Chicago, Chicago!
I wrote this brief travelogue about the wonderful town that is Chicago back in May 1994. I have no recollection, though, who the client was.
All the places I relish visiting have unique atmospheres that affect me strongly. In Paris, for example, I never smoke my regular Camels: they don’t fit in with the ambience so I switch to Gitanes, which, although I think they taste foul in London, are the only smoke that seems appropriate when you’re sitting by the Seine with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon watching life amble by. Similarly, although I’m a devout bitter drinker at home, when I go to Dublin I forsake it for pints of the local Guiness. Drinking my regular tipple wouldn’t feel right; it would distance me from the city’s character.
In Chicago the Camels are okay but the drink has to be Michelob. This American beer, when compared to British ale, seems weak enough to be served to under-fives. However, it fits the atmosphere of my favourite haunts perfectly. The thing that tells me I’ve really arrived in Chicago is swigging that first “Mich” straight from the bottle after walking off the quiet of North Halstead Street into the noise, humidity and smoke of Kingston Mines. The taste of that pop and hearing the piercing wail of a Fender Stratocaster having its strings wrung into submission tell me I’m not daydreaming, I’m there. And I truly love being there because if you want to hear the blues the way it deserves to be heard there’s no better way than in the intimate surroundings of a Chicago blues club. You can keep the “is the band on stage yet?” remoteness of stadium gigs, blues needs to be right in your face, felt as well as heard.
I know it’s a cliche but while I find America a fascinating place to visit I’ve never really fancied living there. Perhaps I’m just a terrible snob but I find too much of real-life USA resembles Disneyland. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule and probably the biggest is Chicago. If I had to live in the States, I think I could handle life in The Windy City. Parked on the edge of Lake Michigan, the town has an unusually large helping of class, culture and sophistication. Shallow it is not, although people still ask you to Have A Nice Day far too often for my liking. And this, of course, ignores the obvious attraction for any contemporary music fan that there’s nowhere better to overdose on urban blues and funked up music.
Even if you’re not a blues freak it’s an exciting, eventful town, especially if you’re a keen Culture Vulture. While I was there a couple of years ago I managed to sample more varied intellectual delights in one day – and for a lot less money – than I would in a week holidaying in my home town, London. In the morning I toured a Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition which gave my imagination a real jolt. Lunch time was low-brow but extraordinarily palatable fast food at Johnny Rockets, followed by an afternoon visit to a Monet exhibition. The early evening continued in a high-brow vein listening to Klaus Tennstedt conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing Mahler. Chicago’s Orchestra Hall is a truly magnificent venue. And what a band! The CSO has the hottest, tightest horn section you’ll hear anywhere outside of Memphis. That was followed by a late dinner attacking the biggest and best ribs you’ll find in the city, at Miller’s Pub on Wabash. And yes, it’s almost like a real English pub, except you get better service and a more welcoming atmosphere if you’re not a regular. Suitably refuelled, a ten minute cab ride then took me to Kingston Mines, on North Halstead, THE blues club where you can swill beer and party on down in gloriously unhealthy, sweaty, smoky surroundings until close to breakfast time. That wasn’t, I thought, a bad day’s entertainment for around $120 (then £75). The best part of that day? Well. Frank Lloyd was fascinating, Monet was astounding, the CSO was inspiring – I stayed awake through far more movements than is healthy for someone weaned on three-minute r’n'b tunes – but Kingston Mines was where I grinned contentedly throughout until the cab took me back to my hotel.
Chicago has had a long association with the blues, the brief history of which runs something like this. Black musicians moving away from the cotton fields, prison farms, prejudice and oppression of the South in the years following World War I, gravitated towards the bright lights and freer attitudes of this big city and neighbouring Detroit – Memphis Slim is on record as saying that there were places in Mississippi where a black man couldn’t even safely read a copy of the “liberal” Chicago Defender newspaper. They took with them the acoustic based rural blues of the Mississippi Delta, which Chicago made harder edged and electrified. The effects of urbanisation were profound on the music and the players. Koko Taylor remembers first seeing the lights of Chicago as she rolled into town on a Greyhound bus from the country and thinking that she’d arrived in “the promised land.”
It became the home-base of many legendary players such as Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Little Walter. It was also home to Chess Records, based originally at the corner of 47th and Cotton Grove, one of the first white-run specialist labels to record black artists playing black music. The Rolling Stones, who readily acknowledge their debt to this music, went to Chicago to record at the Chess studio from which many of the records that had inspired them originated. Mick Jagger referred to that visit also as “paying homage to hallowed ground.”
