Last month I traveled to Belfast to attend the Northern Ireland Music Prize, because this year’s ceremony included the debut of the Joe Cassidy Chrysalis Award—named for the late Belfast-born artist who’d become one of Chicago’s most important and beloved musical transplants. Cassidy, who led the group Butterfly Child, was an old friend of mine […]

The post The late great Joe Cassidy links music scenes across the Atlantic appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When I started the Secret History of Chicago Music in 2005, I had a rule: no artists from the 1990s. Not enough time had passed, I figured, for them to be forgotten. It’s been 18 years, though, and the local scene is full of people who don’t remember the 90s—or who weren’t even born then. […]

The post There’s still time to catch up with the Joy Poppers appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Secret History readers often ask about my criteria for including an artist. Sometimes they want me to cover an early-90s band, but I’m still reluctant—that’s when I started going to shows myself, so it seems too recent. I definitely felt that way when I launched this series in 2005, but I guess we’ll see.  I’m […]

The post Downstate weirdos Max Load brought punk to Belleville appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Secret History of Chicago Music may have my name on it, but it’s never a one-man show. I often consult experts, especially when I’m covering an unfamiliar genre or I hit a dead end in my research. Earlier this month, in fact, I turned to Chris Young of the excellent blog Downstate Sounds to […]

The post Pastor Mitty Collier spent the 1960s as one of the great voices in soul music appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In August I said I thought the Secret History of Chicago Music might be running out of 1960s garage bands to cover. I’ve been a fan of the Rooks for ages, for instance, but I’d given up on writing a story because I couldn’t reach any former members to fill in the gaps in my […]

The post The Rooks cut a hall-of-fame garage-rock single but broke up in obscurity appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Sometimes you have to play the long game. I’ve been trying for years to get the story of local 1960s girl group the Same. My interview requests didn’t lead anywhere, and I couldn’t track down much info about their only release—the 1967 single “Sunshine, Flowers and Rain”—or about the women who’d created it.  Thankfully, Chicago […]

The post All-girl garage band the Same got short-changed by the grown-ups in the room appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In July, I attended a community meeting at the Broadway Armory in Edgewater about the city’s plan to turn the Park District facility into a temporary shelter for asylum seekers. A group of protesters, angry that much of the armory’s programming would be relocated or otherwise disrupted, carried bright yellow signs reading “Don’t Displace Us.” […]

The post The <i>Reader</i>’s guide to World Music Festival Chicago 2023 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I’ve never liked the term “one-hit wonder.” This is partly because it’s often misused; I’ve seen Americans describe T. Rex as a one-hit wonder because “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” was Marc Bolan’s only stateside smash, but in the UK he had 11 top-ten hits in three years.  I also find “one-hit wonder” a […]

The post Don’t call Brighter Side of Darkness one-hit wonders appeared first on Chicago Reader.

For more than a decade, Chicago musician Haley Fohr, who also makes music as Circuit des Yeux, has been honing and expanding her craft. She’s taken her transcendent vocal explorations, art-rock ensembles, and live film scores to far-off places around the globe. Just when I thought I’d witnessed her lend her powerful four-octave voice to […]

The post Experimental musicians Bill Nace and Haley Fohr team up for two nights at the Hungry Brain appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I discover subjects for the Secret History of Chicago Music lots of different ways—I might see an unfamiliar artist mentioned in passing during an interview with somebody better known, or spot a name I don’t recognize in the credits of a well-loved local LP. Sometimes a musician simply contacts me directly, or a friend or […]

The post Let’s make Marshall Vente a star appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When I looked over the lineup for this year’s Chicago Jazz Festival, the first thing that leaped out at me was the pair of sets at Pritzker Pavilion on Thursday—saxophonist Chico Freeman celebrating the centennial of his famous father, Von Freeman, followed by bassist Ron Carter leading his group Foursight. Freeman came up in the […]

The post The mightiest double bill at the Chicago Jazz Festival appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I know I’m indulging in nostalgia for the “good old days” before the global consolidation of the entertainment industry, but it sure seems like it used to be easier for a talented artist to luck into a shot at fame—something more lasting than 15 seconds of Internet virality. In the 1960s, the workings of the […]

The post Soul singer Garland Green couldn’t quite turn luck and talent into stardom appeared first on Chicago Reader.

