The scene is the 1985 Chicago Blues Festival. Grant Park is brimming with people, many of whom are jockeying for seats and blanket space as close to the band shell as possible. Opening night of the city’s annual free festival, which celebrates its incredibly rich blues heritage, will draw upwards of 100,000 people. The next two nights will attract crowds nearly as large. It is indeed a grand affair—one, you think, that should be celebrating its twentieth anniversary rather than its second. The lineup for the three days and nights of music is quite impressive: Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Koko Taylor, Johnnie Taylor, Lowell Fulsom, John Hammond, Jr., Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Etta James, Big Joe Turner, Sunnyland Slim, Pee Wee Crayton, Lonnie Brooks, Sippie Wallace, Clifton Chenier, and many more. The music begins each day at noon with performances on a small stage adjacent to the band […]

December 1985 Issue