For immediate release 7/26/04

Contact: Piano C. Red, 312-437-0808; Steve Balkin 312-341-3696 Email: mar@REMOVETHIStopicbox.com

 

Blues Still Holdin On Maxwell Street

 

Piano C. Red, who use to play in front of the Johnnie Dollar Thrift Shop on Old Maxwell Street, has returned to the New Maxwell Street Market with his Flat Foot Boogie Band.   He plays there every Sunday, weather permitting, at the far southern end of the New Maxwell Street Market, on Canal Street, on the bridge, by 16th Street.  The 400 vendor Market operates every Sunday.  Piano C. Red is there from 10AM to 3PM.  There is no admission to the market.  There is usually available free parking on 16th Street, just west of Canal.

 

Blues fans are welcome to listen; musicians are welcome to sit in; and dancers are welcome to strut their stuff, especially steppers, lindy hoppers, and jitterbugers.  

 

Piano C. Red says “Blues still holdin on Maxwell Street.  We working to keep the street tradition alive.  All my musicians played on old Maxwell Street and I brought them here to here so that people can hear and feel the sounds of the legends of that sacred place of Blues.  We want people to have a good time.  Just last week, Maxwell Street regular Clarence ‘Little Scotty’ Scott and a “sister” who has a Blues record company in Dallas came to sing.  This is the best deal in town.  Every Sunday, it’s a friendly, free, grassroots street-funky party.”  

 

Blues critic David Whiteis comments, “The music is bouncy and memorable alternating between Jump Blues, Rhythm and Blues, and Chicago Blues.  When Red plays his keyboard, it’s a boogie woogie sound like Otis Span, Jimmy Yancey, or Little Brother Montgomery played.”       

   

Streve Balkin, Vice President of Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition, says, “Slivers of Old Maxwell Street’s soul remain in the vibrant Sunday New Maxwell Street Market and the live traditional street Blues still played there.    The sorry thing is that no one knows about this.   There are Blues fans all over Chicago and tourists who are Blues fans. Yet, few come to this because they do not know this authentic Blues venue exists.   Musicians need an audience. This could die out soon if people don’t come out to it. There are only two live Blues street jams left: here and at Wallace’s Catfish Corner on the weekend evenings on the West Side.  I just heard that the polish sausage stands from old Maxwell Street on S. Union and Roosevelt Rd will be allowed, thank God, to continue to exist.  That and this Piano C. Red street Blues fest is like an arm poking out from the grave of Old Maxwell Street grasping to live on.  Blues fans and those wanting an authentic Chicago experience need to reach out to that arm and embrace it to keep this part of Chicago’s culture alive.  These are things to tell your children and grandchildren about.”

 

Other music playing at the market, at various locations and from time to time, include a Mexican hard rock band, a Mexican accordionist and a violin player, an Ecuadorian wooden flute ensemble, and Joe Patterson’s Cut Rate Blues Band.    


For more information about Maxwell Street see <http://www.openair.org/maxwell/preserve.html> and <http://www.maxwellstreet.org>.


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