BOSTON — Once again, the Celtics found themselves being pummeled by the Golden State Warriors in a third quarter.

And as Stephen Curry‘s 3-pointer fell through the basket with 3 minutes, 45 seconds to go in the third quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night, capping a 10-0 Golden State run and making it 83-82 Warriors, there was a collective groan from the sold-out crowd inside TD Garden:

Here we go, again.

Only, the Celtics — for the second time in this series — found a way to respond to a Warriors punch to the jaw in the third quarter with their own haymaker in the fourth, limiting Golden State to just 11 fourth-quarter points as Boston went on to win 116-100, lifting the C’s to a 2-1 series lead.

“I felt like our team really stayed poised in those moments,” Celtics center Al Horford said. “As you know, earlier in the year, that could have gone south quickly.

“But we stayed right with it and just locked in and didn’t panic and just continued to play.”

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As Horford alluded to, Boston hasn’t been a team capable of doing that all season long. But since the Celtics flipped their season around for good in late January, they’ve proved to be incredibly resilient. Wednesday’s Game 3 victory saw Boston improve to 7-0 in these playoffs in games following a loss, as the Celtics have yet to lose back-to-back games this postseason.

Since Jan. 23, the Celtics have gone 13-1 in games following a loss.

“I think that’s kind of when we turned our season around, when we turned that corner,” Boston forward Jayson Tatum said. “Earlier in the season, we would have given up leads and lost games like that, whereas now — things happen, right. They’re a great team. They’ve got great players. They’re going to make shots. They’re going to go on runs. But it’s all about how you respond.

“We didn’t hold our head down or anything. We called a timeout, regrouped, figured it out and made winning plays. I was definitely proud of the group for that.”

The Celtics had to do that because, once again, they failed to get any traction in the third quarter. Golden State has now outscored Boston by 43 points across the three third quarters so far in this series, as the Warriors have repeatedly been able to twist the Celtics into knots defensively.

That, of course, is driven by Stephen Curry, who finished with 31 points on 12-for-22 shooting in 37 minutes. He also generated a seven-point possession in the third quarter by hitting a 3 while being flagrantly fouled by Horford, allowing Curry to then hit the free throw, followed by Otto Porter Jr. knocking down another 3.

A minute later, a Curry 3 put Golden State up 83-82 — and put Boston back on its heels.

But rather than fall apart, the Celtics responded. They went on an 11-6 run over the final few minutes of the third quarter to retake the lead heading into the fourth. From there, the Celtics outscored Golden State 23-11, holding the Warriors to just one basket over the first three minutes as Boston went on a quick 9-2 run to balloon its lead back up into double digits.

“For me, it was just be poised,” Celtics guard Marcus Smart said. “Just stay calm. We’ve been here before. They’re a really good team. They’re going to go on runs, but so are we. We just have to bolt down and go on our run.”

It helped that Boston had Robert Williams III patrolling the paint. While Tatum, Smart and Jaylen Brown all put up more than 20 points, five rebounds and five assists — becoming the first trio of teammates to accomplish that feat in an NBA Finals game since Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Cooper did it for the Los Angeles Lakers against the Celtics in 1984 — it was Williams who was a team-best plus-21 in 25 minutes, finishing with eight points, 10 rebounds, four blocked shots and a mountain of hustle plays.

“He’s a game-changer,” Horford said of Williams. “Rob is really a game-changer. We’re very fortunate to have a guy like that that impacts winning in the way that he does, because it’s beyond the numbers with him. It’s just all the things that he brings, being in the right places. I’ve been so impressed with Rob, just his ability to just continue to get better and learn.

“He learns. We talk to him, I feel like we can ask a lot of him and he always takes it in, figures it out, and it’s better. But his stuff goes beyond the box score, the impact that he has on the game.”

Williams has seen that impact fluctuate from game to game throughout these playoffs, as he has been dealing with issues with his left knee for more than two months. He had surgery on his meniscus in that knee at the end of March, which knocked him out for the end of the regular season and the beginning of Boston’s first-round playoff series against the Brooklyn Nets.

He then suffered a bone bruise in that same knee in Boston’s second-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks, causing him to miss the final three games of that series, as well as Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Miami Heat. Since then, Williams has been questionable every game — only to be cleared in the hours leading up to tipoff.

“It’s been rough,” Williams said of managing his knee. “Throwing everything at it. Usually it’s more sore the day after the game, obviously, adrenaline going down. But we did some different things today, got on the bike a little bit earlier before the game. I benefited from it.”

That he was feeling good was clear. Williams was all over the place on the court, frequently scrambling for loose balls, flying across the lane to contest shots and finding himself in the center of the action consistently.

