my kind of town
This link has been showing up in my inbox every week now forever (ie, since I started this blog two and half months ago)
I kept thinking I’d eventually post something deep and yet pithy about the importance of appreciating local music traditions. That’s not going to happen any time soon, but you still need to see this. As a part of program to promote what’s special about their city, Chicago Blues Enhanced Audio Tour was developed. It’s narrated by Buddy Guy and can be downloaded to use on a self-guided tour of the city’s historic blues sites. I’ve only looked at the on-line video tour, which you can see by clicking on that smiling face above. I don’t know enough about what Chicago’s doing to know whether blues is really thriving, or whether it’s become a specimen preserved primarily for tourists. But at least it’s not being ignored or completely sacrificed to gentrification. I won’t bother embedding any relevant music in here, because there’s so much good stuff in the audio tour itself. Go ahead. Click on Mr. Guy.
Aside from the blues, which needs no justification, many Taylor Hicks fans will enjoy the video tour for the views of Guy’s old venue. Recently scheduled to revert to the university that owned it and needed the space, it was the site of some after show entertainment for Hicks and company during the Chicago tour stop last spring.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=20FzhwC7Bs8]
categories: music
posted by what at 03:56 am
That whole video is so great. I would give my left arm to be at a show like that. Makes me want to move to Chicago. And anytime Taylor wants to sing some blues like the first minute or so of this video is OK with me. He should do that more often!
That’s the kind of thing that makes me want to just search for some cheap weekend fares to Chicago. It’s somewhere I’ve not been and that seems like a great ‘reason’ to go.
I’m a Chicago resident and have never heard of the audio tour! Buddy Guy’s Legends was initially supposed to close in April, I don’t know the final word on that.
What, our post reminded me of an article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune last week:
“Study finds Chicago fails to capitalize on the size and scope of its music industry as an economic engine”:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-wed_music0815aug15,0,6391514.story
(don’t know if I can/should link here)
Basically says Chicago is a great music town, too bad no one knows it…
Upside: Lots of great, free/cheap music festivals, clubs, etc. Downside: Chicago’s a big city, too many events sell out in 30 seconds. You really have to plan ahead.
Karma, thanks for the Trib link. That puts a different face on it. When I got the link on the audio tour, I’d connected it back to two things that hit my brain at roughly the same time last April: the knowledge that Guy’s old locale was reverting to it’s owners, and an article by Jesse Jarnow on a New York jazz club that was being closed to make way for condos. I also remember, in trying to find out more about Guy’s place on-line, reading customer reviews that referred to it as a tourist place.
So your article fills in some of the pieces. On the one hand, there are places with thriving music scenes that are recognized both locally and nationally as being something. A place like Nashville or Austin doesn’t need an audio tour to promote its music scene, but would people worry if a historic club was being lost to development? If the scene is vital enough, that might not be noticed anymore than a bad haircut - it’ll all grow back. If the scene is dead enough, you’re also not going to wince if you lose a club. But in between is that state of protection, when the scene seems to be on the endangered list: then we get special promotion and musical zoos, with the hope of keeping things alive so they’ll thrive on their own.
But the U of C study might indicate that the scene isn’t threatened, it’s just not recognized for what it is, and so thrives unnoticed?
While the music scene overall is good, clubs do close every day as neighborhoods gentrify. (The most recent casualty being the Double Door.) Chicago’s blues tradition is probably always in danger, there are fewer younger “names” to keep it going. That history should be better known and, yes, the music scene overall could use a little more “nuruturing”. If Buddy Guy can be tossed out, what’s next?
Actually I never really thought of Buddy Guy’s as a tourist trap – just because tourists go there doesn’t make it less great or watered down. It’s not like it’s a Cheers franchise. People do and should come here for the music. The more people who spread the word, the better.
I was surprised by the tourist trap tag - maybe it was just one or two people disgruntled about paying a cover charge for good music. Nothing about the place itself seems that way, that’s for sure.
Karma, I’m trying to remember the 2 blues clubs I went to in Chicago about 10 year ago. A couple of the better known ones, but I can’t put my finger on the names. Not Buddy’s place, not the Checkerboard, not Kingston Mines. Got any suggestions?
Curious, how about Rosa’s Lounge? Artis? Underground Wonder Bar? I’d mention Koko Taylor’s place, but I’m sure that wasn’t around back then. And speaking of the Checkerboard, it was forced to move a couple of years ago and is now called the New Checkerboard Lounge.