an installation presented by Seattle Art Museum in collaboration with [storefront] Olson Kundig Architects (MacDowell architect Tom Kundig’s firm) — on December 13th in Seattle attempted to remove the barrier between artist and audience, Record Store encourages the community to participate in the curation of this Olson Kundig Architects-designed traveling installation. Record…
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Mahogany (1975): Cult Movie of the Week
Sometimes a post idea for Darkjive happens organically: the intersection of various occurrences in my life make it clear that I MUST post about something in particular. In this case, “Mahogany” started out as a request from a reader who thought that, because it was primarily shot here in Chicago, the lack of a post…
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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…
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Record Store: where you can’t buy anything, but you can listen to everything.
I’ll be spinning for the opening of this… The record store is completely modular and made to encourage the kind of listening-based cultural interchange that makes record stores awesome. Over 4,000 records on loan from community members’ collections. None of them are for sale, but visitors can listen to them all: from “Belly Dancing Favorites”…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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