London psychedelic chamber-pop outfit the Clientele have been making their hushed, literate songs for 32 years, evoking peers such as the Go-Betweens, the Left Banke, and Felt while maintaining their own baroque and brainy mystique. Earlier this year, they released an ambitious double LP, I Am Not There Anymore (Merge), which lead singer and guitarist […]

The post London chamber-pop group the Clientele return to the U.S. in support of a new double LP appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Long ago, an early fan of the Secret History of Chicago Music stopped me at a grocery store. Not only was I surprised that this gentleman had recognized me—I tend to think of myself as a faceless columnist—but I was also taken aback by his first question. “You do that garage-band column in the Chicago […]

The post Society’s Children had a combo unheard-of in 60s garage rock: mother and son appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When Bill MacKay told me it’d been five years since he played with Ryley Walker—something they used to do all the time—it reminded me once again how badly the pandemic era has shaken our collective grip on time. Getting back to real life, relationships, and projects has been slow going, and on top of that […]

The post Local guitar heroes Ryley Walker and Bill MacKay reunite onstage for the first time in five years appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I’d like to think the narrative has changed on Chicago and disco since the infamous Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in 1979. White rock fans blowing up disco records was never a good look, in no small part because the genre was so heavily Black, Brown, and queer. I’ll allow that some of the […]

The post Peter Brown is an A+ argument against dissing disco appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Lately the Secret History of Chicago Music has been playing a losing game, trying to keep up with the all-too-frequent passings of underappreciated musicians from the 1960s and ’70s. I’ll celebrate some living artists soon, but first I want to shine a light on Gerald Sims, who died in May. Sims made immortal contributions to […]

The post Gerald Sims played on two of the most immortal soul songs ever appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Musicians who transcend genre and expectation often have to settle for being described decades later as “ahead of their time.” Multifaceted jazz pianist and vocalist Dorothy Donegan overcame racial prejudice, sexism, and musical gatekeeping to grow into her own bad self in the 1950s—to borrow a contemporary phrase, she gave zero fucks. She once described […]

The post Pianist Dorothy Donegan gave zero fucks appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When Ramsey Lewis died in September, the Secret History of Chicago Music didn’t weigh in—the keyboardist, composer, and radio personality was hardly a secret, and the news of his passing prompted an international outpouring. The same was true of Maurice White from Earth, Wind & Fire, who’d had an early gig as Lewis’s drummer and […]

The post Polymathic percussionist Derf Reklaw deserved a better farewell appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I’ve been covering underappreciated artists in the Secret History of Chicago Music for more than 18 years, but as I research a subject, I still sometimes catch myself wondering: “Why is this person not a universally beloved household name?” Cleveland Eaton is just such a case. He was a composer, bandleader, producer, arranger, publisher, teacher, […]

The post Jazz bassist Cleveland Eaton had a career almost too vast to imagine appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In nearly 20 years of writing the Secret History of Chicago Music, I’ve never tackled prewar jazz. The Windy City has been an important center for bebop and avant-garde jazz, and it was also a major player in jazz’s early history. The “Chicago style” has meant different things to different jazz musicians over the decades, […]

The post The Austin High Gang helped birth Chicago jazz in the 1920s appeared first on Chicago Reader.

All forms of art speak of their time, and during events of historical significance, art reliably reflects those changes, whether overtly or subtly. Often the artists themselves respond by creating new aesthetics or philosophies. Righteous Chicago soul group the Independents didn’t catalyze a musical revolution of their own, but they still prove the point: they […]

The post Soul vocal group the Independents grew out of a powerful songwriting duo appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The early history of Chicago punk is a tough nut to crack. Because the scene here isn’t seen as groundbreaking or cohesive, it hasn’t been nearly as thoroughly researched or documented as the scene in New York City. The 2007 documentary You Weren’t There, directed by Joe Losurdo and Christina Tillman, tried to pick up […]

The post Art-school punks Poison Squirrel released their lone single in 1980 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Every once in a while, this contented stoner of some 30 years can still have a “cannabis epiphany,” as I’m often quite floored at how far the legal marijuana world has progressed. Case in point, while DJing a record fair and happening at Life on Marz Community Club back in January, I was not prepared […]

The post Best swank weed party bus appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It must be surreal to be a towering figure in your field but still have to explain who you are to almost everyone you meet. I’m sure scientists are used to it—their work doesn’t exactly put their faces in front of the public—but I’ll never get why the reputations of blues musicians travel so poorly […]

The post Harmonica master Billy Branch deserves to be a household name appeared first on Chicago Reader.

