just back from a tour around USA.visited the famous Chess studios at 2120 south michigan ave.got a cab there but it was closed !!! took a few pics outside though at least we got there.did manage to see a show at Buddy Guys club though.

Nice, I'm going there in january. Is Chess Studio always closed or just when you were there.

I've been to some of these hallowed places, Every time was a grand deflato letdown. I know in my head that these places in the Deep South are just that: little backwood dives where magic was brewed without much fanfare.
Still I thought that the spirit of the juju would touch me. Nada! One time we were playing at the Royal Peacock. They still have all this old lush red velvet, and mirrors everywhere. I thought I would feel James Brown rise through the boards into me. But there was nobody home.

mmmm...

I know what you mean Chelsea. When I was 22 or so, a few friends of mine and I took a "blues tour" through the south and Chicago. We went to Memphis, Arkansas, Mississippi,New Orleans. Memphis was cool but Arkansas and Mississippi were a severe let down. You know, you expect something magical to happen or you expect to feel something, some sort of connection.

We all felt let down. I mean, the rural south is pretty, well,,, rural. Nothing there. At that time I was living in NYC. I grew up a city kid as well and never had seen anything like it. Just flat cotton fields and then it dawned on us....this is why these guys sang the blues. They sang the blues becuase the places they lived and how they lived and how they were treated pretty much sucked! We went to Helena Arkansas and while we heard some good music, we just didn't feel anything. We tried to imagine Sonny Boy Williamson playing on the street corners. We felt nothing. This was in the 80s. Hip Hop was being played more in the bars than the blues. There were more white blues bands vs. black and the black blues bands were playing strictly covers.

In Mississippi, you could feel something (real or imagined).
I don't know if many of you have ever been in New Orleans but if you head down the section of Bourbon Street hwere tourists aren;t allowed, you can feel something.

When we got to Chicago, it was different. Maybe because there was (is) still a big blues scene there. You could feel it. We went to a record release party for a guitarist from Alligator Records.. It was a like big block party.

But we went South becuase we wanted that Delta blues feel. It was born there and somehow it didn't seem to be there any more or we didn't feel it. The more I think about it and the more I listen to the lyrics of the blues songs, I'm kind of glad I didn't feel it!

Of course I'm a urban white Italian American male....what the hell do I know about living the Delta blues? Gimmie some Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra or Louis Prima. I can relate to that much easier

When I go to the South I am open to what will come my way. I always feel the sadness, the slow moving atmosphere of the South. I can almost hear the singing, the music, it's in the trees, the bushes, along a river, in the cotton fields. My advice, don't try so hard, just be open to it.


In Chicago, I always enjoy myself, every time I've been to Buddy Guy's Legends, he shows up, an ultra nice man. Everyone seems to have a great time at Buddy's, and the bands that play there are friendly. Once, I'd just missed Charlie and Ronnie one night, they had stopped by Legends, (the Stones were in Chicago, I think it was the No Security Tour).


I grew up on the Mississippi, up North, in a Blues area, East St. Louis, IL and St. Louis, MO, so we are steeped in the Blues and also the Jazz flavor. My Dad would come home and tell us who was playing around town that week, Ike and Tina, Chuck Berry, Johnnie Johnson. I still remember when there were small time gangsters around here, and old-fashioned Roadhouses, (bars/taverns). There were no babysitters and too many of us kids, so my parents would take us along to one of the family taverns. We listened to the music and danced, ate Old Vienna Cheetos, (the better ones, mmmmmmmmmmm) while the "big folk, drank and danced. Some people were at the bar all night long and watching the wrestling matches, from a small TV hanging in the corner of the room.

Lots of flavors, I still feel those times as I drive through a particular neigborhood.

"Fuc the Rock babe, I want the Roll." (KR)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-07-09 03:59 by LISMM63.