Results tagged “kokotaylor”

Cora "Koko Taylor" Walton was hailed by many as the "Queen of the Blues," helped prove that the blues wasn't just a man's game, and sang her ass off for decades. She won just about every musical award known to the industry, she was a ball of fire and could "make love to a alligator crocodile." And sadly, she passed away here in Chicago yesterday due to complications from gastrointestinal surgery.

Valentine's Day is nothing but a pre-fab holiday designed to get consumers to spend money on crap for each other ... especially if you're single. Instead of battling the hordes for a good table at a restaurant this evening, why not just order out from Art of Pizza, rent a movie and enjoy a few hours of twisted romance with one of these:

Some arty-farty Chicago stories we’ve been checking out on the internets today: * The National Endowment for the arts awarded $1.1 million in grants to various people, places and things that make life worth living in Illinois. Recipients include some Chicago heavyweights like the Lyric Opera and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as well as the Mexican Fine Arts Center and Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice. To our mind, the Chicago Jazz Orchestra Association is putting...

If it seems that Chicagoist has been writing a lot lately about wine there's a reason besides we'e drinking a lot of it. Governor Blago has declared September as the first Illinois Wine Month. The number of wineries in the state has grown in the past eight years from twelve to sixty, producing an estimated 500,000 gallons a year. Grape acreage especially has expanded from 140 acres to over 1,000 acres in that same...

The Chicago Tribune’s readers nominated “Chicago blues” as their fourteenth and final nominee for the 7 Wonders of Chicago. But Chicagoist is wondering if we’ll soon speak of the blues as an ancient wonder of the city instead of a living one.

While Lollapalooza is casting a big shadow over the other music events this summer, you don’t need to spend $85 (or $100 or $115) to see live music in the city. Metromix has posted dates for the various fests that celebrate local neighborhoods and musical genres this summer. Lineups for the neighborhood fests have yet to be announced but the schedules for the 21st Annual Chicago Gospel Music Festival and the 22nd Annual Chicago Blues Festival are out. Plus, they’re free.

An article in The Chicago Journal last week detailed the efforts of a Japanese television crew that sought to document the last vestiges of the Maxwell Street blues scene. The authenticity of the current scene could most charitably be described as “in question” (if for no other reason but its presence on Canal Street rather than Maxwell Street. Fortunately, the flag for Chicago blues is still carried nightly by an army of local musicians in...