We Americans don’t seem to want to deal with this pesky pandemic anymore—not to take precautions and certainly not to grieve our country’s losses, which topped one million lives almost a year ago. Even our president, who at first seemed to have our backs, has declared the crisis over. Meanwhile the body count keeps climbing, […]

The post It’s never too late to give soul-blues master Bobby Jonz his flowers appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In the world of visual art, it’s not too unusual for, say, a painting by a French artist who died a pauper to sell through a New York auction house for millions of dollars. Blues and soul artists from the States sometimes encounter a similar fate. After decades spent underpaid and underappreciated on their home […]

The post Rockin’ bluesman G.L. Crockett died right before he found his audience appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Roscoe Mitchell is one of the last surviving titans of a pioneering generation of fearlessly experimental jazz musicians. At age 82, this Renaissance man continues to push the envelope in several directions. Mitchell’s resumé as a musician is legendary among international connoisseurs of the avant-garde: he was a founding member of the Art Ensemble of […]

The post <strong>Experimental jazz great Roscoe Mitchell keeps pushing the bar</strong> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It’s important to pay tribute to our living legends, and I like to think that the Secret History of Chicago Music does so at least as often as it honors the departed. Guitarist and singer Linsey Alexander has been laying down blistering electric blues in the Windy City for five decades, but he didn’t become […]

The post Linsey Alexander started a second career in the blues at 58 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When you think of the blues, you probably think of guitars (acoustic and electric), piano, harmonica, maybe even the bass and drums in a full band. Saxophone, on the other hand, is much more closely associated with jazz and R&B. Sax players do exist in the blues, of course, but you usually see them only […]

The post J.T. Brown’s ‘nanny goat’ horn still echoes through the blues appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When I heard about this new New England psych project, I wondered if the name “Stella Kola” referred to a solo artist, a duo, or a band—or possibly alluded to a soft drink. It turns out that it’s a little from column A and a little from column B. Stella Kola is the collaboration of […]

The post Stella Kola assembles top-shelf New England psych-folk artists on their debut album appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It’s hard to convey how much the music of John Cale means to me. The Welsh-born polymath cofounded the Velvet Underground, bringing a crucial avant-garde perspective to the band; he’d worked with experimental titans Tony Conrad and La Monte Young back when Lou Reed was still writing teenage doo-wop pastiches. When Cale left the band […]

The post Prolific composer John Cale kicks off 2023 with a double album appeared first on Chicago Reader.

“I’m the mother and the grandmother of the blues,” Johnnie Mae Dunson declared in a 2005 interview with the Chicago Tribune, and I won’t argue. “When I first started playing in Chicago, in the ’40s, people said ugly things about a woman who plays the blues,” she recalled. “They said, ‘She must not be a […]

The post Remembering the Big Boss Lady appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It’s barely January, and already a “bomb cyclone” storm has frozen pipes, disrupted travel, and much worse, all while a “tripledemic” tears through the population. Every year the Secret History of Chicago Music undertakes its annual Winter Blues series, and every year the season seems to find new ways to give us the blues. This […]

The post John Primer is a living link to the departed giants of Chicago blues appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Joe Shanahan founded sister venues Metro and Smart Bar in 1982, inspired by the adventurous punk and no wave he’d seen in the late 70s at New York venues such as the Mudd Club and CBGB. Shanahan was in his 20s at the time, but the Wrigleyville building his venues occupied had been built in […]

The post Forty years in review appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Harvey “the Snake” Mandel is a guitarist’s guitarist. Born in Detroit in 1945 and raised in Morton Grove, he moved to the west coast in his early 20s to launch his career. He never became a household name like Stevie Ray Vaughan or Eric Crapton, but beginning with his debut LP, 1968’s funky fuzz classic […]

The post <strong>Homegrown guitar legend Harvey Mandel issues a mind-bending new album</strong> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Sometimes the Secret History of Chicago Music reads like a novel, with an interesting origin story, lots of detail spanning the artist’s entire career, and a satisfying conclusion. But sometimes I hit a wall, and SHoCM feels more like a mystery story. Even when I don’t ask, those columns are essentially a plea to anyone […]

