We are so excited to announce a bunch of very special upcoming Delmark blues shows in the very near future! Check them out!
Tuesday November 1st
Dave Specter Band with Brother John Kattke @ Fitzgerald’s, Berwyn, IL
FITZGERALDS PRESENTS:
WDCB Bluesday Tuesday w/ Host Tom Marker: THE DAVE SPECTER BAND w/ BROTHER JOHN KATTKE
FITZGERALDS NIGHTCLUB
Tue Nov 1 7:00 pm CDT(Doors: 6:00 pm )
$10.00BOOK NOW
WDCB Bluesday Tuesday w/ Host TOM MARKER presents:
DAVE SPECTER BAND ft BROTHER JOHN KATTKE
$10 in Advance // $15 Day of Show
Dave Specter has earned an international reputation as one of the premier talents on the Chicago music scene. Since 1985 Specter has performed regularly at top Chicago blues and jazz clubs in addition to festivals and concert halls throughout the USA. Since 1989 Dave has toured internationally with performances in Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Spain, England, Northern Ireland, Denmark, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, Luxembourg, Mexico and Canada.
Enjoy $5 Revolution Brewery Pints!
Friday November 4th
Dave Weld & The Imperial Flames
Epiphany Center for the Arts
Come join us for a full night of blues at the Epiphany Center For Art! Live recording of the night, come be a part of the recording! Yes we will be presenting house rockin blues, new, old and traditional.
Epiphany Center for the Arts provides a unique destination for unforgettable private and public events. Featuring an exciting array of Visual, Performing and Culinary Arts in three distinct venues… For the Good of Art, Entertainment and Events!
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Friday November 4th
Demetria Taylor Band :: ‘Doin’ What I’m Supposed To Do’ – New Delmark CD Release Party at Rosa’s Lounge!
https://rosaslounge.com/shows/186334
Demetria Taylor is ‘Doin’ What I’m Supposed to Do’ on new album
Demetria Taylor was born to sing the blues as she is the daughter of the legendary Chicago blues guitarist Eddie Taylor! The songs on Doin’ What I’m Supposed To Do are a balance of traditional blues and modern R&B, with some written by her family, some by fellow musicians Mike Wheeler and Larry Williams, one by the venerable Magic Sam, and two by Demetria herself.
This second Delmark record is a strong follow up to her Delmark debut, Bad Girl, which was nominated as best new artist debut in the 2012 Blues Music Awards. This much-anticipated new recording features the superior support from label mates Mike Wheeler Band and guitar star Carlos Showers, who often back her at her frequent gigs.
Very special guests include the legendary vocalist Deitra Farr on “Blues Early This Morning”, written by Demetria’s mom Vera Taylor; and guitarist Billy Flynn, who supplies his amazing guitar work on the aforementioned track, in addition to her dad, Eddie Taylor’s “83 Highway.”
Taylor is proud to be the new recipient of the KoKo Taylor “Queen of the Blues” Award in 2022 given by the Jus’ Blues Foundation.
As Demetria says, and we believe her: “It’s my time”.
Saturday November 5th
TAIL DRAGGER – JOURNEY OF A BLUES MAN – Movie screening at Oak Park
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2022 AT 12 PM CDT
Tail Dragger movie premiere with cast & filmmakers Q&A @ Classic Cinemas, Oak Park, IL
Life and times of legendary Chicago based Grammy nominated Bluesman Tail Dragger with over 60 years of national and international performances who actually lived the Blues! Q&A after the screening with John McNaughton, Kevin Mukherji and Tail Dragger.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1181840629032917/?active_tab=discussion
Saturday November 5th –
Bob Stroger, Billy Flynn, Kenny Smith @ Rosa’s Lounge, Chicago, IL
https://rosaslounge-com.seatengine.com/shows/191669
Bob Stroger – Billy Flynn – Kenny Smith – ‘One Take’ Willie
At 90 years old, Chicago blues electric bassist and singer/songwriter Bob Stroger still loves his job and is ready for more, even decades into his career. After moving from small-town Missouri to Chicago as a teen and seeing Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf tear up Silvio’s club, he knew he was one day going to become a bluesman, too. While sometimes he got paid and sometimes he got stiffed for gigs, Stroger knew he’d finally made it when fellow blues artist Eddie King got him a show to play for $15.
