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Looks like I'll be in town and able to attend at least a couple days worth of the Blues Festival. Any Chicago-area (or nearby) folks who might be interested? It's a free event, with some of the best blues you'll hear all year!
Can't get the link to work, but here's a little teaser:
quote:The 21st Annual Chicago Blues Festival “It’s About Time” The world’s largest free admission Blues festival turns twenty-one this year, and as with all 21 year olds, there’s much cause for celebration. The 21st Annual Chicago Blues Festival will take place in Grant Park, June 10-13, 2004.
The festival annually salutes the masters and this year will feature a guitar roundup of the greatest blues men, Robert Jr. Lockwood, David Honey Boy Edwards, and Homesick James at the U.S. Cellular Front Porch on Friday, June 11. These three men represent more than 270 years of blues tradition.
In the spirit of blues as a living tradition, the festival will be celebrating Lonnie Brooks’ 70th Birthday by featuring his sons, Ronnie Baker Brooks, Wayne Baker Brooks, the son of Clifton Chenier (Lonnie’s first professional boss)-C.J. Chenier, and Luther Guitar Jr. Johnson, a guitar player who borrowed his moniker many years ago.
This year’s theme, It’s About Time, celebrates Blues greats returning again to this year’s Chicago Blues Festival or who have been featured at the Chicago Blues Festival in years past, such as Otis Clay, Nora Jean Bruso, C.J. Chenier, and the Fat Possum Caravan.
The Chicago Blues Festival is open from 11a.m.-9:30 p.m. daily (music begins at noon), and promises a good time for everyone. The four-day festival offers the best in national, international and local Blues entertainment on six stages with more than 70 performers, preceded by a month of Blues activities (Blues season) throughout Chicago. The Chicago Blues Festival brings people of all ages, from all over the world to enjoy the blues. More than half a million people attend this popular festival!
Sorry you won't be able to get her for it but am looking forward to August.
I plan on enjoying plenty - trying to figure out how many days and which ones I can get away with.
The fact that I have most of the time of the festival open probably means the weather will be much like it is right now.
*no, I'm not paranoid. I just happen to know that the unseen forces often seem to work in harmony to screw my life up.*
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From the looks of it, all Grant Park Festivals are free. So this would apply to the Jazz Fest and the the Celtic Fest - but both of those are in September.
No worries - there are some folks I know around here I think will be going.
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Sorry, Stephen, but I'm just not up for concerts or mass crowds in my "current state" and my mom is getting her Associates Degree that weekend so if we go anywhere we have to go to that.
You'll have to give us a full report Have fun!
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That sounds wonderful, although I'm afraid now it might be better to wait until after the baby. We are free the weekend of the 5th but after that I'm not making any plans.
34 weeks now and the countdown begins!
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quote: Lonnie Brooks and his two guitar-playing sons seem to be the living embodiments of the adage "the family that plays together stays together." But the patriarch of the Chicago blues family knows even the proudest papa must push his youngsters out of the nest when they're ready.
For older son Ronnie Baker Brooks, the time came in late 1998. Ronnie had played rhythm guitar in the Lonnie Brooks Blues Band since 1986, but Dad feared he was holding his son back.
"I seen that the guy was taking care of me like I was a baby, rehearsing the band for me, and I seen he could do this on his own," Lonnie Brooks says of Ronnie. "He was worth more money than I could pay him. That's why I enticed him to go on his own. I said, 'You could go out and make leader's money rather than being a sideman.' Now he's got his own record company, and we cut a record together that's getting a lot of response. He's working way more than I'm working."
Ronnie was replaced in the band by brother Wayne Baker Brooks, who at age 34, is three years Ronnie's junior. And Lonnie realizes someday he's going to give Wayne the same push he gave Ronnie.
"He went and cut a record ['Mystery'] and gets gigs on his own," Lonnie said. "He's not with me all the time. I wish that I could keep my sons with me all the time, but I can't afford to pay them. I don't try to hold nobody back. They don't have to be my kid -- if they're good enough to go on their own, I tell them to do it."
Wayne's not looking forward to that day. Asked how he would react if Dad showed him the door, he laughed and replied, "I'd say, 'I'm not going nowhere, Daddy. I love playing with you too much.' I want to do my own thing and play with Dad until I die or, God forbid, till he passes."
And Lonnie Brooks is still at the top of his game. The former Lee Baker turned 70 last Dec. 18, and the Chicago Blues Festival will celebrate the milestone with a special show at 8 p.m. Friday at Petrillo Music Shell. Billed as "Lonnie Brooks' 70th Year Celebration With His Family Band," Lonnie and his band will be joined onstage by both sons, who'll play minisets of their own music. Also scheduled to appear are C.J. Chenier, the son of Lonnie's first boss, zydeco king Clifton Chenier, and Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson, who's not really related, but did take the moniker that Brooks used earlier in his career in Texas and Louisiana.
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Crap, I forgot to mention it to steve, and we are now inside of his 2 week warning time frame, for him to get used to the idea. I still may bounce it off of him but I'm not sure.
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Well, I got to go to two great half-days of the Blues Fest!
First day, Saturday, I made a big goof and left without hat or sunscreen. The hair on the top of my head is thin so that is burnt along with my face, arms, neck, etc.
(embarrassed ouchie)
No car that weekend, so I walked about 5 miles that day, back and forth from the train station and then up from Union Station to Grant Park and back.
Just so you know - I like doing things solo. I also enjoy doing things with other people. It's been awhile since I had a day to go enjoy all by myself and I took advantage.
Of all the acts I saw that day, the finest has to be the very first.
Johnnie Mae Dunson is a frail-looking woman who was helped up onto the stage and was accompanied by two younger guys - one on guitar and the other on harmonica. I was sitting third row in an audience of several hundred people.
This woman knocked the crowd's socks off! She didn't play an instrument, just sang. But what a voice! What songs! It was the first time in years I'd been in sitting in for a live performance and it really blew me away. Her songs, like so many blues standards, had to do with poverty, bad men, and hard living (kinda like country, but sounding much better).
I spent most of the day at that particular stage, which featured the smaller acts. I find I tend mostly to prefer the smaller acts rather than the big bands doing Robert Johnson stuff - I have old Clapton albums I can listen to for that.
Diane and I went down together the next day - not quite as good, but we caught a couple good performances.
But the best part is this - I get a chance to see a couple of the headliners I missed in my own town for free! (If the weather cooperates, that is)
Koko Taylor is performing a concert (a free one) in the park in my own town of Bensenville this Wednesday night!
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Have fun!
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(embarrassed ouchie)