The post Local soul sensation Jo Ann Garrett disappeared from the biz in her 20s appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I’m choosy about metal. Thrash and technical metal don’t often move me, and as unhip as it makes me sound, I don’t care for most death metal or black metal either. (The latter’s well-documented Nazi infestation doesn’t help—but yeah, I do have Venom’s first album.) I like my metal sludgy and epic, preferably with lyrics […]

The post Witchslayer have finally released the album they should’ve made 40 years ago appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I’m part Polish, but in 18 years of the Secret History of Chicago Music, I’ve somehow never covered a polka musician. By certain generous estimates, around 1,900,000 people of Polish descent live in the Chicago metropolitan area—it’s the largest such community in the United States and the second worldwide only to Warsaw. Polka originated in […]

The post Walter Jagiello defined the polka sound of Polish Chicago appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan died in 1993, he hadn’t lived in Chicago for nearly 40 years, but he was still beloved here. “Clifford’s personality was warm and sincere, just like his tone on the saxophone,” Chicago tenor titan Von Freeman told Howard Reich at the Tribune. “He was a beautiful person—he helped me and […]

The post Saxophonist Clifford Jordan epitomized the Chicago tenor sound appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Being a fan of Italian horror prog rockers Goblin can be massively rewarding and profoundly confusing. Famous for mind-bendingly complex tunes as well as their scores for late-70s films by the likes of Dario Argento and George Romero, Goblin dissolved in the early 80s, and since they began re-forming a couple decades ago they’ve existed […]

The post Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin hit the horror-prog sweet spot this Halloween season appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I’ve been delving into Windy City jazz for most of my life, beginning with the out-there, Afrocentric sounds of the Sun Ra Arkestra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and the like. These days, as an old man, I’m also drawn to soul jazz—an earthier, groovier style that incorporates elements of hard bop, blues, gospel, R&B, […]

The post Soul-jazz organist Odell Brown helped write Marvin Gaye’s ‘Sexual Healing’ appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Once again, Chicago has lost a legendary musician, and in this author’s opinion there haven’t been nearly enough public tributes. Jim Post was a crucial part of the Old Town folk scene in the 1970s, but compared to John Prine, one of his contemporaries on that scene, he’s barely been memorialized. Both men had long, […]

The post In a scene full of big personalities, Jim Post was a giant appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Formed by drummer Christian Vander in Paris in 1969, Magma have made a career of defying convention, and the fact that they’re still actively recording and playing live today is an astonishing gift. Their music could arguably be labeled modern classical, progressive rock, free jazz, or even psychedelia, but it’s too big for any of […]

The post Magma turn up the positivity on their new album, K​ã​rt​ë​hl appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The term “world music” has never been adequate to the task we’ve set it—even in its most benign reading, it implies a division between the listener and the rest of the world. And if that listener is in the United States, our country’s global hegemony in popular music colors the term’s meaning too.  Americans don’t […]

The post The <i>Reader</i>’s guide to World Music Festival Chicago 2022 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

We won’t know the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for many years, not least because they haven’t stopped piling up. Bodily sickness, mental illness, financial loss—everyone seems to have been afflicted differently, and the effects on our medical, political, social, and economic systems compound those individual misfortunes. New variants, vaccine updates, and long COVID are […]

The post Boogie-woogie 2, pandemic 0 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It’s sad when a talented band’s closest brush with fame is almost finishing a soundtrack for a movie that never existed, ending up with nothing but demos where one of the guitars is out of tune. To make matters worse, they’d recorded under a new name that almost nobody knew. The history of recorded music […]

The post Soul band the Kelderons pulled a 30-year disappearing act appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I can’t rattle off a list of my most beloved guitarists, despite being a so-so guitar player myself, but I can quickly tell you my top ten bassists. One of my favorites has played with famous musicians across many genres, but most folks don’t even recognize his name. As far as I know, my first […]

The post Genius bassist Richard Davis is so ubiquitous he’s almost invisible appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Brooklyn is so closely associated with the American cultural zeitgeist of the early 2000s that it’s easy to forget how newly “cool” the borough was at the time. During Oneida’s late-90s infancy, the freak rockers would be met with bemusement when they told music journalists they were from Brooklyn. “People would laugh—Brooklyn was not hip,” […]