Don’t let me give the impression that Chicago’s association with the blues is something that only has a purely historical perspective. Despite social changes the blues scene there is thriving and growing. The music you’ll hear stretches from rootsy twelve-bar stuff to fusions that mix jazz and funk into the brew. And following the tradition of the old juke joints in which blues was always played, it’s also formidably free of formality. If you want to hear the blues there’s no need to phone a ticket agency or dress up; you just hop into a cab in whatever you’re wearing, go to a club, pay your money and join the fun. If you’re not taken with whoever’s playing, find another cab and another club. Don’t go searching just for big-name artists. Catch the local boys and the minor league stars. I’ve enjoyed some astounding music played by guys of whom I’d never heard. A couple of years back I witnessed a set by a saxophonist turned guitarist called Maurice John Vaughn. We met at the bar, had a beer, swapped stories, he autographed a copy of a locally produced album he’d made, wished me well and walked back on stage to play another set. I thought that would be the last I’d hear of this strikingly talented, amiable blues man. A year later, however, an album bearing his name on the respected blues label Alligator, home of respected players such as Koko Taylor, Katie Webster, Elvin Bishop and Lonnie Brooks, arrived on my desk. I’m hoping now that a disc will arrive some day from another act I heard one night. Carlos Johnson’s Serious Blues Band were playing a set when they were joined by a guy who’d just walked in off the street to jam. Gavin Christopher strolled on stage and sang Come Together in the most un-Beatles like fashion. He shut down every conversation in the place with an ear-bursting rendition that left me shell-shocked.
I got around less on my most recent visit to the town when, after what I’ll euphemistically call a heavy business lunch, I inadvertently wiped out a plate glass hotel door with my forehead. Chicago ambulance drivers, I discovered, are extraordinarily obliging guys: an English pal who accompanied me to the hospital had never before sat up front in an ambulance so at his request we had the flashing lights and siren turned on and jumped a couple of red lights for in-flight entertainment. I even got stitched and bandaged for free: the hospital’s computer couldn’t handle my longer than fifteen digits home phone number, lack of zip code and the fact that Brits don’t have Social Security numbers. Another guest in my hotel also had to have hospital treatment but his “accident” could have been avoided: assuming that all Chicagoans were as friendly as those he’d met downtown he decided to stroll round the South Side at night. That’s the South Side as in Jim Croce’s Bad Bad Leroy Brown, and it genuinely is “the baddest part of town.” He escaped with a mild mugging in which he lost his cash, credit cards and one tooth. The moral of this story is that if you’re planning to venture off the beaten tourist track, check with a local or your hotel before you don your Armani and swagger into an unsavoury area. A mere two blocks can separate safety from a place it’s healthier to avoid.
It can be confusing, however, because several of the places you really have to visit can look somewhat dodgy to begin with. I’d always wanted to visit Buddy Guy’s Legends, a downtown blues joint owned by pal of Eric Clapton and guitar hero’s guitar hero, Buddy Guy. So on one occasion I find myself at a loose end and decide to hop a cab to see this place. On the way there I’m thinking, “now this chap’s internationally respected, a friend of the stars, he’s been playing for years, therefore his club is bound to be a palace. Will I need a handful of credit cards just to get through the door?” I was wrong. A few dollars took a very casually attired group of us into the inner sanctum of Legends. I checked out the decor – or what I could see of it given the appalling lighting – and thought “I’ve been in works’ canteens that were more welcoming and better decorated.” The music, however, made up the lack of charming atmosphere. An anonymous but talented four-piece on stage was whacking out funked-up blues with military precision and attack at the sort of volume levels that makes it necessary to hold your conversations in the Gents. And then you still need to shout. The audience – and the club wasn’t crowded because Mr Guy wasn’t spanking his plank that particular evening – sat, danced and milled around the Formica tables and canteen chairs, or propped themselves up at the bar drinking bottled beer. It didn’t have the warmth of Kingston Mines but we’d gone for the music not to increase our social circle.
My most regularly visited haunt will always be Kingston Mines where the motto is “drink booze, hear blues, talk loud – you’re among friends”. I’ve never witnessed a night when you could simply walk in, go straight to the bar and get a drink. The place is always packed even though there’s another blues club literally across the street from it. Things start getting lively in the late evening but everyone gets there early to avoid the late evening rush. The club isn’t that large but it’s arranged into two halls, each with a stage at the street end. One band plays a set on one stage, then the second outfit strikes up on the other. So it goes all night with the die-hard fans who want to catch every number charging from one room to the other. There’s one small doorway connecting the two rooms and somehow the table waitresses manage to get through the gap even when the crush of bodies ensures no one else can. That’s good because there’s only one bar and the place gets so damn hot you don’t want to be without a drink for more than ten minutes.
The atmosphere on a really good night is electric. On a not-so-good night it’s still a cool place to hang out. I’ve only once left before throwing-out time and that was when the club was having a talent night. One young hopeful had the most appalling voice but the crowd was still encouraging her and she was giving it her all. Fifty per cent was far too much for me and so I decamped to Excalibur, where they have two music rooms – either live bands or a disco – and a pool hall and games room in the basement.
