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Sweet Home Chicago
Women On the Scene

by Christine M. Kreiser

Three artists of the Delmark label - Shirley Johnson, Zora Young, and Big Time Sarah - discuss the ups and downs of being blueswomen in the city that produced Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters.

Chicago blueswoman Shirley Johnson isn't troubled by the bad economic news. With a regular gig at Blue Chicago on the city's North Side and her busiest festival season ever, Johnson says there's plenty of work to be had.

"It's just finding the people that want to do it," she says. "You can work seven nights a week in the blues scene."

Johnson, along with Delmark labelmates Zora Young and Big Time Sarah Streeter, is one of a number of women keeping Chicago's blues clubs viable in these tough times. They might not be as well known outside the Windy City as reigning Queen of Chicago Blues Koko Taylor, but Johnson, Young, and Streeter are a big part of what's being hailed as a revival of female blues singers in a city best known for its legendary male guitarists.

Johnson grew up in Norfolk, Va., where she started singing gospel at age 6. She developed a regional career in soul and pop before heading to Chicago in 1983 to try her hand at the blues.

"I was going to the clubs, sitting in," Johnson says. "It wasn't easy to get to where I could work the clubs and get paid. It took a while to really get into the clique. That didn't happen to me until the early '90s."

That clique included Chicago mainstays like Buster Benton, with whom Johnson worked for four years. She then spent two years with Little Johnny Christian at the Checkerboard Lounge before Professor Eddie Lusk introduced her to the North Side clubs where she now performs.

The blues scene had begun shifting from the fabled South and West sides of Chicago to the North Side in the 1960s. By the '80s, that transformation was nearly complete.
"There were still some wonderful places on the South and West sides," says blues historian Bill Dahl. "The North Side was teeming with blues places: B.L.U.E.S. on North Halsted, the [Kingston] Mines, Blue Chicago just north of the Loop, Rosa's on the Northwest Side."

North Side audiences were predominantly white; today, many in those audiences are likely to be tourists who don't have the most discriminating taste in blues. Some performers and serious fans believe that blues' status as a tourist attraction stunts the music's growth: "Why would bands bother to write their own material when 'Mustang Sally' and 'Sweet Home Chicago' get them over with suburbanites and conventioneers?" asks Dahl. It's a valid question, but the fact remains that the North Side has become a vital link in the blues chain.

(continue to part 2)

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