Blues Exhibition Coming To Chicago History Museum

CHICAGO, IL — Chicago History Museum has announced a new blues exhibition will open to the public Saturday. Museum visitors will be offered the chance to explore how blues music was electrified and amplified in Chicago, where it captured the attention of musicians and music enthusiasts worldwide.

“Blues music helped southern black migrants forge connections and transform an unfamiliar, often inhospitable city into a new home,” said Joy Bivins, the museum's director of curatorial affairs. “The Chicago blues sound, rooted in the past, reflected the realities of a new life that was taking shape in the Midwest metropolis.”

The photography of Raeburn Flerlage, a local record distributor and photographer of the city’s music scene, will provide the foundation for the interactive exhibition, the museum said. His images documented the streets, clubs, homes and studios of the 1950s and ‘60s, where a community of musicians defined the Chicago blues sound.

“Flerlage captured a critical moment in the development of Chicago blues,” said Bivins. “His photographs bring to life the artists who developed and refined the sound as they shared the music in their homes and throughout the city.”

Visitors will be invited to write and sing their own blues songs, or belt out blues classics in a club setting that pays tribute to the live performances that energized the South and West Side Chicago clubs. Visitors can also design their own album covers, drawing inspiration from Flerlage’s collection of album photography. The exhibit will also feature an interactive mixing board that demonstrates how recording engineers helped shape the Chicago blues sound, and a digital guitar interactive station that guides visitors through basic blues chords and scales to play rhythm or lead guitar, the museum said.

Artist spotlights will feature some of the originators and practitioners of the Chicago Blues sound, including Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Willie Dixon, Koko Taylor and Muddy Waters.

Admission to the exhibition is included with regular museum admission ($19 adults/ $17 seniors and students, and free for children 12 years of age and younger and Illinois residents 18 years and younger). The exhibition will run through August 10, 2019.

Public programs will take place throughout the run of the exhibition. Programs include “Civic Talk: Chicago Blues,” a discussions with Joy Bivins and legendary blues harmonica player and singer Billy Branch; the Blues Bus Tour that stops at Chess Records; and a three-part Blues Community Concert Series in Fall of 2018.

Image courtesy of Chicago History Museum: Image 1 - CHICAGO BLUES BROADSIDE - Poster for Chicago’s Blues All-Stars: performances by Big Walter Horton, Eddie Taylor, Floyd Jones, Sam Lay, with emcee Amy Atomic Mama O'Neal. At King's Club Waveland, Chicago, Illinois, 1974; Image 2: Album cover ‘Evil’ by Howlin’ Wolf. Credit: Chicago History Museum; Image 3: Album cover ‘Piano Blues Legends.’ Credit: Chicago History Museum