Sweet Home Chicago

As well as buildings Chicago has perfectly designed public spaces, the best being Millenium Park, completed in 2004 (the Chicagoan Indian calendar is late by 4 years), and housing the spectacular public performance space. We serendipitously stumbled upon a showing of BBC’s Blue Planet, accompanied by a live performance of the score by the Grant Park Orchestra, and conducted by the composer himself, George Fenton.
It was fantastic to hear all the trials and tribulations behind the scenes and what each section meant to him. Especially the last episode where the cameraman almost died when the big whale fell into the water on top of him!

Other highlights included the Shedd Aquarium, which came with free smugness courtesy of our savvy refusal to pay the $40 entrance fee, instead paying the almost secret $8 general admission and creeping illicitly into the forbidden special exhibitis. Only the sealions ever knew, and Jade threatened them into eternal silence.

Jade note: We caught the turtles eating breakfast. They are like little old people who very slowly gobble up the strawberries. Very mesmorising – see the video!

We also took a 1920s cocktail tour, including some fantastic stories and sights of the gangster past. A particular treat was found in the basement of Harry Carays which had been the hideout of the notorious mobster Nitti. His escape tunnel and safe are still there, as well as original news clippings from the time. There we met Dawn & Annie, the finest ladies Milwaukee has ever produced, who became our  dinner companions that night. We also met Steve Taylor, a young writer who is travelling the US for 14 months working at a different advertising agency each month, and blogging his experience at www.thegreatagencyadventure.com

We departed Chicago with a measure of sadness, mostly because it was 4am, but also because in 6 days it had deepened our hearts, as well as our dishes. As we speak we are descending into Seattle, below us the mountains blossoming with snow and clouds.
For more pictures please see Greg’s amazing blog: www.basketoflight.weebly.com (also on top right corner tab).

For those wanting a bit more info we learnt loads on our drinking tour – and I took notes so I can share the interesting things with you. (Greg called me Hermione taking notes but I wanted to remember!).
Prohibition came around because of the vast amount of immigrants, who were supposedly bringing alcohol into the country as well as some bad morals. This xenophobia fuelled the local population to call for abstinence thinking that this would curtail the licentiousness.
The alcohol was still imported but now it was harder to get. The mobs were mainly in control of it, and would make it go further by diluting the drinks. However, a man by the name of Willie McCoy would import his rum from Jamaica but wouldn’t let anyone dilute it, hence you asked for ‘the real Mccoy’.

Another tidbit of info was that the term ‘the underground’ was coined in Chicago as the city has been built up several times. The cars in the city centre run on three levels, the top, the middle and the underground, its quite amazing to see cars driving on various levels under the main city streets. This was because Chicago was originally built on a swamp, so as the seasons changed the roads became impassable, so they built roads on stilts, and then raised the city again. The mob owned/used most of the underground passages during prohibition. 

If you look up, at the top of the Intercontinental building in Chicago there is a docking station for a dirigible. There are also a few at the top of several buildings in NYC incl the Empire State building.  Airships/Zepplins/Dirigibles were the new way to travel in the 1920’s before the Hindenburg accident.

The term ‘Speakeasy’ came about because you when you went up to the barman to order your prohibited drink, you were asked to ‘Lower your voice and speak easy’.

Lastly my favourite jazz musician Fats Waller came to Chicago to perform during the 1920’s and late one night after the gig he was jumped by several men and bundled up into a car. He was then driven to a bar outside of Chicago and taken into a room full of booze and people. They pointed a gun to his back and said ‘play the piano’. He sat down and did it, then slowly recovering from fright he realised that they were celebrating Al Capone’s birthday party! The celebrations lasted three days and at the end of it he was put in a cab back to Chicago with hundreds of dollars in tips!!!

The Music
I just had to add for that we continued our musical odyssey by visiting the home of Chess Records, now known as Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven. To backtrack, in 1900s Storyville in New Orleans was a thriving red light and jazz district. But in 1917 when the US Army was stationed there, they closed it as they didnt not want the troops to have ‘immoral distractions’ whilst they were deploying. 
So all these musicians came to Chicago, along with all the poor black musicians working on the cotton farms from the delta triangle (that we spoke about in the last post!) known as the Great Migration. The fusion of New Orleans Jazz and the southern blues became known as Chicago Blues.
They all came to Chicago, so you had some of the greatest blues musicians arriving in Chicago around the same time, these included :
” Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Willie Dixon; guitar players such as Tampa Red, Buddy Guy, Bo Diddley, Elmore James and Lefty Dizz; and “harp” (blues slang for harmonica) players such as Big Walter Horton, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson I, Syl Johnson, Charlie Musselwhite, Junior Wells, and, most notably, James Cotton.
(From wiki)

There were so many great musicians coming into Chicago. Many busked on street corners hoping to get discovered, like Buddy Guy who was busking when Muddy Waters heard him. He told him to come along and took him to a blues club and told him to get up on the stage and play. And that’s how he got started!

That was just one of the great stories we heard when we toured the Chess Studio with the grandson of songwriter Willie Dixon. It was great and personal with only myself, Greg and two older ladies who were massive fans of the Chess artists. He told us great stories about the artists, Chuck Berry, and Otis Spann. In particular he told us his grandfather Willie Dixon (was a songwriter for the artists), rang up Koko Taylor at 1am to tell her he had just written a hit song for her! In true sassy style she said ‘Willie, why don cha just call me in the mornin’?”
“Because I wrote this for ya and its gonna be a hit!” Sure enough, that was Wang Dang Doodle… see the clip below.

Chess Records were instrumental in getting Blues musicians noticed and appreciated amongst the white and black community. They’d have a recording session in the morning and if it was any good, the Chess brothers would send the recordings over the road to be printed and stamped that afternoon. Then they’d pack the new records into their car and drive to New York to give it to the DJ’s on the radio there and other promoters.  It’s just amazing to think that was how things were done back then, compared to now.

I will leave you with a little quote from Willie about how he felt about the blues….
“The Blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling, and understanding.”
Willie Dixon

We also had the Best Burger in the world. It was at Kuma’s Corner where burgers are mixed with heavy metal. An Iron Maiden anyone? See the pic below!