MEMPHIS, Tn.—Some evocative field recordings were done in the South’s finest hotel.
A couple months ago “Peabody Blues” was released on the new Nehi Records label out of London, England. The Delta blues and string band recordings were made Sept. 22-25, 1929 in a guest room at the Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis for the Brunswick/Vocalion label.
Artists include Furry Lewis, Mississippi bluesman Charlie McCoy and Robert Wilkins, whose “That’s No Way To Get Along” was poached by the Rolling Stones for their “Prodigal Son” on the 1968 “Beggar’s Banquet” LP.
Archie’s, March 9, 2014–Photo by Nick Kam
The corner bar is the center of any urban neighborhood.
You hear small talk, big talk and jive talk. You know you’re walking into a good corner bar when everyone sitting along the bar turns around to see who is coming through the door. There is no place like their place.
Unfortunately in Chicago the corner bar has gone the way of corner news stands, Cubs victories and vinyl jukeboxes. There are more good corner bars in Milwaukee.
But Archie’s Iowa Rockwell Tavern persists.
The bar celebrates its cornerness to such a degree that it names itself [...]
Union Stock Yards, 1947
Meat purveyor James Calvetti had just one request in 1974 when he built his new office in the heart of the Union Stock Yards. A large window on the north side of the building was to frame the Chicago skyline.
Calvetti was onto a mash-up of Chicago history; through his window he saw the majestic growth from Carl Sandburg’s iconic poem “Chicago” (Hog Butcher for the World)” which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. And his open natural light office was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright disciple Claude Wayne Thomason whose firm also designed North Shore banks.
Calvetti’s son Jamie Calvetti now runs the company from the [...]
The historic Muddy Waters house is rolling and tumbling into another chapter.
On Friday Larry “Mud” Morganfield, the oldest son of Muddy Waters and long time Chicago music attorney Jay B. Ross are scheduled to place an offer on the vacant home at 4339 S. Lake Park.
Waters (a.k.a. McKinley Morganfield) lived in the house between 1954 and 1974, the fertile years of the merging of blues and rock n’ roll. The house has been listed for a $100,000 short sale.
The Muddy Waters house was built in 1879. It was on the Landmark Illinois 2013 Ten Most Endangered Historic Places list.
Ross said that if the bank accepts the offer, [...]