The post Oneida incorporate straight-ahead rock vibes into their expansive sound on <i>Success</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Last fall Chicago drone explorers Bitchin Bajas released a cassette of synthesizer-only Sun Ra covers called Switched on Ra (Drag City). The trio of Cooper Crain, Rob Frye, and Dan Quinlivan combine feel-good vibes with versatility and flexibility—they’ve shape-shifted into a free-jazz-inspired combo on Frye’s 2021 solo LP, Exoplanet (Astral Spirits), and leaned into their […]

The post Chicago explorers Bitchin Bajas to pay homage to Sun Ra appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Most musicians use their first professional endeavors to find a voice and develop their chops. So I love it when artists “spin off” into new sounds, even if they break up beloved bands to do it. Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler both left the Impressions to follow their own soulful muses, and jazz-funk ensemble the […]

The post Young-Holt Unlimited were more than Ramsey Lewis’s rhythm section appeared first on Chicago Reader.

As the world literally burns, it’s a comfort to see performers we hold dear come back through town to offer musical relief. Singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler debuted in 2004 with the album Ballads of Living and Dying, establishing the template for her delicately ominous, reverb-shrouded fables of loss and mortality. She’s since come out of the […]

The post Marissa Nadler adds a welcome darkness to the scary darkness of the end of days appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I’m a lifetime fan of vinyl records, but “record collecting” continues to befuddle and annoy me. I know I might sound like a pretentious gatekeeper pontificating about a trivial problem, but despite the huge number of records I own, I won’t even call myself a “collector.” It seems like the folks who do use that […]

The post Rescuing Paradoxx from the record collectors appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Paul Cotton, best known as a crucial member of country rockers Poco, died a year ago this month, and it was easy to miss the news amid all the chaos in the world—to say nothing of all the other celebrity deaths taking up bandwidth. (His Poco comrade Rusty Young, for instance, had passed in April.) […]

The post Paul Cotton of Poco belongs in the classic-rock pantheon appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Lately it seems like every “lost” recording, no matter how inconsequential, is getting pushed on limited colored vinyl for a crass Record Store Day cash grab. Beneath the hype, “archival releases” are too often just so-so live jams or half-baked outtakes by established artists—and it’s usually clear why they hadn’t been released before. That’s what […]

The post Chicago’s greatest postpunk obscurity returns from oblivion appeared first on Chicago Reader.

If I were forced to subscribe to any wild theory circulating on the Internet right now (we won’t say the c-word), it wouldn’t be about lizard people, a flat Earth, anything “secretly staged by crisis actors,” organized religions, or UFOs. It would be that a God of Hellfire lives and flourishes here on this planet […]

The post Psych-rock icon Arthur Brown celebrates his 80th birthday with a new album appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Given the myriad horrors American society faces, desensitization can be a survival mechanism as well as part of the problem. Numbness can easily turn to apathy when we’re bombarded unrelentingly with mass shootings, climate-change-induced natural disasters, stealthy new COVID-19 variants (plus monkeypox), a 24-7 news cycle broadcasting the horrors of the invasion of Ukraine, and […]

The post Electronic music master Klaus Schulze leaves us a riveting posthumous record appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I love a good mystery. Sometimes even my most exhaustive research turns up nothing more than a few details about a great musician, not enough to tell the full tale. As much as I might want to blast that story from the mountaintops, I also respect the value in leaving an artist’s mystique intact—a rare […]

The post Soul singer Barbara Livsey cut one star-making album and vanished appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Secret History readers often assume I know every Chicago musician who ever lived, but luckily I’m still capable of experiencing the joy of discovery. One of my bigger thrills in life is buying a random LP by an act I barely know, being floored by the music, and then discovering the artist is from the […]

The post Jazz pianist Denny Zeitlin has developed a vision of mind-blowing breadth appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When I finished college downstate and moved to the Windy City in 1995, the Chicago no-wave scene was breaking apart. While still in school, I’d often driven three hours to catch gigs here, and after my move I caught the last shows by local no-wave stars the Scissor Girls and Lake of Dracula.  The original […]

