For the second group of three news article annotations for my Ethnomusicology class project, I decided to write on the blues of Chicago, probably the most important single city in the history of blues music, since I had previously written about its southern counterpart, Memphis. However, I ended up with a series of articles that start in Chicago and move out to San Francisco before coming around full circle. I started my article search with the Chicago Tribune, Chicago's largest newspaper, and I ended it there as well because the Tribune had a good series of articles profiling important blues personalities, and I had plenty of articles from which to choose.
1. Bruce Iglauer
Alligator's Bruce Iglauer Among Chicagoans of the Year, Chicago Tribune, December 22, 2011
Alligator Records, the largest independent blues record label in existence, is on the short list of most important places in the blues world today. The label features many popular blues performers, and it has adapted over the years to maintain a vibrant face in the new age of internet and digital dominance.
Bruce Iglauer founded Alligator Records in 1971, when he wanted to record Hound Dog Taylor, an eccentric guitarist no one else had yet been willing to take a chance on. The initial recordings were a success, and over the last four decades Iglauer has built up a solid reputation based on both identifying new talent and giving well established performers a chance to do their own thing.
Unfortunately, the article is rather brief, but it at least paints a picture of Iglauer as a man solidly dedicated to his passion of recording and promoting the blues. As the article conveys, the blues is not a highly profitable business for most, but Iglauer and people like him keep the music going because the music is its own reward.
2. Steve Freund
Steve Freund Plays Chicago Blues in California, March 10, 2005
Steve Freund is not a widely known blues performer, but his story is a good one for tracing the lifelong development of a blues perfomer. Freund was born in Brooklyn, developed in the Chicago blues scene, and now at the age of sixty lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
Freund became irrevocably hooked on the blues in 1969, after seeing a Chicago blues review fronted by the influential Willie Dixon. In 1976, he put his years of practicing guitar to the test when he moved to Chicago and began sitting in with musicians in the cities many blues clubs. Freund further developed his skills, becoming a respected sideman and later branching out into leading his own band.
Freund now lives in Vallejo, near San Francisco. The Bay Area has a fairly active blues scene, of which Freund is an regular participant, but, showing the global nature of the blues, he also tours to blues festivals in Europe and around the U.S. Freund's story shows how today geographic barriers are much less important than they ever were before. For example, today Chicago Blues is as much a stylistic as a geographic term, and performers such a Freund in San Francisco, or the Mannish Boys in Los Angeles, can play Chicago style blues, despite living on the West Coast, which also gave rise its own distinct style of blues. The audience for blues is more evenly spread around the world than ever before, so blues performers have much more choice to live and travel wherever they think is best. However, like Freund, they will probably try to find a place that has a good balance of the things that are important to them. Freund enjoys how San Francisco's climate allows him to garden during the balmy winters, but he also appreciates how the city's blues fan base gives him the opportunity to hold down a regular weekly gig in the nearby suburb of Albany.
3. Joe Louis Walker
Joe Louis Walker, the blues and beyond, Chicago Tribune, June 7, 2012
Joe Louis Walker's story began in San Francisco, where he was born sixty-three years ago. Walker is among the more successful blues musicians of his generation. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame this year and has performed on several major late night talk shows to promote his recent albums. In this interview, Walker describes his development as a musician and how he sees his music.
Walker became involved with some major blues names from an early age. He became the house guitarist at one of San Francisco's main blues clubs when he was only sixteen, and he later roomed with Michael Bloomfield, the mercurial Paul Butterfield Blues Band guitarist who later performed on records with the likes of Bob Dylan and Al Kooper. During the 1970s, when the drug culture that would ultimately lead to the death of Bloomfield and other friends was very strong in the music world, Walker saw that he needed out, so he devoted himself to gospel for the next decade.
Since returning to the blues, Walker has made a point of incorporating multiple styles into his playing, including blues, rock, gospel, and R&B, in order to keep his music fresh and attract new audiences. His latest record, Hellfire, on Bruce Iglauer's Alligator Records, shows this mix of styles very well. Walker says that the blues is not an easy business, and to find the motivation to keep getting better and attract new audiences you must first play the music because you love the music and find it exciting for its own sake.
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