“I’m constantly talking to Rob, just for the simple fact I know what he’s going through,” Smart said. “He’s hurting, and even though he’s hurt, he still wants to get out and help his team. But at the same time, he’s thinking about his career. Like I just told him, ‘You know your body. You know what you can withstand and what you can’t. But just know, we’ve got a chance to do something special. There’s no guarantees that we’ll be back here. If you can go, we’ll take 20 percent of you better than none of you.’

“He understood that, and he decided to go out there and put his big boy pants on and suck it up and go crazy.”

The Celtics spent the three days between their ugly Game 2 loss and Game 3 talking about the need to play with more energy and effort. That message was evident from the opening tip, as Boston immediately set the tone with its physical play at both ends. Boston won the rebounding battle by 16, including grabbing 15 offensive rebounds, and didn’t allow Golden State to speed things up, committing just 12 turnovers — including only one in the fourth quarter.

As a result, Boston is now two wins away from a championship. And after once again bouncing back from a loss — as well as a body blow from the Warriors during the game itself — the Celtics now have to do what they have so regularly failed to do in these playoffs: respond like this to a win.

“Another bounce-back from us,” Celtics coach Ime Udoka said. “My message to the group was, ‘We’ve done this after losses; let’s respond the right way after a win now.'”

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BOSTON — Once again, the Celtics found themselves being pummeled by the Golden State Warriors in a third quarter.

And as Stephen Curry‘s 3-pointer fell through the basket with 3 minutes, 45 seconds to go in the third quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night, capping a 10-0 Golden State run and making it 83-82 Warriors, there was a collective groan from the sold-out crowd inside TD Garden:

Here we go, again.

Only, the Celtics — for the second time in this series — found a way to respond to a Warriors punch to the jaw in the third quarter with their own haymaker in the fourth, limiting Golden State to just 11 fourth-quarter points as Boston went on to win 116-100, lifting the C’s to a 2-1 series lead.

“I felt like our team really stayed poised in those moments,” Celtics center Al Horford said. “As you know, earlier in the year, that could have gone south quickly.

“But we stayed right with it and just locked in and didn’t panic and just continued to play.”

2 Related

As Horford alluded to, Boston hasn’t been a team capable of doing that all season long. But since the Celtics flipped their season around for good in late January, they’ve proved to be incredibly resilient. Wednesday’s Game 3 victory saw Boston improve to 7-0 in these playoffs in games following a loss, as the Celtics have yet to lose back-to-back games this postseason.

Since Jan. 23, the Celtics have gone 13-1 in games following a loss.

“I think that’s kind of when we turned our season around, when we turned that corner,” Boston forward Jayson Tatum said. “Earlier in the season, we would have given up leads and lost games like that, whereas now — things happen, right. They’re a great team. They’ve got great players. They’re going to make shots. They’re going to go on runs. But it’s all about how you respond.

“We didn’t hold our head down or anything. We called a timeout, regrouped, figured it out and made winning plays. I was definitely proud of the group for that.”

The Celtics had to do that because, once again, they failed to get any traction in the third quarter. Golden State has now outscored Boston by 43 points across the three third quarters so far in this series, as the Warriors have repeatedly been able to twist the Celtics into knots defensively.

That, of course, is driven by Stephen Curry, who finished with 31 points on 12-for-22 shooting in 37 minutes. He also generated a seven-point possession in the third quarter by hitting a 3 while being flagrantly fouled by Horford, allowing Curry to then hit the free throw, followed by Otto Porter Jr. knocking down another 3.

A minute later, a Curry 3 put Golden State up 83-82 — and put Boston back on its heels.

But rather than fall apart, the Celtics responded. They went on an 11-6 run over the final few minutes of the third quarter to retake the lead heading into the fourth. From there, the Celtics outscored Golden State 23-11, holding the Warriors to just one basket over the first three minutes as Boston went on a quick 9-2 run to balloon its lead back up into double digits.

“For me, it was just be poised,” Celtics guard Marcus Smart said. “Just stay calm. We’ve been here before. They’re a really good team. They’re going to go on runs, but so are we. We just have to bolt down and go on our run.”

It helped that Boston had Robert Williams III patrolling the paint. While Tatum, Smart and Jaylen Brown all put up more than 20 points, five rebounds and five assists — becoming the first trio of teammates to accomplish that feat in an NBA Finals game since Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Cooper did it for the Los Angeles Lakers against the Celtics in 1984 — it was Williams who was a team-best plus-21 in 25 minutes, finishing with eight points, 10 rebounds, four blocked shots and a mountain of hustle plays.

“He’s a game-changer,” Horford said of Williams. “Rob is really a game-changer. We’re very fortunate to have a guy like that that impacts winning in the way that he does, because it’s beyond the numbers with him. It’s just all the things that he brings, being in the right places. I’ve been so impressed with Rob, just his ability to just continue to get better and learn.