The post The Devil Bell Hippies: Chicago’s greatest avant-garde band that only kind of exists appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Earlier this year, Japanese psych band Kikagaku Moyo announced that they would go on indefinite hiatus following their 2022 tour. It’s always surprising when a successful, globe-trotting band call it a day at the top of their game, and their multitudes of fans got pretty upset in response to the news. Over the past decade, […]

The post Japanese psych band Kikagaku Moyo take a farewell tour before an indefinite hiatus appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Secret History of Chicago Music has produced plenty of offshoots over the 18 years that it’s run, and I’m pretty proud of some of them. I published the book My Kind of Sound: The Secret History of Chicago Music Compendium in 2016; I’ve facilitated reissues and archival releases of music by artists I’ve covered […]

The post Groovy jazz trio the Three Souls produced a legendary basketball coach appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Soulful musical polymath Taj Mahal and guitar god Ry Cooder go way back. In the mid-60s, they played in Los Angeles band the Rising Sons, one of the country’s first integrated bands fusing rock and R&B (along with Arthur Lee’s Love). The group also featured jazz drummer Ed Cassidy (later of Spirit) and bassist Gary […]

The post Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder celebrate their folk-blues heroes Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Having been a midwestern rock fan my whole life, I’ve come to the conclusion that folks around here don’t just love “heartland classic rock” like John Cougar and Steve Miller—they’re also unusually fond of progressive rock from the UK and Europe. I grew up landlocked and surrounded by mostly featureless landscapes, so I was drawn […]

The post Prog rockers Apocalypse debut with a dazzling 46-year-old demo appeared first on Chicago Reader.

So little in the world seems to be going right that I hardly feel the need to explain why the Secret History of Chicago Music is extending its annual Winter Blues series into April. Sticking to the calendar is less important to me than eulogizing an important bluesman who recently passed away. I hope this […]

The post Blues guitarist Byther Smith made the long haul count appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It’s officially spring, which is always a relief in Chicago, but the threat of World War III, the stubborn persistence of the pandemic, and the new flood of horrifying Republican anti-trans legislation more than justify continuing the Winter Blues series for a few more entries. No underrecognized Chicago blues artist deserves a spot in the […]

The post Why did blues singer Lil Green end up forgotten? appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Covering dozens of blues artists in the Secret History of Chicago Music has taught me that a few of the cliches about old-time bluesmen are rooted in reality. Many such musicians indeed began doing grueling labor in the fields as children, and many built their own first instruments. Often they started playing on the street […]

The post Little Al Thomas lent his big voice to Chicago blues for more than 50 years appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When the pandemic shut down live music, Chicago gallery Corbett vs. Dempsey began presenting great online gigs via Experimental Sound Studio’s Quarantine Concerts series. I remember the excitement I felt when the gallery made a last-minute, low-key announcement, mostly to friends and supporters, that the sixth of its Sequesterfest livestreaming events would also be open […]

The post Best impromptu spiritual-jazz show to celebrate what turned out not to be the end of the pandemic appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In the more than 15 years I’ve been writing the Secret History of Chicago Music, I’ve often tried to give props to the past and present venues and labels that support the underappreciated musicians I cover. Local label Delmark Records is the epitome of such an institution. The infamous Bob Koester ran the label from […]

The post Blues bassist Bob Stroger drops a new album 70 years into his career appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When I moved to the Windy City in 1995, “psychedelic” and “progressive rock” were dirty words associated with patchouli-scented hippies. A few local bands were boldly mining this expansive territory, though, including Sabalon Glitz, Frontier, and Cheer-Accident. Led by drummer, singer, keyboardist, and trumpeter Thymme Jones, Cheer-Accident always put on a thrilling, even hilarious live […]

The post Chicago underground heroes Cheer-Accident stay joyously weird on their 24th album, <i>Here Comes the Sunset</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

A few months ago, when I saw that blues guitarist J.B. Ritchie had passed away on November 23, 2021, I made a mental note to dig into his story. First I checked out a few tracks—his style straddled rock ’n’ roll and the blues, and he sure could play! I couldn’t find much at all […]

The post Blues-rock guitarist J.B. Ritchie set off fireworks that too few people saw appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Folks often ask me how I’ve come up with subjects for the Secret History of Chicago Music month after month. I have lots of answers, all of them true, including digging in record bins, falling down Internet rabbit holes, and cultivating knowledgeable friends. I’m tight with experts in several genres well represented in Chicago: big-city […]

