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Queen Sylvia Embry was among Chicago's few professional female blues singers and bass players, recording albums, playing alongside blues guitarist Jimmy "Fast Fingers" Dawkins, and touring Europe.
The now-defunct Checkerboard Lounge blues bar doubled as a popular UChicago college hangout before it relocated to Harper Court. “We were there to be part of the South Side, to experience Chicago in that way.”—Ethan Michaeli (A.B. ‘89)
Bringing crowds to their feet at the hardest to please and sophisticated night clubs in the Midwest, Reverend Raven and the Chain Smoking Altar Boys play traditional blues, straight up with a big dose of passion. With smoking grooves, served up with hot harmonica and smooth stinging guitar they play original songs peppered with nods to Slim Harpo, Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers, Billy Boy Arnold, Junior Wells and the three Kings. Born and raised on south side of Chicago, the Reverend has been playing the blues since 1971 when he first saw Freddy King play at the Kinetic Theatre in Chicago.
With the Chicago Blues Guide deeming them “excellent” and Emmy-nominated actor Hugh Laurie upping the praise by calling them “bloody excellent,” the blues artists of Reverend Raven & the Chain Smokin' Altar Boys featuring Westside Andy play Davenport's Best Western Steeplegate Inn on May 7 in a concert co-presented by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society, the artists noted for
Photographer Marty Perez’s new book documents decades of rock and blues on Chicago stages.