Again, I’ve been to this club when it was holding a talent night and the acts made me near suicidal: somebody should erect a sign saying if you’re white, five-foot-two and spotty, now matter how many times you yell “Yo Bitch” nobody’s going to think you’re Richard Prior. At least the disco was an improvement – and I hate discos. Excalibur holds my personal record for the club that played New order’s Blue Monday at the highest possible level you can without causing people’s innards to jellify. Peter Hook’s bass line was making my chest pound while I stood at the bar in the next room buying a drink.
If you’re planning to go clubbing, particularly blues clubbing, stock up on T-shirts. As I’ve mentioned, it can get a tad warm in these places. Apart from which, Chicago is a convention town and if you turn up at Kingston Mines in a suit you’ll look like an out-of-towner not a cool blues aficionado. T-shirt emporia are plentiful but my personal favourite is Chicago Attitudes on South Michigan. It’s a small but exceptionally well-stocked shop located about five minute’s walk from the Hilton and Towers hotel. It carries a fine range of pop-culture related designs and when the music festival’s on you’ll find some especially tasty blues and jazz Ts. If you visit after a festival you can often pick them up at knock down prices.
Naturally, a city can’t have a blues heritage like Chicago’s without acknowledging it with an annual free festival. This year’s, the eleventh such event, runs from June 3rd to June 5th at Grant Park on the lake front. It promises to be a hot three days kicking off with “Sweet Home Chicago” at the Petrillo Music shell saluting local talent and seeing Eddie Shaw being recognised by the Blues Foundation with the presentation of the Howlin’ Wolf Award. Friday’s festivities also include a 70th birthday tribute to Jimmy Rogers with appearances by Snooky Pryor and Pinetop Perkins. Saturday at Petrillo begins with the Bessie Smith Centennial Celebration. The line-up here includes the Swamp Boogie Queen, Katie Webster. The following day sees the Black Top Records Blues-A-Rama show, which is worth visiting solely to see Robert Ward playing with Kaz Kazanoff and the Kamikaze horns, and Chicago’s Queen of The Blues, Koko Taylor.
The festival is a multi-stage event and there are alternative shows over the three-day run on the Front Porch and Crossroads stages. Here you can soak up more blues, r’n'b and gospel. At the time of writing all the acts hadn’t been finalised but luminaries such as The Holmes Brothers, Louisiana Red and Booker T. Laury were all signed up.
There’s no shortage of hotels within easy striking distance of the festival but my favourite is the Hyatt Regency on East Wacker Drive. Why? Well, apart from the luxurious accommodation it provides it has what I consider to be the finest hotel bar in town. Positioned in an atrium, overlooking the river, The Big Bar offers an unusual drinking experience. The bar staff often indulges in impromptu, unannounced bursts of standing on the bar and playing jazzy improvisations on various brass instruments – frequently while they’re in the middle of taking an order. After a couple of minutes of blowing Stormy Monday – very professionally – they’ll jump down and carry on pulling beers as though nothing had happened. The bar also serves excellent, properly ground, fresh, morning-after coffee and if you’re spending long days enjoying Chicago life to the full that coffee can be a real life-saver.
Chicago Nightlife
This is just my personal hit list of night spots that provide more fun than spending the evening watching dubious movies or CNN on your hotel TV set. For a comprehensive guide to what’s on in Chicago – everything from indoor golf and roller skating to comedy clubs and theatre – contact the Convention and Tourism Bureau.
Buddy Guy’s Legends
754 South Wabash Ave., 60606. Telephone (312) 427 0333
Blues and beer
Excalibur Entertainment Complex
632 North Dearborn Parkway, 60610. Telephone (312) 266 1944
Music, pool, games and beer
Kingston Mines
2548 North Halstead Street, 60614. Telephone (312) 477 4646
Blues, more blues and beer
Bub City
901 West Weed, 60622. Telephone (312) 266 1200
Great food, country music, dancing and beer
The Big Brasserie and Bar
Hyatt Regency Chicago
151 East Wacker Drive, 60601. Telephone (312) 565 1234
Wonderful choice of coffee, and beer
Chicago’s Free Summer Lakefront Festivals 1994
June 3-5 Blues Festival
June 11-12 Gospel Festival
July 2-10 Taste of Chicago (Food)
July 9-10 Country Music Festival
August 27-28 Air & Water Show (Water sports and flying)
September 2-4 Jazz Festival
September 10-11 “Viva! Chicago” Latin Music Festival
Useful phone numbers:
Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau Inc. (312) 567 8500
Mayor’s Office of Special Events (festivals etc) (312) 744 3315
Chicago Live Concert Hotline (contemporary music) (312) 976 5483
Jazz Hotline (312) 427 3300
Soul Hotline (312) 288 7685
Fine Arts Hotline (312) 346 3278
Dance Hotline (312) 419 8383
