The blues are coming to the North Shore

/Home/Blues Festivals and Concerts in the US/Blues Festival Articles and Reviews

The blues are coming to the North Shore
June 4, 2009
By J.T. MORAND
Pioneer Local

Michael Frank was adding some more "Honeyboy miles" to his car as he and longtime friend and blues guitarist David "Honeyboy" Edwards drove to the Eureka Springs Blues Weekend in Eureka Springs, Ark.

Then, it was on to the B.B. King Museum and Interpretive Center in Indianola, Miss.
David "Honeyboy" Edwards, 93, is one of the elder statesmen of the blues to perform at Blues on the North Shore. He still travels by car to blues festivals with friend and Earwig Music founder Michael Frank.

Drummer Kenny Smith will perform with The Blue Four, a group of younger bluesmen with Chicago roots, during the Mississippi Blues Experience on June 12.

Bob Corritore, a New Trier grad who grew up in Wilmette, will show off his chops as a blues harmonica player during Blues on the North Shore. Corritore saw Muddy Waters played in New Trier's gym his senior year.

As much as Frank, 60, likes managing, traveling and performing with Edwards, 93, he was looking forward to returning home to the Chicago area for the 2nd annual Blues on the North Shore, a three-day blues festival in Evanston and Northbrook with several musicians on the Earwig Music label, the Chicago-based record and management company founded by Frank 30 years ago.

Six "generations" of blues artists will perform, mingle and educate audiences about the blues June 11-13. Many of the label's youngest musicians haven't played with the oldest musicians before. But, at SPACE in Evanston, the generations will play as one during the Mississippi Blues Experience.

"Everybody on the show has a different style and approach to the music," Frank said.

The festival also includes a blues trio class at Fat Tone Guitars in Northbrook, a trip by school bus to the Chicago Blues Festival, a showcase of Columbia College blues musicians and a CD release party for Chicago native Jeff Dale and the South Woodlawners at Bill's Blues Bar in Evanston.

Blues on the North Shore is about more than entertainment. It's about passing on the blues torch to the younger generations.

Lynn Orman Weiss, executive producer of the festival, was bitten by the blues bug when she was a child living in a bi-racial community on Chicago's South Side. Her father, a harmonica player, used to take her to Maxwell Street, considered the birthplace of Chicago blues and where the Blues Bus, a record store on wheels, was parked.

"For a little girl, it was kind of an interesting scene," she said.

Her family moved to Skokie when she was 13. At 14, she started going to Amazing Grace Club in Evanston, where she saw many blues and folk acts perform in the 1970s.

Today, she represents numerous blues artists. In 2007, she witnessed Edwards win his first Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album, which wasn't televised, and thought, "People really need to know who this guy is." Soon after, she found herself organizing the 2008 festival.

"We had fathers with sons there. I had my kids there," she said. "It was wonderful."

Bob Corritore agrees.

The 1974 New Trier graduate from Wilmette grew up listening to the blues and now is a blues harmonica player and recording artist, owner of a blues bar in Phoenix called Rythm Room, and host of a weekly blues radio program. When he was 12, he heard Muddy Waters on the radio and was hooked.

"I rode my bike to Paul's Recorded Music in downtown Wilmette and picked up a Muddy Waters album," Corritore said. "That album was filled with great Little Walter harmonica, which inspired me to play."

Frank, who also plays harmonica, is looking forward to it, too, especially the camraderie between blues musicians and audience.

"I'll probably play a couple of numbers with somebody," he said. "I'll definitely be on stage."

Partial proceeds from Blues on the North Shore will benefit A Safe Haven, a recovery home for people with drug and alcohol addictions.