Barrelhouse Bonni--piano player, writer, blues educator, activist, film producer, and history/household organizer --blues music is a bridge between ethnic groups and generations. She has found local arts, history and business are keys to bringing people together in our challenging times.
READ BONNI's West Side Blues BLOG at Austin Weekly News. Austin is the farthest west neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago.
Around the Chicago area, from Blue Island to Oak Park and back to Pullman and Beverly this week, we’re bringing Black History up to date with Larry Hill Taylor’s autobiography Stepson of the Blues: A Chicago Song of Survival. Why are we going so many places? Because we want everyone to hear and think about the issues this book brings up.
Co-authoring Stepson took me into places I might never have gone. Larry grew up in the 1960s in the historic Lawndale neighborhood on Chicago’s rough and soulful West Side—home to the headquarters of Martin Luther King and also the Conservative Vice Lords gang and the Black Panther Party. Singer Vera Taylor, his mother, and guitarist Eddie Taylor, his stepfather, arrived from Mississippi during the Great Migration.
As we know, blues music helped African Americans survive Jim Crow abuse in the South and adjust to the big cities. This older form of Black music is the root of much American popular music--rock, jazz, R&B, soul, gospel, hiphop and even country. Blues still serves the urban community today, though it’s seldom heard on radio and TV. Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “The blues is the remedy to a worldwide epidemic of depression.” This music—and its musicians--could be put to work helping people cope with today’s economy!
For blues music to survive, today’s African-American musicians must survive, get paid and publicized, and pass on their music to youth. Living in the inner city is tougher than ever, as Larry will tell anybody. His outspoken views have drawn media attention and opposition by powers-that-be who have long blocked his music career. But some things just have to be said. Check out this article by Jean Lotus in the Forest Park Review:
The Chicago School of Blues, a traveling educational program, is a joyous, multi-cultural experience for students, guest musicians and teachers. Through music and movement we encourage cooperation and civility, while showing youth their connection to history. Hip Hop, Rock and Roll, Swing, R & B and many other styles of music are all derived from Heritage Blues.The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Aerosmith, Elvis Presley and other famed names openly credit the lineage of their sound back to Heritage Blues. Though simple in its origin, it created a complex platform for a global music explosion. Yet this organic sound is on the verge of extinction, and Chicago's musicians are anxious to pass it on to our youth.
Staffed by professional teaching artists and veterans of the Chicago blues stage, we customize our presentations for all ages and abilities to meet each school or community group’s specific needs.
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It took West Side blues singer and drummer Larry Hill Taylor’s harrowing 50-year voyage through gangs, prison and drugs to clarify his life purpose of spreading his musical heritage to the next generation. He’ll tell of his years with the Conservative Vice Lords, and play you some of his blues, on Monday April 4 at UIC.
Chicago’s elder blues artists are recognized worldwide, but Larry’s generation of their sons and daughters have not yet won much promotion. Larry’s autobiography Stepson of the Blues, co-authored with journalist and piano player Bonni McKeown, tells his life story and speaks out on the state of the blues as a musical art today.
Son of blues singer Vera Taylor and stepson of VJ recording artist Eddie Taylor who was best known for playing guitar with Jimmy Reed, Larry grew up in a house full of blues, in more ways than one. Grade school bullies and family problems led Larry to join the West Side gang in the mid 1960s.
At that time, the Vice Lords’ projects to improve the neighborhood were being squelched by political officials after the 1968 Lawndale riots. The Conservative Vice Lords ran an after-school youth center called the House of Lords, a clothing store the African Lion and a youth art center called Art and Soul. Black Panther leaders like Fred Hampton also tried to steer the gangs away from the drug trade, and worked toward education and economic development in the Black community. Read the history of the Vice Lords and other street gangs on UIC Professor John Hagedorn’s website www.gangresearch.net Hagedorn is the author of the book World of Gangs.
Taylor’s talk with Hagedorn’s sociology class on Chicago gangs begins at 4:30 p.m. Monday April 4, in lecture room #250 of the UIC Behavior Science Building,, 1007 W. Harrison, Chicago Illinois 60607. A concert by the Larry Taylor Blues and Soul Band will follow, from 5:30 to 6:30. The whole event is FREE and open to both UIC students and staff, and the public.
During the program, Larry and I will sell and autograph copies of Stepson of the Blues ($20) and Larry's CD They Were in This House ($15).
AustinTalks blog has an article on the concert this week
Read about Stepson of the Blues, buy the book and CD, and listen to some of Larry’s music at www.stepsonoftheblues.com
People join gangs for the same reason they join any social organization: to better themselves as they see it, and to belong to something greater than themselves. If Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had not been assassinated on April 4, 1968, he might join us in dreaming of, and working toward, a world where gangs of all sorts find it more productive to bang on drums instead of people.
Join us Monday. We really appreciate your support for keeping our awareness-raising effort going. Bring your open heart and mind!
Eddie Taylor family blues, Larry and Demetria “Bad Boy and Girl”
Demetria Taylor is the daughter of the late blues legend Eddie Taylor Sr. and is helping keep the legacy of her father alive. Eddie is best known as the rhythm guitarist in the band of Jimmy Reed, but he also had his own solo career and recorded some wonderful sides for the VJ label including the classic “Bad Boy”. Her mother Vera Taylor was also a blues singer. Demetria has fond memories of blues greats and friends of the family coming by the house including Floyd Jones, Carey Bell, Sunnyland Slim, Johnny Littlejohn, Sam Lay, Willie Kent, Tail Dragger, Eddie Shaw, Johnny B. Moore, and Magic Slim. Born in Chicago, Demetria grew up surrounded by Blues music listening on records to her biggest influences including Etta James, Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thornton, and most importantly, “The Queen of The Blues” Koko Taylor (no relation to her family).