Chicago blues bassist Bob Stroger, now 91, shows no signs of slowing down as he releases new album
By Steve Knopper Chicago Tribune
Junior Parker, the Memphis bluesman famous for ‘50s and ‘60s hits like “Mystery Train” and “Feelin’ Good,” needed someone to talk to when he was on the road. So he ratchet-jawed with Bob Stroger via CB radio en route from Chicago to St. Louis. “When he moved to Chicago before he passed, he’d be on his way back down South, and we had some powerful two-way radios,” recalls Stroger, the 91-year-old blues bassist. “Something to do. I always liked gadgets.”
Stroger’s new album, “That’s My Name,” is a travelogue of blues history, with detours through old friends and collaborators, like singer and bandleader Parker, who moved to Chicago in 1968, three years before he died. And Eddie Taylor, a guitar-playing friend and local blues fixture who died in 1985. The first track is a cover of Parker’s “What Goes On In the Dark”; the second is Taylor’s “Just a Bad Boy.” “I just wanted both guys to be part of my CD,” Stroger says, in a phone interview from his Chicago home. “When I sang their tunes, I can feel them, you know?”
“That’s My Name,” recorded with Stroger’s longtime touring band, the Headcutters of Brazil, includes five of the veteran bassist’s original songs, including the title track, “I’m a Busy Man” and “Come On Home,” plus tracks by blues masters like Big Bill Broonzy and Ma Rainey. “Some tunes on it are my tunes — something about my life,” Stroger says.
Stroger’s life story, like much of the blues, corresponds to the Great Migration. He was born in Hayti, Missouri, and his father was a sharecropper who moonlighted as a guitarist. Bob left Missouri for Chicago for the first time in 1947, when his father had a job on the Wabash Railroad; he returned to Chicago permanently in his early 20s, living with his older brother, John. “When I was down South, I didn’t see nothing but multiple cotton fields,” Stroger says. “When I first came here, we moved to the West Side. I used to get on the streetcars and ride from one end to the other. Every place I looked up was tall buildings. I had moved to another world.”
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The Strogers lived so close to Silvio’s, at Lake Street and Oakley Boulevard, that Bob could look through their back door and see into the blues club’s window, as he told Big City Rhythm & Blues last year. Through a family connection, he soon wound up as a driver for singer-guitarist J.B. Hutto’s band, the Twisters, then picked up the guitar himself. “I tried to go and play a little jazz, and I almost starved to death doing that,” he says of the late ‘50s, when blues was overtaking jazz as a phenomenon in local clubs. “I got back into R&B and I was playing Motown stuff.”
Eventually, Stroger switched to bass to accommodate another guitar player, and rising West Side star Otis Rush happened to need a bass player shortly after that. The Chicago blues names for which Stroger provided pristine, jazzy basslines over nearly seven decades included pianist Sunnyland Slim, guitarist Eddie King, harpist Carey Bell and pianist Pinetop Perkins, an especially close friend.
“Sunnyland Slim was really my mentor. He’d say, ‘Be on time and look decent, because your dress code is 50% of your job,’” says Stroger, known for his immaculate stage outfits; a round cowboy hat; and combinations of coats, vests and ties. “Otis let the bass and drums call the shots in the band. He gave me my first job going to Europe. Lots of guys took me by the hand and pulled me along.”
He encountered the Headcutters after touring Brazil with bluesmen Willie “Big Eyes” Smith and guitarist Bob Margolin for the first time about 12 years ago. Since then, he has played the country’s Mississippi Delta Blues and Heritage Festival annually. “The Headcutters are just like my kids. We’re almost like a family,” Stroger says. “They took me on and call me their godfather.”
Stroger had no intention of slowing down on gigs, even in his late 80s, until the pandemic in March 2020. Stroger had been performing in Switzerland and found himself stuck there for three months, staying with a friend. Upon returning home, living alone in Chicago, he was careful about quarantining. “It was really hard on me. I’m so used to singing with people, taking pictures, and now you don’t want to do anything wrong,” he says. “I’ve never been through nothing like this.”
Stroger, who is fully vaccinated and has returned to the stage in recent months, planning tour dates in Switzerland and elsewhere, spent much of the pandemic giving lessons through the Pinetop Perkins Foundation. He was reluctant, at first, but came around to passing along his experience of nearly 70 years of carrying his bass through airports — as well as playing, of course. “I don’t read music. It’s not in my repertoire to teach. I don’t think I’m a good teacher,” he says. “But I just pass along some of the things I know. Anything I can do to bring the next generation along, I’m willing to step up and do it.
