The Chicago Blues Fest featured some incredible lineups in the 1980s. The tribute to Chess Records in 1986 probably ranks the highest, as...

Every time I hear a song by Whitney Houston – which unfortunately is not often enough nowadays – it reminds me of how powerful and...

Two common themes in these Weekend Warmups – if I finally start doing them regularly – will be discovery and wonder. Discovery is about...

Imagine that the best sixth men in NBA staged their own All-Star game after the season, and they did it in style: a pick-up game at a...

Some songs, when performed live, are like a salve for the soul. They make worries evaporate and time stand still, and they never fail to...

Seeing up-and-coming Stevie Ray Vaughan for the very first time in February 1984 was like a surprise party. What songs would he play? He...

It’s been almost 50 years, but I can still remember the anticipation whenever the mail carrier appeared a few houses away. He drove a...

Bill Campbell, a relief pitcher who passed away last week at the age of 74, will always occupy a special place in my treasure chest of...

Try to think of a famous American inventor whose home and workplace are museums. Henry Ford? Yup. Thomas Edison? Of course. That pantheon...

You can’t tell the full story of modern blues and modern popular music without highlighting Willie Dixon, who passed away on this day 30...

“Play the song that got you here!” That’s what country music legend Roy Acuff recommended back in the day as he welcomed young performers...

“Where are you from?” The question came from a neighboring table at the Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and it wasn’t...

Buddy Guy has mellowed, but in a way that is still pure Buddy Guy. By the time the 85-year-old legend departed the stage at Horseshoe...

Whether a start-up survives more than five years is essentially a coin toss, according to data from the US Small Business Administration....

The TL/DR version:21-year-old artist Christone "Kingfish" Ingram and his stellar supporting team serve up an irresistible blend of...

Stevie Ray Vaughan passed away 31 years today in a helicopter crash in southern Wisconsin. He left behind not only an immense musical...

The marquee of the Riviera Theater delivers a somber reminder of one of Covid’s worst economic and social side effects: no live music....

Imagine smelling a mixture of exhaust fumes, burnt rubber, grease, and gasoline, laced with a residue of cigarette smoke and intensified...

Last Saturday, as we got ready to see Joanna Connor perform at Rosa’s on Chicago’s West Side, I couldn’t get an up-tempo version of...

This week’s great road-trip food comes from Chadron, Nebraska (pop. 5,591) Flat and full of endless corn fields. If you ask someone to...