Find your partner on South Oakley Street. That’s my pal Jack D’Amico on vocals (Photos by Lou Bilotti)
Like a locket that hangs close to your heart, the Oakley Festa Pasta Vino Italian Festival is timeless.
And it swings, too!
Taste of Oakley, as it is more commonly known, is my favorite summer Chicago neighborhood festival. It takes place Father’s Day weekend along the overlooked enclave of Oakley Avenue and 24th Street and incorporates superb family run restaurants like Bruna’s Ristorante, 2424 S. Oakley and La Fontanella, 2414 S. Oakley, a favorite of the late [...]
Steve Goodman’s Chicago apartment 1972, L to R: Earl Pionke, Goodman, John Prine, Jimmy Buffett, Ed Holstein and Fred Holstein
In 1974 Chicago club owner Earl Pionke partnered up with the late singer songwriters Steve Goodman and Fred Holstein (along with Bill Redhead and Duke Nathaus) to open the North Lincoln Avenue music room “Somebody Else’s Troubles.”
The club was named after Goodman’s second album.
Although Earl died in April, 2013 at the age of 80, he is still playing that song.
Earl was a Type A pack rat. In 1993 Earl and his girl friend Sharon Biggerstaff moved into the former Landmark [...]
Sky high on a steady beat.
A resplendent mural honoring Chicago house legend Frankie Knuckles was completed late last night atop a building that houses a European clothing store on 2958 W. Fullerton at Sacramento Ave.
Passengers on the El’s Blue Line can see a detailed portrait of the smiling DJ who died March 31 at age 59. It sure beats the picture of “Chicagoan” Chuck Berry who greets passengers of the El at Midway airport.
The Knuckles mural is between 30 and 40 feet long. The work of art was completed coincidentally in time for tonight’s Frankie Knuckles Tribute and dance party at Millennium Park. Mike [...]
All Montgomery photos by Paul Natkin
MONTGOMERY, Al.—The Malden Brothers Barber Shop has been in continuous operation since 1958 as part of the historic Centennial Hill neighborhood of Montgomery. The three-chair shop is around the corner from the Ben Moore Hotel, a shuttered four-story landmark where African American civil rights leaders stayed in the late 1950s and 1960s.
Montgomery was seriously segregated and the hotel was a safe haven.
The Rev. Martin Luther King had a lot of work to do in 1954 when he arrived in Montgomery to become pastor of the Dexter [...]
Akron Rock n’ Roll Bobble Head giveaways.
EASTLAKE, Ohio—With no surrender and lots of Mountain Dew I drove to Columbus, Ohio in mid-April to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. This marked my 30th Springsteen concert dating back to Sept. 6, 1978 at the Uptown Theater in Chicago ($7.50 ticket.) All those ticket stubs are bookmarks in my life.
The Holiday Inn in downtown Columbus was filled with Springsteen fans who were knocking around the region for his “High Hopes” tour. They had been to Virginia Beach, Va., they were heading to Nashville, Tn. for his next show.
I was surprised [...]
The Big Doors at Under the Hill, May 1, 2014
NATCHEZ, Ms.- It is hard to place a number on all the great things about drinking at the Under the Hill Saloon.
There’s the stunning sunset on the Mississippi River. The bar has a dwarf bartender. As my friend Bill FitzGerald pointed out last night there likely is no other tavern so close to the Mississippi River.
Then there are the characters you encounter.
I meet them every spring on my way to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Last night was no different. (For my 2002 take on Under the Hill circle back to this site’s [...]
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, [...]
Hobo Marlin Wallace (Courtesy of Marlin Wallace)
SPRINGFIELD, Mo.—Of the many things to know about Marlin Wallace, it all starts with a strong handshake. His meaningful grip was once seen on a union waterfront and along a cattle trail.
Say hello to forgotten America. With his right hand the songwriter creates a vice-like covenant that flattens the fingers of a stranger. It is an old hand that has been hardened from 17 years of riding America’s rails as a hobo. Connections can be made in trains and in music and Wallace has spent his life chasing them down and taking notes.
He is America’s most [...]
White Sox fans Earl and Sharon (Courtesy of Marina Jason)
Earl Pionke always had big dreams.
He was a White Sox fan.
The beloved nightclub owner, mentor to countless musicians of the 1960’s Chicago folk boom and ex-boxer died on April 26, 2013 after battling pancreatic cancer. He was 80.
Earl loved life more than most people and even saw his White Sox win a World Series. In 1993 he left the north side for Pullman, a far south side neighborhood built on the escape of distant train whistles.
He wanted to open a bar in Pullman.
In 1993 Pionke and his long time girl friend Sharon [...]
