Music Resources
The film's soundtrack is part oral history, part musical history. The Great Migration had a profound impact on American-and consequently world popular music. Blues musicians from the South, like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf moved North and electrified their country blues creating the basis for much contemporary R&B, rock, and pop music.
Goin' to Chicago includes historic recordings by Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers and others, but it also includes live music recorded in community venues specifically for the film by contemporary musicians, such as Delta Blues great James "Son" Thomas (now deceased) and Chicago harp player Billy Branch and the SOB Band. In fact, the soundtrack of the film is like a voyage through black musical history-beginning with the field hollers that sounded the origins of the blues, and passing through R&B, gospel and jazz, to a rap improvised by young residents in Chicago's Cabrini Green housing project.
Apart from the music in the film listed below, many of the classic blues and R & B recordings are included in the collections of: The Library of Congress, Arhoolie, Ace, Chess Records, Stax/Watt, Motown, and Atlantic. Look for recordings by: Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Willie Dixon (Mississippi), Buddy Guy (Louisiana), Lightnin' Hopkins (Texas) Memphis Minnie, Rufus Thomas, and Al Green (Memphis).
Contemporary labels to check out would include: Alligator, Rhino, Rooster Blues, Malaco, and Blind Pig. Some contemporary Chicago blues artists: Honeyboy Edwards, Son Seals, Magic Slim, Eddie Clearwater, Eddie C. Campbell, and the great Koko Taylor, originally from near Memphis, Tennessee, who is interviewed in the film. Other contemporary blues artists: B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Bobby Rush, and Shenekia Copeland. Some noted Chicago R & B artists: Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions, Sam Cooke, the Dells, Jerry Butler, Etta James, The Staples Singers, Gene Chandler, Billy Stewart.
The Blues Archive at the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture is a very important collection of music and artifacts.
Related Books
DEEP BLUES, by Robert Palmer, NY Penguin Books, 1982 One of the best books written on the origins and early artists.
BLUES PEOPLE, Negro Music in White America, by Amiri Baraka, Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1980
NOTHING BUT THE BLUES, by Lawrence Cohn, Abbeville Press, 1993
CHICAGO SOUL, by Robert Pruter, University of Illinois Press, reprinted 1992 An excellent review of Chicago's R & B scene
AMERICA'S MUSIC: From The Pilgrims To The Present (Revised Third Edition) by Gilbert Chase, Illini Books edition, 1992. 1987 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
THE NEW ROLLING STONE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ROCK & ROLL: Completely Revised And Updated by Paul Evans, Steve Futterman, Elysa Gardner, Mark Kemp, Evelyn McDonnell, Steven Mirkin, and Michael Shore. Fireside Books: Rolling Stone Press, 1995.
JOEL WHITBURN'S TOP R&B SINGLES 1942-1988 (Compiled from Billboard's charts) by Joel Whitburn. Record Research Books, 1988. Sites
Websites
http://nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=blues&id=426&Next »5
The Blues Ring Webring. It contains hundreds of blues sites. Some are commercial sites, but the "ring" is a useful blues research tool.
http://cpl.lib.uic.edu/001hwlc/vpablues/cba.html
The site contains bibliographies of books written about music contained within the Chicago Public Library.
http://www.rockhall.com/home/default.asp
This is one of my favorite sites - Rock And Roll Hall of Fame. Once one starts searching the site search engine, one will see that the inductees are not limited to pure rock and roll. Once the search results for a specific artist come up, the Hall of Fame includes an in-depth bio of the artist or group and lists charted singles and their chart positions along with dates. However, unfortunately--I'm sure due to copyright changes for the Internet--the site no longer offers recording clips for the artists.
http://www.bsnpubs.com/discog.html
A direct link to the Both Sides Now discography page. It has been greatly expanded to include labels such as ATCO, Atlantic, Dunhill, along with complete discographies from Chicago based CHESS (and its subsidiary labels) and Vee-Jay, etc. The listings cover the entire catalogs from recording labels with dates for each entry. It is a great tool for not only finding specific dates for particular releases, but it is also beneficial in tracking the recording progress of individual artists.
Junior's Juke Joint is written by a cultural anthropologist who lives in the Mississippi Delta, Louisiana side, and spends lots of time in Delta juke joints. You'll take a trip inside the places where the blues began — edge-of-a-cotton-field juke joints filled with real Delta folks.
Contact the Filmmakers
To comment or ask question about Goin' to Chicago or this website, e-mail us at www.georgeking-assoc.com