“He learns. We talk to him, I feel like we can ask a lot of him and he always takes it in, figures it out, and it’s better. But his stuff goes beyond the box score, the impact that he has on the game.”

Williams has seen that impact fluctuate from game to game throughout these playoffs, as he has been dealing with issues with his left knee for more than two months. He had surgery on his meniscus in that knee at the end of March, which knocked him out for the end of the regular season and the beginning of Boston’s first-round playoff series against the Brooklyn Nets.

He then suffered a bone bruise in that same knee in Boston’s second-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks, causing him to miss the final three games of that series, as well as Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Miami Heat. Since then, Williams has been questionable every game — only to be cleared in the hours leading up to tipoff.

“It’s been rough,” Williams said of managing his knee. “Throwing everything at it. Usually it’s more sore the day after the game, obviously, adrenaline going down. But we did some different things today, got on the bike a little bit earlier before the game. I benefited from it.”

That he was feeling good was clear. Williams was all over the place on the court, frequently scrambling for loose balls, flying across the lane to contest shots and finding himself in the center of the action consistently.

“I’m constantly talking to Rob, just for the simple fact I know what he’s going through,” Smart said. “He’s hurting, and even though he’s hurt, he still wants to get out and help his team. But at the same time, he’s thinking about his career. Like I just told him, ‘You know your body. You know what you can withstand and what you can’t. But just know, we’ve got a chance to do something special. There’s no guarantees that we’ll be back here. If you can go, we’ll take 20 percent of you better than none of you.’

“He understood that, and he decided to go out there and put his big boy pants on and suck it up and go crazy.”

The Celtics spent the three days between their ugly Game 2 loss and Game 3 talking about the need to play with more energy and effort. That message was evident from the opening tip, as Boston immediately set the tone with its physical play at both ends. Boston won the rebounding battle by 16, including grabbing 15 offensive rebounds, and didn’t allow Golden State to speed things up, committing just 12 turnovers — including only one in the fourth quarter.

As a result, Boston is now two wins away from a championship. And after once again bouncing back from a loss — as well as a body blow from the Warriors during the game itself — the Celtics now have to do what they have so regularly failed to do in these playoffs: respond like this to a win.

“Another bounce-back from us,” Celtics coach Ime Udoka said. “My message to the group was, ‘We’ve done this after losses; let’s respond the right way after a win now.'”

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The Chicago Reader is published in print every other week and distributed for free to the more than 1,100 locations on this map.

The latest issue

The latest print issue of the Reader is the issue of June 9, 2022, the Pride Issue. Distribution will continue through tomorrow night, Thursday, June 9.

You can download the print issue as a free PDF.

Subscribe

Never miss a copy! Paid print subscriptions are available for 12 issues, 26 issues, and for 52 issues from the Reader Store.

Please consider donating.

Chicago Reader print issue dates

The Chicago Reader is published in print every other week. Issues are dated Thursday. Distribution usually happens Wednesday morning through Thursday night of the issue date. Upcoming print issue dates through December 2022 are:

6/9/20226/23/20227/7/20227/21/20228/4/20228/18/20229/1/20229/15/20229/29/202210/13/202210/27/202211/10/202211/24/202212/8/202212/22/2022

Download the full 2022 editorial calendar is here (PDF). See our information page for advertising opportunities.

Read More

The Chicago Reader is published in print every other week and distributed for free to the more than 1,100 locations on this map.

The latest issue

The latest print issue of the Reader is the issue of June 9, 2022, the Pride Issue. Distribution will continue through tomorrow night, Thursday, June 9.

You can download the print issue as a free PDF.

Subscribe

Never miss a copy! Paid print subscriptions are available for 12 issues, 26 issues, and for 52 issues from the Reader Store.

Please consider donating.

Chicago Reader print issue dates

The Chicago Reader is published in print every other week. Issues are dated Thursday. Distribution usually happens Wednesday morning through Thursday night of the issue date. Upcoming print issue dates through December 2022 are:

6/9/20226/23/20227/7/20227/21/20228/4/20228/18/20229/1/20229/15/20229/29/202210/13/202210/27/202211/10/202211/24/202212/8/202212/22/2022

Download the full 2022 editorial calendar is here (PDF). See our information page for advertising opportunities.

Read More

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This year, the Chicago Blues Festival will again include shows on the west and south sides as well as in Millennium Park. The agendas of these neighborhood shows are more ambitious, though, than just getting a collection of locally rooted musicians onto the same stage. Both are presented in coordination with larger projects intended to spur economic and cultural revitalization of their communities. 

Saturday’s Soul City Blues event (part of the Taste of Chicago preview Taste of Austin) is linked to the Soul City Corridor project. Under the auspices of Mayor Lightfoot’s INVEST South/West program, the Soul City Corridor initiative will spend $21 million on improvements to the stretch of Chicago Avenue from Austin to Cicero, intended to create a greener, safer, more beautiful, and more pedestrian-friendly street. 