The post Sammy Lawhorn might be the most widely recorded blues guitarist lost to time appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I was a wee lad with little journalism experience in 1998, when I interviewed German guitar god Michael Rother, who’d cofounded pioneering experimental rock outfits Neu! and Harmonia in the 70s. Not only did I hit him with a cliched question about his biggest influences, but I also pressed him when he said that no […]

The post Krautrock legend Michael Rother and electronic explorer Vittoria Maccabruni make weird beautiful music on <i>As Long as the Light</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Snowstorms, cold snaps, the most contagious wave of COVID-19 yet—it’s clearly time for the Secret History of Chicago Music to begin its yearly Winter Blues series. That’s where I cover the city’s great unheralded blues artists, many of whom gigged constantly but barely had the means to get by, let alone record their music. Many […]

The post Lazy Bill Lucas came into his own as a bandleader in his last decade appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Lots of happy accidents happen when I interview subjects for the Secret History of Chicago Music, and my favorite is when someone mentions an earlier “secret” band of theirs, often a precursor to the one I’m asking about. And by “secret,” I mean that perhaps just a handful of people might know that band ever […]

The post The Peep Show helped birth two of Chicago’s best early country-rock acts appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The past 20 months have been such a whirlwind of sickness, grief, political madness, and worldwide protests for causes either righteous and necessary or selfish and deranged—it hasn’t been easy for music fans to do justice to the lives and memories of all the amazing artists who’ve passed away during this chaotic period. Famous folk […]

The post Michael P. Smith deserves to be as widely remembered as his songs appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When I heard there would be a new DAF LP by the end of the year, I gasped. In the 1980s, the German duo of Gabriel “Gabi” Delgado and Robert Görl produced some of the most exhilarating and fiercely danceable electro-punk that ever made fans of a bunch of dudes in black leather, but the […]

The post Robert Görl celebrates 40 years of DAF and departed bandmate Gabi Delgado on <i>Nur noch Einer</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I’ve been doing the Secret History of Chicago Music for 17 years, and by now I hear from plenty of folks hoping I might cover their old bands. This can make it easier for me to find and research a subject, but the people who pitch me often misjudge what I cover. Unofficially, I restrict […]

The post Short-lived art-rockers Stark emerged from the late-80s bloom of the Champaign-Urbana scene appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicagoland band the Jamestown Massacre provide the Secret History of Chicago Music an opportunity to discuss the “regional hit.” This phenomenon has survived the rise of streaming, which makes it seem like anyone can (at least in theory) find an audience anywhere. But the days when local radio play would drive equally local sales of […]

The post One-hit wonders the Jamestown Massacre left a bigger mark through another band appeared first on Chicago Reader.

As I’ve complained here before, women often get left out of music history—a problem that seems especially bad in soul music. I’ll never understand why Loleatta Holloway, Holle Thee Maxwell, and the Fascinations aren’t as widely known as the Dells, Major Lance, and Curtis Mayfield. All-woman Chicago group the Opals had ties to all those […]

The post The Opals deserve a place among Chicago’s greatest girl groups appeared first on Chicago Reader.

As I’ve aged, my musical obsessions have shifted a bit. I still enjoy noisier, headier sounds—psychedelia, prog, garage trash, punk, experimental music—but I often want a “peaceful easy feeling” instead, which calls for some heartfelt country rock. I’ve always responded to the groups that put down the genre’s roots, especially the Flying Burrito Brothers, Gene […]

The post Country-rock veterans Ouray keep gigging 40 years after their last album appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I’ve never understood exactly why I respond to sea shanties, jigs, and British Isles folk of yore. Maybe something in my eastern European genetic makeup makes me long for ancient traditions, whether I have any connection to them or not; maybe it stems from my childhood love of mythological sea monsters. Whatever the reason, my […]

The post Adam Geoffrey Cole merges ancient traditions in the timeless folk of <i>Fallowing</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

If some sort of god or higher power exists, it clearly has a dark sense of humor—otherwise why send us plagues, floods, and fires, till even nonbelievers start to worry about the end times? And only a divine being with a cruel streak would’ve taken the Reverend Marvin Yancy from this earthly plane so young, […]

The post The Reverend Marvin Yancy’s solo career lasted just one great album appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place. It’s hard to believe that in more than 15 years of the Secret History of Chicago Music—at least 350 […]

The post Johnny Frigo became a top-tier jazz violinist in his 70s appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Modern digital avenues for music discovery can make it hard to remember what “underground” used to mean. Before the Internet, underground music was hard to find and often hard to even know about—and that amplified its significance for the outcasts who loved it. In the mid-80s, when speed was king in heavy music, a small […]

The post Doom-metal pioneer Eric Wagner has left our plane too soon appeared first on Chicago Reader.

