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One of our customers was asking the other day about the jazz/blues
scene on Wells Street in the 60’s. It got me thinking and remembering so
I took a walk from Division to North avenue (south of Second City) on the
street where a lot of 60’s jazz and blues history happened. The street has
changed so much that the house numbers in this article may be only
approximate. Hopefully they’ll help you understand the scene.
Chicago author David Witter interviewed well-known blues
photographer Peter Amft for an article on the evolution o Chicago’s Old
Town. Of the 60s and 70s, Amft said “Old Town became a destination. I
would see Janis Joplin dragging her guitar case down the street, Mama
Cass on her way to Mother Blues, Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield,
who were from Chicago, were here. It was a bohemian atmosphere where
you would see people with guitars and long hair, a place where you could
fly your freak flag, a carnival that didn’t exist anywhere else.”
Yes, it was a draw for folkies and beatniks, but its vibrant music scene
attracted a much broader spectrum of music afficianados.
The early and brief Wells Street blues scene occurred north of North..
I think the first club I remember was managed by some Roosevelt
University students who were blues fans before that was hip and hired
Curtis Jones to play piano. There was a licensing problem and Jones lost
the gig and decided to move to Paris. That would have been about 1961.
The next development: was a club at 1638 N. Wells that hadn’t done
well with a “Gay 90’s” image. Bob Wetlauffer was the manager there.
He had been previously tending bar at the Gate Of Horn. He featured Big
Joe Williams and his 9-string blues. Charlie Musselwhite had just come to
Chicago, was working at Jazz Record Mart, and would sit in with Joe on
guitar. Then Mike Bloomfield started sitting in so Charlie switched to
harmonica (I hadn’t known he played harp!). Paul Butterfield was the next
sitter-in on harp — a band scene was developing! As he often did without
notice, Joe left town suddenly and Paul was hired to put a band together
at Big John’s. When Howling Wolf toured Europe with the American Folk
Blues Festival in 1964, he left Sam Lay unemployed so he joined Paul’s
band and, as they say, history was made. Butterfield and Co. made
several trips to New York to record for Elektra. Someone told me the
engineers didn’t want to mike the guitar and bass speakers so a third
session was required to get the real Chicago sound.
The first jazz that I noticed on Wells was Eddie Davis’ trad band with
Jack “The Bear” Brown at Earl Pionke’s Old Town Gate at 1555 N. Wells.
Davis’ band was on the first album recorded by Leon Kelert for his
Blackbird label. Eddie’s now in charge of the Woody Allen band. You’ll
see him in the movie Wild Man Blues that documented a European tour of
Allen’s band. I believe Earl moved the Old Town past North Avenue
across the street from Second City and switched to a folk music policy that
gave the world the wonderful work of Steve Goodman and John Prine
among others.
In 1962, Little Brother Montgomery led a trad band at a club at 1321
N. Wells owned by Mike Pierpaoli, called The Plugged Nickel. The band
included Ted Butterman, tp; Peter Nyegaard, trombone; Bob Gorden, cl;
Ransom Knowling, b; Booker T. Washington, dms. The club later brought
in Woody Herman for a one-nighter which was so successful they changed
their policy to modern jazz. Joe Segal did Monday night sessions and
probably influenced their bookings which included Coleman Hawkins,
Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony
Williams and Wayne Shorter.Roy
Eldridge and eventually Miles
Davis, who recorded Miles
Davis At The Plugged Nickel
in December of 1965. The club
lost its liquor license and closed
in the early 70’s.
Little Brother moved to a club
at 1303 that encouraged its
customers to beat on the tables
with rubber-ended sticks they
dispensed. It didn’t help the
music and didn’t last long.
14
Wells Street In The ‘60s
The Rising Moon Singers (a folk group recording for Mercury)
had opened a club named after the group at 1305 N. Wells on New
Years Eve in 1961. Bob Connolly was in the group, playing trad
cornet. But the mob torched the place when the group declined
certain management.
Mother Blues was
erected at the same
location with a folk policy
until Bob Wetlauffer was
hired to run it for Lorraine
Blue. Blues and Jazz
were the policy then with
most of the great names
in blues playing there
when they were in town
both white and black,
including Janis Joplin,
Howlin’ Wolf, Otis Rush,
etc. Delmark recorded
J.B.Hutto there, Stompin’
At Mother Blues (778) in
1972.
Richard Harding, who had occasionally hired Big Joe Williams to
play at a folk club on Sedgwick just west of the Wells strip, eventually
moved Poor Richard’s next door to Mother Blues where he
presented, among others, Big Joe and Sleepy John Estes. Ted
Butterman had a Monday night gig with Nygaard, Kim Cusack, John
Cooper, p; Bob Sundstrom, bjo; Mike Walbridge, tuba; Wayne Jones,
dms, This may have been the first Quiet Night, which Harding later
ran very successfully next to the Belmont “L” station.. The Wells club
was a cozier little place well suited to country blues.
Down the street was a jive band that included Tiny Davis who’d
played trumpet with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. I
never got to hear Tiny play. I think it was a problem for her to exert
herself. Could that have been Holstein’s or Somebody Else’s
Troubles?
A small club at 1335 was still open presenting a trio. We did a
photo shoot of a Delmark drummer working there.
Vee-Jay Records’ Ewart Abner opened the Brown Shoe on
Wells, the site of the Paul Bunyan Restaurant. Howard Bednoe and
another record promoter managed it. They had learned about record
company’s tour support budgets - subsidizing tours by promising
rock groups. The club’s appearances could be tied in with promoting
the artist’s new albums. Joe Segal started doing Monday night
sessions which eventually resulted in an abandonment of the rock
policy in favor of Joe booking nationally renowned jazz acts. Six
months later Joe opened his first Jazz Showcase in the basement
club at the Happy Medium disco on Rush Street which was owned
by the Marienthal’s who also had the London House and Mr. Kelly’s,
I am not sure just when Judy Roberts’ Trio played at the Midas
Touch, closer to North Avenue but she was a fixture for a long time.
She may have been the first jazz on the strip. (She’s coming to the
Jazz Showcase in August.)
As was the case with Gaslight Square in St. Louis, there is a
suspicion that the police were encouraged not to cover Wells Street
too well so the crime rate went up. This would benefit the mob clubs
on Rush Street, wouldn’t it?
Did you know that in 1968 the city of Chicago passed an
ordinance closing all the parks at 11 PM. Prior to that, people used
to sleep in the park all night when it got really hot in summer, those
days before widespread air conditioning. The law was passed just
before the Democratic Convention of 1968. Some protesting kids
camped out in Lincoln Park east of the Wells strip. I was on my way
to a special Monday night concert at Mother Blues — the return of
veteran trombonist Preston Jackson’s to the trad scene. I got caught
up in the police rampage. Instead of dispersing the kids down wide
LaSalle Street or Clark Street which were closer to the park, they
penned them up on Wells, ran them up and down the street. Billy