Welcome to BluesRow

We hit the heart of the urban blues in bitter cold weather, as the thermometer plunged to single digits F. A 45 minute cab ride to our downtown hotel, a speedy check-in, and we hit the streets at about 11pm. Led by our excellent tourguide and bluesguy extraordinaire, Jim Phipps (leader of Blue Light Special; check out their website here), we first hit Blue Chicago on the 700 block of Clark.

Big Time Sarah and the BTS Express were cranking the tunes and moving the air there. Sarah is a “mojo mama” in the time-honored tradition of Koko Taylor. She’s a big woman with a voice to match who held court from a stool in the middle of her band, belting out some low-down and dirty blues. In between songs she chatted with the audience, warned them to buy her CD or else, and got them down front shaking and baking.

The club itself is a long room with a bar in the center, brick walls festooned with blues art, photos of the blues greats, and the inevitable T-shirts for the tourists like me (and yes, I bought one). The crowd was mostly young to middle-aged white folks, bopping and grooving to the blues and having a great time. I sat in amazement, drinking it in. Here I was, in the city of the blues, in one of the famous clubs. And the music is obviously alive and well, though not at the peak of its success. And I thought, do these people have any idea how lucky they are, that they can go downtown on any weekend night, hit one of many blues clubs, and hear this stuff?

My own connection to the blues goes back to my teen years, when a whole bunch of us white suburban hippy types were first introduced to the blues by musicians like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Eric Clapton, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and all of those white blues guys who were taking the real blues and translating it to a new generation. They spoke our language, but we all knew that the real thing was the guys who had inspired our guitar heroes: Muddy, BB, Wolf, Albert Freddie, and the others. So we traded records of those guys too and tried to sound as soulful and tortured as our white suburban souls allowed. Although, to paraphrase Dave Barry, our biggest experience of the blues was getting a C- in PolySci…

Enough of the memory reverie. After an hour or so at Blue Chicago on the 700 block, we decided it was time to visit the other Blue Chicago, on the 500 block. That’s right, two great clubs within 2 blocks of each other, and you can visit both for the $8.00 cover charge of either one. We got our hands stamped, bundled up, and launched ourselves out the door and down the street. On a cold night like this, you learn to be grateful for the buildings that block that Chicago wind!

At the other Blue Chicago, we heard a set from Matthew Skollar and his band. Matthew is a harp player and vocalist who fronts a tight band of excellent, workmanlike musicians who all knew how to stay in the background and in the pocket. But they could definitely step out when called upon. Matthew’s harp style was tasty, a little jazzy, with searing licks and fills. The end of the set featured “Peaches” Stratton, a great female vocalist with some R&B-flavored stylings. She wrapped it up with an extended version of “Chain of Fools”. Great stuff.

Tonight we hope to visit Buddy Guy’s and then get back to Blue Chicago to interview Matthew Skollar. Hope you check back later for more!