Is it still a royal ball if someone brings a beer-helmet? Funk / jazz all-stars Soulive and Lettuce held court at the Vic Theatre Saturday night. more ›

Local soul showstoppers JC Brooks And The Uptown Sound will be releasing their second full-length album, Want More, Oct. 25 on Chicago label Bloodshot Records. more ›

Born August 17, 1944 in Richmond Indiana, James Ramey had a glandular condition that kept his weight fluctuating between 350-400 pounds. Matched with the fashion of the 1960s, a giant afro and a booming voice, Ramey was better known on Chicago stages as "Baby Huey." Ramey's sole album on Curtis Mayfield's Curtdom label combined the hard street soul of Mayfield with the psychedelic leanings of Sly & the Family Stone. more ›

Running just a little bit behind today, but we were in a soulful mood and thought, "How about some Liquid Soul?" more ›

Syl Johnson is a favorite here in the Chicagoist Bridgeport home office. His classic "Is It Because I'm Black" is a protest staple that Wu Tang Clan sampled later for "Hollow Bones." more ›

A few months back John Ciba, founder of local record label The Rabbit Factory, one-half of the East of Edens Soul Express DJ team and record crate digger extraordinaire, sent me a vinyl 7" single from local soul revivalists JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound, coincidentally signed to his label. more ›

With the Olympic bid picking up steam, one South Side organization sees it as a chance to build a new hybrid Metra-CTA line to connect under-served transit spots. Calling their proposed branch the Gold Line, Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation, or SOUL for short, has a plan but it's pretty expensive. According to the Trib: more ›

Blues Brother Dan Aykroyd is pulling a Coppola and entering the wine business. more ›

A few days after Le Lan chef Bill Kim announced he was leaving Le Lan (749 N. Clark) to focus on his new Urban Belly in Bucktown and Soul in Clarendon Hills, his chef de cuisine Chad Starling was named as the new executive chef of the River North eatery. more ›

Got some fun burby-blurbs for you this week along with our usual round-up of goings-on in the cit-tay. more ›

Erykah Badu's New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) is just completely and utterly fantastic, and believe us when we say that judgment is based on an objective level. Badu has long been a cypher of sorts -- is she an Earth mother? a revolutionary? an unbalanced eccentric? -- but New Amerykah draws together all the disparate threads of her personality and weaves them into a piece of work that stands as her strongest statement yet. more ›

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Howard Bedno and Peter Wright founded Twinight Records in 1967. The R&B/soul music label would go on to release fifty-five singles over the next five years, with five of them charting. more ›