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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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45 or Die: Move. Groove. Jive on.
Catch Gaucho, Harlow, and myself spinning classics and rarities at 45 revolutions per minute. Thursday, October 8th at the Morseland, 1218 West Morse, Chicago. Starts at 9pm.
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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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And now, a word from Chicago’s own Lady Terror
Lady Terror (aka Tricia Hersey-Patrick) says she’s a menace on a mission. Terrorizing for a cause. Be it staging a soapbox rant in front of Rothschild’s Liquors (clamouring for more grocery stores) or engaging in impromptu yoga at a Harold’s Chicken Shack (calling for inner city yoga centers for the sake of public health), her…
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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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Tofu Chitlin Circuit Presents: A La Carte, Watermelon Edition (What’s the Funny)
This installment explores comedy through the lens of Stand-up comics & Improv/Sketch groups. Join Tofu Chitlin Circuit at their monthly forum discussion on performance arts issues and controversies. The Bronzeville-based Theatre Conservatory has put together a panel featuring Chicago Improv Festival producer Jonathan Pitts, comedian Meechie Hall, female Asian comic Leah Eva, ‘King of Bronzeville’ Brian Babylon, Cameron…
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Graffiti and Grub: Slaying Food Deserts, One Pear at a Time
Englewood and Washington Park get a Sustainable, Organic Grocery Store to call their own Tomorrow, August 28th, marks the highly anticipated grand opening of Graffiti and Grub, a market ten years in the making. Serving the underserved South Side communities of Englewood and Washington Park, Graffiti and Grub began simply: a husband and wife embarked…
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