Thursday November 17th
Johnny Burgin BLUES REVUE featuring Ben Levin, Joel Astley and Marie Martens @ Skokie Theatre, Skokie, IL
Johnny Burgin BLUES REVUE featuring Ben Levin, Joel Astley and Marie Martens @ Skokie Theatre, Skokie, IL
Skokie Theatre – Performing Arts Center
7924 Lincoln Ave, Skokie, IL 60077
Nov. 17th, 2022
7:30 PM
The Skokie Theatre TIME: 7:30pm. AGE RESTRICTIONS: All Ages. ADDRESS: 7924 Lincoln Ave. Skokie, IL Admission $25 Door at 7, Show at 7:30 Sponsored by Chicago Blues Network. With Support by Delmark Records.
Johnny Burgin grew up in the South and went to University of Chicago with the intention of becoming a writer. When a fellow DJ at the college radio station took him out to a West Side ghetto club to hear the blues singer Tail Dragger, it was a conversion moment. The blues came to life for Johnny and he fell headfirst into the vibrant Chicago blues scene. Choosing the blues clubs over the library, Johnny eagerly absorbed the lessons from the blues masters who practiced their craft nightly. By persistence and practice, Johnny gained a spot in Tail Dragger’s band, and started gigging and recording with traditional blues veterans like Sam Lay, Billy Boy Arnold, and Pinetop Perkins. By the late 90s, Johnny was working regularly in Chicagoland blues clubs under his own name. Johnny started a Monday night residency at The Smoke Daddy in Wicker Park, featuring vocalist Jimmy Burns. The band featured other future blues notables who were also at beginning of their careers, such as Kenny Smith on drums and Martin Lang on harp, and they created quite a buzz. They packed the club every Monday with a younger, hip crowd, as well as blues veterans stopping by to sit in such as Dave Meyers, Jesse Fortune, Barkin’ Bill, etc. Their success led to a record deal with Delmark and the first of several European tours.
Johnny Burgin has produced ten CDs as a leader to his credit and dozens more as a sideman, from veterans like Johnny Sansone, Paul DeLay, Bob Corritore to up and comers like Aki Kumar and Ben Levin. Johnny’s developed from a young guitar slinger and local blues hero to a matured bluesman, fully fledged singer and the confident and engaging bandleader. In recent years, he has been teaching Chicago Blues Network and has developed a loyal following on Youtube for his weekly looks at the blues guitar greats. Johnny’s recordings have evolved from being very Chicago-centric, to a fusion of West Coast and Chicago styles, and finally, to a more inclusive, international approach. His latest CD, No Border Blues Japan, is the first American compilation of the underground Japanese blues scene. The success of this collaboration led Johnny and his partner, producer Stephanie Tice, to create and host the podcast No Border Blues, which focuses on the international blues scene.
Johnny Burgin performs over 200 shows a year in Europe, Japan and coast to coast in the US. Johnny grew up in Mississippi and went to University of Chicago at 18, but ended up attending “blues university”. Johnny met a DJ on the college radio station who took him to see the Howlin’ Wolf style singer Tail Dragger on the West Side of Chicago. Tail Dragger took Johnny under his wing and gave him his first professional gigs, and from there Johnny learned quickly and went on to tour or gig with blues legends such as Pinetop Perkins, Sam Lay and Billy Boy Arnold. He’s been praised by the Cascade Blues Association for his “stunning guitar playing– the pure Chicago styled sound”.
Johnny’s played on dozens of records as a sideman and as a leader, he’s released ten CDs on Delmark and Vizztone records. His most recent efforts are Johnny Burgin Live, which features special guests Charlie Musselwhite, Nancy Wright and Rae Gordon and debuted at #3 on the Living Blues Blues Radio Chart. No Border Blues: Japan came from Johnny’s many tours and long relationships in Japan and is the first American compilation of the underground Japanese blues scene. Vintage Guitar stated: “Stellar fretwork, gloriously loose, earthy and immediate Chicago blues”. He was nominated for a BMA for Best Traditional Blues CD of 2017 for Howlin’ at Greaseland, a Howlin’ Wolf tribute, and by Blast Blast for Best Live Release in 2020.
Featured guitarist/vocalist Marie Martens grew up in Sweden and is now based in Wisconsin. Audiences love her raucous slide guitar and soulful vocals, she released her debut CD “Travelled” in 2019.
“Stellar Guitar Playing”: Vintage Guitar
Website: www.johnnyburgin.com
Facebook Fan Page : Johnny Burgin Live
YouTube: JohnnyBurginBlues YouTube Channel
Saturday December 3rd
DAVE SPECTER Band with Brother John Kattke at Evanston S.P.A.C.E.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dave-specter-band-with-brother-john-kattke-tickets-436163555937#tickets
Dave Specter has earned an international reputation as one of the premier talents on the Chicago music scene. Since 1985 Specter has performed regularly at top venues and festivals throughout the USA and toured internationally in 19 countries. Brother John Kattke, who’s performed and toured with the bands of Buddy Guy, Otis Rush and Koko Taylor, is one of the MVPs on today’s Chicago blues scene. A triple threat musician on vocals, keyboards and guitar, John leads the house band at Buddy Guy’s Legends and has performed on The Tonight Show and has toured internationally with a wide variety of stellar artists.
