AltWeeklies Wire
Jerry Butler: Soul Survivornew

Jerry "Iceman" Butler was an A-list soul singer, playing with Curtis Mayfield and Otis Redding. Today, he mulls taxes and health care as the longest-serving member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners.
Chicago Reader |
Ted Cox |
04-12-2011 |
Music
Nirvana: Back in 'Bleach'new

The first Nirvana album was probably the last one you heard, but it marks a critical chapter in Seattle music history. It's worth going back to for a fresh -- or first -- listen, even two decades after the fact and long after grunge was laid to rest.
Seattle Weekly |
Chris Kornelis |
11-02-2009 |
Music
We Found the First Jackson Five Recording, and It's Earlier Than Anyone Thoughtnew

This was supposed to be the story of the Jackson Five's first single, cut in Chicago in 1967. But while writing it, we picked up the trail of a tape nobody knew existed: the earliest known studio recording of Michael Jackson and his brothers.
Chicago Reader |
Jake Austen |
09-14-2009 |
Music
The 1969 Texas International Pop Festival is History's Forgotten Festivalnew
This entire summer, pop culture has been inundated with Woodstock nostalgia. But another landmark festival happened just weeks later. While Texas International Pop Festival's attendance was quite a bit smaller than Woodstock's, it was still a lot of folks, perhaps the largest public gathering in the state to date.
Houston Press |
Chris Gray |
09-08-2009 |
Music
Soul Train's Chicago Rootsnew

The show that put black music on TVs across America got its start in Chicago -- and even after it moved to LA, Chicago kept its own version running daily for nearly a decade.
Chicago Reader |
Jake Austen |
10-06-2008 |
Music
How Sonny Rollins Defeated Heroinnew

In his six-decade career, the legendary saxophonist has claimed many a triumph. But his greatest may have come in the 1950s, during a quiet period in Chicago.
Chicago Reader |
Neil Tesser |
09-02-2008 |
Music
Michigan's Most Important Rock Fest Remains Obscure Footnote in Rock Historynew
In the summer of 1970, the Goose Lake International Music Festival was held in Jackson, Michigan, and attracted over 200,000 fans. Unlike Woodstock, it didn't rain and most of those folks actually paid to get in. Despite this, Goose Lake remains an obscure footnote in Midwestern rock history, the big show that hardly anyone outside Michigan has heard about.
Metro Times |
Mark Deming |
07-08-2008 |
Music
Warwick Stone is the Hard Rock's King of Collectorsnew

Walking through one room on the sixth floor of the Hard Rock Hotel is a crash course in half a century of popular music. Stone is the man responsible for all this music memorabilia.
Las Vegas Weekly |
T.R. Witcher |
05-16-2008 |
Music