'The Chicago Blues Festival’s free satellite concerts in Austin and Bronzeville hope to revitalize blues culture in the neighborhoods that nurtured it for so long.' | David Whiteis
, a disciple of the late Denise LaSalle who works at west- and south-side neighborhood venues when she’s not doing more widely publicized shows at clubs like Buddy Guy’s Legends.This event is one of the city’s series of Taste of Chicago previews as well as part of the Chicago Blues Festival, which runs from Thu 6/9 through Sun 6/12.
Mzz Reese moved to Chicago from Jackson, Mississippi, when she was a teenager, and for her this gig is literally a homecoming. “I will be exactly one block over from where I grew up at,” she says. “So it’s really, really ‘back home’ for me. The very lot they’re setting the stage up at is where we once had the neighborhood carnivals, where we played softball against the other blocks, where I had several fights and also got my first boyfriend.
is probably the most aggressively forward-looking artist on the bill: she updates the blues and old-school rock ’n’ roll with the ferocity of modern hard rock, and also incorporates generous helpings of R&B, hip-hop, and ballad-heavy neosoul. The day culminates with a tribute to Muddy Waters led by Waters’s son Mud Morganfield and harmonica ace Billy Branch, backed by some of Chicago’s best-regarded roots-blues stylists.