Before forming his own band in 1989, Specter toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe behind such blues greats as Son Seals, The Legendary Blues Band, Hubert Sumlin, Sam Lay and Steve Freund. Specter has also performed and/or recorded with such artists as Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Otis Rush, Jimmy Rogers, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Jimmy Johnson, Jack McDuff, Johnny Adams, Snooky Pryor, Kim Wilson, Tad Robinson, John Primer, Johnny Littlejohn, B.B. Odom, Mighty Joe Young, Magic Slim, Lonnie Brooks, Ronnie Earl, Otis Clay, Floyd McDaniel, Pinetop Perkins and Jorma Kaukonen.
Dave appears on over 50 albums and DVDs as a guitarist, bandleader and/or producer, with 12 albums as a leader or co-leader on Delmark Records. His new double album celebrating Dave’s 30 years on Delmark Records was released in October, 2021. Specter appears on compilation albums with artists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, T-Bone Walker, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana and Mike Bloomfield. Dave was inducted into The Chicago Blues Hall of Fame in 2018.
Recently featured in Rolling Stone, Dave’s handwritten song lyrics are on display at The Woody Guthrie Center’s Songs of Conscience, Sounds of Freedom exhibit in Tulsa alongside Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics.
“One of the few top-tier guitarists” – Downbeat
“Dave Specter is a global ambassador of Chicago Blues” – Chicago Sun-Times
Friday December 23rd
MUD MORGANFIELD CD Release and Holiday party! @ The Venue, Aurora, IL
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mud-morganfield-tickets-419804666057?aff=odwdwdspacecraft
The Venue is pleased to present MUD MORGANFIELD, Friday, December 23 at 8pm. Doors open 7pm.
Advance Admission – Premium Seating – $25
Advance General Admission – $20
+ $5 at the Door
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Muddy Waters or Mud Morganfield? It’s almost impossible to tell. Of course, nothing would please Mud more than hearing people say he sounds just like his late father “Muddy Waters” on the track “Loco Motor” from his new album Son Of The Seventh Son.
Naturally, Mud, the eldest son of legendary bluesman “Muddy Waters”, was drawn to music at an early age. He learned to make the best of his famous father’s hectic touring schedule, seeing Muddy only during brief respites at home in Chicago. Ever the devoted father, Muddy bought his son a drum set every Christmas, which Mud learned to play at age seven. Later, he switched to bass guitar while delving into songwriting.
Mud entertained the idea of becoming a professional musician after Muddy’s death in 1983. Blues fans were introduced to Mud at a tribute concert to his father in 2007, but his performance at the Chicago Blues Festival that same year brought him instant recognition.
Mud composed most of the songs on his award-winning album Son Of The Seventh Son, including “Blues In My Shoes.” He also performs the Muddy Waters tune, “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had.” According to producer and harmonica player Bob Corritore, the CD “brings you the great Mud Morganfield in all his glory.” It was recorded in Chicago and features some of the city’s top Blues musicians.
In 2014, Mud’s album, For Pops, recorded in tribute to his late father, together with fabulous Thunderbirds frontman, Kim Wilson, sees him make a very personal statement about his roots.
In March 2018 Mud’s album They Call Me Mud was released on Severn Records to critical acclaim. Produced by Mud Morganfield and Rick Kreher (who also plays guitar on the CD and was a guitarist in the Muddy Waters band), They Call Me Mud was recorded at Joyride Studios in in Mud’s Chicago hometown. Mud penned 10 of the album’s 12 songs, with two others coming from his illustrious father’s catalog, “Howling Wolf” and “Can’t Get No Grinding.”
Mud’s travels are taking him and his music worldwide, with appearances in the biggest festivals and venues, such as the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and the Royal Albert Hall Blues Fest in London, England, and on to iconic TV shows such as Later… with Jools Holland on BBC TV in the UK, plus featuring in a TV documentary by a modern Bluesman of international fame, Hugh Laurie, with whom he has also appeared on stage in Chicago.
Mud is taking his surge in popularity in stride, “When I’m up on stage I always feel pops is there with me, and it means so much that I can get on stage and keep his music alive around the world,” he says.