D. Hoekstra portraits
Crabby Kim’s is a warm and shabby sports bar near the corner of North Western and Waveland avenues in Chicago.
It is the kind of place where the jukebox is muted when basketball games are on. Old Style Tall Boys are $3.
Owner Kim Kirchoff grew up in the neighborhood; he graduated from Bell School in 1964. The sorta Hemingway look alike admits to being crabby. But he hires happy female bartenders who wear skimpy bikinis. This place gives me goose bumps.
And it gives the women goose bumps.
I’ve driven by Crabby Kim’s thousands of times but have never been in the [...]
Jim Stoecker and his antique cash register(Courtesy of Alex’s Washington Gardens)
During this endless winter, Jim Stoecker had to get away from the quaint Italian restaurant he runs in north suburban Highwood. In late January Stoecker drove to New Orleans, hopped on a cruise ship and went to Mexico for five days. He ate pizza on the ship. Every day. It wasn’t good pizza but it maintained his streak that never seems to end.
Stoecker claims to have eaten pizza for 2,450 days in a row.
He is the Lou Gehrig of garlic.
“I don’t get tired of eating pizza,” Stoecker said during a [...]
When the spirit has been dragging like a comb in the hair of Gene Simmons, you find out who your true friends are.
And I’ve been fortunate.
Really fortunate.
This updated website has all kinds of stuff. There’s categories of travel dispatches, baseball stories, things on food-ways and immediate, unfiltered musings on life passages. I’ll also be keeping my eye on breaking Chicago cultural news, issues that are near to me like why the city ignores its musical heritage.
I wanted to share this rather blunt link with my friend and collaborator Paul Natkin of Photo Reserve, Inc., who had the misfortune to be [...]
D. Hoekstra photo
The National Blues Museum is virtually completed in terms of design and slated to open mid-2015.
The downer for Chicago blues fans is that the $14 million museum will be in downtown St. Louis.
Members of the Chicago music community have talked about a Chicago blues museum almost since Muddy Waters plugged in.
In the summer of 2012 there were rumblings of “The Blues Experience,” a blues museum-nightclub with classrooms to be built in the former Block 37 shopping center on State Street. Last fall it was reported that “Blues Experience” developers Bill Selonick and Sona Wang [...]
COMSTOCK PARK, Mich.—It is a month before opening day for the West Michigan Whitecaps of the Class A Midwest League. The drive out of Chicago is part of a search for a new beginning. The Greg Brown CD plays “Never So Far.” A large billboard on the right side of U.S. Route 31 reads “Never In Doubt.”
The sign is in reference to the April 8 Whitecaps opening day.
Nearly half of the team’s 20-year-old ballpark was destroyed in a Jan. 3 fire. Investigators said that a trash container placed next to a space heater in a suite caused the fire. Multiple suites were destroyed and part of the Fifth Third Ballpark roof collapsed. The home clubhouse, right field concession [...]
John Prine (center) and band, Jim Shea photo courtesy of Oh Boy Records
March 16, 2014–
The circle of travel helps you find the center.
And this is where John Prine was on Friday night, standing in front of an adoring hometown audience at center stage of the Symphony Center.
Prine, 67, is back on the road after December surgery for operable lung cancer. He loves the road. He met his wife Fiona Whelan in Dublin, Ireland. He gets restless in recording studios and in a November statement he said, “There’s nothing I hate more than cancelling shows.”
Prine stands tall and strong like the old [...]
Dec. 25, 2013—
Christmas Day may seem like a bad time to introduce your Mother to hospice care. Do you hear what I hear?
But my brother and nephew have Dec. 25 obligations in Nashville, Tn. so we usually don’t celebrate Christmas until Dec. 26 when they come to Chicago. Medicare for Mom’s tool box of pills runs out at the end of the year and the results from her echocardiogram come in on Dec. 26.
Mom’s dementia has gotten worse over the last few months. Her 92nd birthday was Dec. 10 and that was a fleeting moment. Forgetting birthdays isn’t such a bad thing. Baseball poet Satchel Paige asked, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you [...]
Nov. 4, 2013—
I am that guy.
I’m the guy who sits alone at the Golden Apple on Saturday night. He always carries a newspaper or two. One newspaper has the latest stories, the other one may be from last Sunday. That guy is always trying to catch up.
He sits alone in a booth because he can spread out his newspapers. That’s important. He looks at the empty seat across from him and sees shadows. They can torment him. I used to look at that guy from a distance and think, “I’m glad I’m not that guy.” Suddenly last weekend I became that guy.
He talks about the Cubs even though they haven’t played a meaningful game since Memorial Day. Speaking of summer, [...]
