Sweet Home Chicago

The Illinois Central Railroad, running from New Orleans through the Mississippi Delta and Memphis to Chicago, brought hundreds of blues musicians to the city. Adjusting to the noisy, bustling urban scene, these artists plugged their guitars into amplifiers, added piano and drums, and pioneered the Chicago Electric Blues.

Originating in the work and leisure-time songs of rural black laborers, the blues genre is most closely associated with the Mississippi Delta, the region surrounding the floodplain of the Yazoo River in northwest Mississippi. The Delta Blues uses a 12-bar format: a four-measure phrase that is repeated and then a capping four-measure phrase. The music has a strong rhythmic drive, and acoustic guitar and harmonica are the main instruments. Guitarists from the region often use a glass or metal slide on the fretboard to bend their notes, creating powerful emotional effects as they sing of love won and lost and the traveling life.

In the 1960s, music industry veteran Raeburn Flerlage captured the Chicago blues scene in thousands of photographs. He also documented many other facets of African American life in the city. Those images are now preserved at the Chicago History Museum. Take a look at a selection of these photographs that document the Chicago Electric Blues: a major cultural expression of the Great Migration and a widely influential musical form.

Rigid racial segregation kept Chicago’s black population largely confined to the South and West Sides of the city, often in older, substandard housing. The neighborhoods were crowded, but this also meant that blues music was woven into everyday life. Musicians’ homes, clubs, and record stores were all within blocks of each other

Blues clubs were fixtures in the neighborhood – musicians and patrons often knew one another, and each performance grew out of the interplay between musicians and audience.

Musicians often joined club goers for a drink and conversation between sets. Here Junior Wells takes a break at Theresa‘s.

Dancers at a Magic Sam date at the 1815 Club on the West Side.

Ella Jenkins grew up on Chicago’s South Side, surrounded by the sounds of blues, jazz, and gospel music. She became a distinguished music educator and performer, collecting children’s songs from around the world and writing many original compositions.

Photographer Rae Flerlage visited musicians in their homes. Here he catches pianist Otis Spann and harmonicist James Cotton in Muddy Waters’s basement.

On another occasion, Flerlage photographed harmonicist Big Walter Horton and pianist Eurreal “Little Brother” Montgomery at a house party.

Bob Koester’s Delmark was one of the more important of several Chicago independent record labels that specialized in the blues. Here Koester is at the piano to the right of Roosevelt Sykes, while Fred Below waits for his drum cue.

Willie Dixon—bassist, arranger, talent scout, and prolific composer—was at the heart of the Chicago blues scene. For many years, Dixon was employed by Chess Records, presiding over countless recording sessions. He wrote dozens of blues standards, including “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” “Little Red Rooster,” and “Wang Dang Doodle.”

Advice from the spirit world was available to Southside residents at 3433 South Michigan Avenue.

In addition to clubs, Chicago had large concert venues like the Regal Theater and the Trianon Ballroom, which hosted local groups and nationally known acts. Here West Tennessee native Robert “Bobby Blue” Bland and his band perform at the Trianon, 6201 South Woodlawn Avenue.

When Bland and other artists played in a concert setting, they would engage in call and response with the audience during their performances.

Jazz singer Nancy Wilson, who died in late 2018, was another nationally prominent performer photographed by Flerlage during a Chicago gig.

Donoghue Elementary School served an all-black student body at 707 East 37th Street; Rae Flerlage stopped by one day and took this shot.

Louisiana-born George “Buddy” Guy continues to perform at the Chicago club that bears his name, five decades after this photo was taken.

Many fans of rock music in the 1960s sought to explore its origins in the blues. Here Mike Bloomfield interviews one of his idols, Muddy Waters. An outstanding guitarist, Bloomfield was a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Electric Flag, later recording under his own name.

A typical club scene from the 1960s; John Littlejohn’s band is performing