People often ask me how I keep finding subjects for the Secret History of Chicago Music after more than 15 years. I don’t have one answer to that question—sometimes I stumble on a record I didn’t know about, sometimes I go down a research wormhole in books or online. But one of my favorite ways […]

The post New-wave faves the ODD dissolved without an album appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Update on Tue 8/24: This show has been canceled. I was nine years old when I ordered Modern English’s second album, 1982’s After the Snow, from Columbia House. I bought it for “I Melt With You” and discovered that the rest of the songs sounded nothing like that hit single—the record quickly submerged me in […]

The post Four years after sharing a bill, Modern English and Ganser team up for another night of dark postpunk appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Founded by Lorna Donley and David Thomas of DA!, the Veil broke up in 1989 without a formal release—but this month they finally get one.

The post Pulling back the veil on the Veil appeared first on Chicago Reader.

This is the first time I’ve reviewed a soundtrack without seeing the movie, but a good soundtrack should stand on its own. And in the case of Annette (which comes out August 6), the soundtrack was created by Sparks—a band I’ve loved since I was a young lad—so I was more than up for the […]

The post Sparks continue their renaissance with the soundtrack for Annette appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Irish dream-pop genius Joe Cassidy lived in Chicago for more than a decade and became a beloved part of our music scene.

The post Mourning Joe Cassidy of Butterfly Child appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Ari Brown hasn’t often sought the spotlight, but his blend of bebop rigor and avant-garde daring puts him on par with the likes of Fred Anderson and Von Freeman.

The post Ari Brown belongs in Chicago’s canon of great tenor saxophonists appeared first on Chicago Reader.

James Holvay is best known for writing the Buckinghams’ “Kind of a Drag” and cofounding the Mob, but he’s still making music more than 50 years later.

The post James Holvay helped create Chicago’s famous horn-rock sound in the 1960s appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It’s a common misconception that true, filthy rock ’n’ roll died in the early 80s after being eclipsed by new wave, whose shiny commercial sound piled on the gated reverb, drum machines, keytars, and New Romantic vocals. In fact, noisy rock and garage punk flourished underground during that era, thanks to the likes of the […]

The post Australian garage-punk luminaries the Scientists keep the scuzz rock going strong on Negativity appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Skanking Lizard’s new vinyl retrospective, Original Chicago Reggae: 1978-1996, quadruples the number of formally released tracks in their discography.

The post Skanking Lizard helped birth Chicago’s live reggae scene appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In his tragically short life, Ron Haydock careened through rockabilly, monster magazines, pulp novels, and exploitation films.

The post Ron Haydock was a Renaissance man of trash culture appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Jackie Ross had a smash with “Selfish One” in 1964—but that just happens to be the best-selling single from her decades of great songs.

The post Soul singer Jackie Ross is so much more than a one-hit wonder appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago singer-songwriter RJ Griffith has released a cover of his uncle’s old R&B band the Fabulous Turks.

The post A local R&B favorite by the Fabulous Turks gets resurrected after half a century appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In these dark days, when counterculture heroes of the 60s and 70s are dropping at an alarming rate, it’s important to take a break from mourning and assess who’s still standing—and who’s still creating vital art. By all rights, singer-songwriter Marianne Faithfull could have left us long ago. She rose to fame as much for […]

The post Marianne Faithfull and Warren Ellis set poetry to music on She Walks in Beauty appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Gene Barge has done his most influential work as a sideman or producer, but he’s just as important as any of R&B’s marquee stars.

The post Saxophonist Gene Barge helped shape the sound of Chicago R&B appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Michael “Fuzzy” deLisle released just one single in his long career, but he’s played a staggering amount of great country rock and folk.

The post Michael ‘Fuzzy’ deLisle is an unsung hero of the fertile 1970s Champaign-Urbana scene appeared first on Chicago Reader.