National Audio Company projects (D. Hoekstra photo)
SPRINGFIELD, Mo.—Rewind.
The National Audio Company near downtown Springfield does more than backtrack the past as the largest manufacturer of cassette tapes in the world. Vintage maple desktops in the company’s first-floor office have classic pink “While You Were Out” notepads. Employees still come to offices and answer phones at National Audio, just a country heartbeat from the birthplace of Route 66.
Company president Steve Stepp is a model train buff and sings the praises of songwriter Neil Young, a long-time Lionel train collector, [...]
Yoshi Sekiguchi on stage in Japan, 1958 (Courtesy of Sekiguchi family.)
Like the best version of life, Yoshinobu “Yoshi” Sekiguchi understood that good art is made without boundaries. The power of imagination can lead to freedom. Open your mind and you hear songs everywhere.
In Japan during the 1960s, Mr. Sekiguchi was known as “The Japanese Hank Williams.” He had a bit country singing role in the film “A Majority of One” (1962) with Rosalind Russell playing a Jewish woman who falls for a Japanese diplomat portrayed by Alec Guinness. In the 1970s, he became a Chicago designer and art director, working [...]
The Des Plaines Theatre, circa 1936. Postcard image via Revitalized Des Plaines.
The newly remodeled Des Plaines Theatre is a heavenly addition to the Chicago area’s entertainment landscape. The theater opened in August 1925 as a vaudeville and movie house. The Des Plaines reopened late last year after an ambitious restoration that rolled through the pandemic. The historic theater had been empty since 2014.
The city of Des Plaines purchased the art deco theater for $1.3 million in May 2018. The city partnered with nearby Rivers Casino, which chipped in up to $ 2 million for renovations. The city [...]
Bo Diddley house, 4746 S. Langley on 9/20/21. Image courtesy of Chicago Fire Department.
There is a gritty beat to the music of Chicago.
It is deeply appointed, carries no pretense, and is something to hold on to. Forever.
In 2004 the late Bo Diddley told me he developed his famous beat when he heard Gene Autry’s “(I Got Spurs That ) Jingle Jangle Jingle” on the radio on the south side of Chicago.
Diddley was born Ellas Bates McDaniel in Mc Comb, Miss. just north of the Louisiana border.
His family moved to 4746 S. Langley in Chicago when he was seven. They wanted him to escape the sharecropper’s [...]