Bronzeville Blues is produced by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and the Bronzeville Blues Collaborative, a collective of nonprofits whose mission is to celebrate and revitalize the community’s blues heritage. A major participant in the collaborative is the Mojo Museum project, led by Muddy Waters’s great-granddaughter Chandra Cooper—it’s working to rehabilitate Waters’s old home at 4339 S. Lake Park and turn it into a blues museum. 

In an acknowledgment that the contemporary blues scene actually consists of several different fan bases that don’t necessarily overlap, the Blues Festival planning committee has crafted lineups drawn from various “schools,” so to speak, and included some artists who make it a point to defy genre expectations entirely and go their own way. 

At the Soul City event, 86-year-old Mary Lane, whose Chicago career extends back to the late 1950s, represents the traditionalist camp. (She’ll also be honored at Pritzker Pavilion on Sunday afternoon with a tribute during the Women in Blues showcase.) Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials, despite their well-earned “houserockin’” reputation, are in their own way almost as rootsy as Lane: Ed Williams learned his searing slide-guitar style from his uncle, J.B. Hutto, himself a disciple of the legendary Elmore James. Demetria Taylor, daughter of guitar master Eddie Taylor, sticks close to the shuffle-oriented postwar sound he helped codify, but like most of her generation she gooses it with more contemporary soul and R&B. James “Tail Dragger” Jones is a gutbucket-raw Howlin’ Wolf stylist known for his witty, aphoristic lyrics and sometimes provocative stage shows. All four artists have deep roots in the community, but only Dragger has remained a steady presence on the neighborhood circuit. 

The Soul City acts who’ll probably be most familiar to west siders are Joe Pratt & the Source One Band (who’ve backed such soul and soul-blues stalwarts as Artie “Blues Boy” White, Tyrone Davis, and Otis Clay) and vocalist Mzz Reese, 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.

Taste of Austin featuring Soul City Blues
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. In order of performance, the day’s lineup is Mzz Reese, Joe Pratt & the Source One Band, Mary Lane & the No Static Blues Band, Tail Dragger, Demetria Taylor, and Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials. Sat 6/11, noon-8 PM, 5720 W. Chicago, free, all ages

Lil’ Ed Williams grew up around Lake and Paulina and got his start in clubs like Big Duke’s Blue Flame at Roosevelt and Washtenaw and the Riviera at Lake and Kedzie (formerly Silvio’s, a Howlin’ Wolf stronghold). He’s looking forward to the Soul City gig, but he’s hardly sentimental about his west-side roots. 

“I haven’t played on the west side [for] 30 years,” Williams says. “It’s a whole different world now. I go where I used to live, I don’t know nobody. It’s gone. This is a whole new generation. But in some ways, I’m thinking, well, maybe this is something they need. [With] the pandemic, and the way things are happening, I’m sure a lot of people over there’s got the blues!”

Williams also has little nostalgia for the “good old days” of the west side as a roots-blues stronghold. “It was always hard for the blues on the west side,” he explains. “Years ago, it took my uncle to come in the clubs and actually get on the people to clap for us, you know? And that was back then! The two main cats were Bobby Bland and B.B. King. And if you wasn’t doing that back then, you wasn’t probably hittin’ on too much.”

Lil’ Ed Williams shows off in the intro to this live 2011 performance of “Hold That Train.”

That’s not to say he’s worried about the reception he’ll get at the Soul City show. He’s used to winning over crowds with his high-octane showmanship and fretboard prowess. “There will be people out there that really want to get into the music,” he says. “There is always a few Blacks who come in, like, Rosa’s or the Kingston Mines and go, ‘Ed, you’re the greatest.’ And I’m getting a lot of youngsters walking up, goin’, ‘Wow, that’s a great sound you got. That’s a good thing you’re doing with that slide, I’m loving it.’ So we got a variety of different music going, and I think everybody’s just trying to get in the groove. I think it’s going to be really nice. We can do it!”

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.”

She remembers the area in those days as a vital community with a thriving social and cultural life. “They’re going to set the stage up right across the street from Mt. Olive Church,” she says. “Mt. Olive used to be the old Chateau, before Pastor [James] Bass bought the place and Mt. Olive moved in there. And it was so many nice clubs up and down that avenue. You had Chicken George, you had Club Eloise, the Chateau before it became Mt. Olive, Godfather and Shorty’s club was up the street, and further down to Cicero towards Lake Street, you had Shaw’s Corner—nothing but clubs all through there.”

Mzz Reese performs her signature tune, “Cookies,” in 2019.

It’s not like that anymore, of course, but the west side still has a healthy contingent of working musicians. And Reese is convinced that the clubs can come back, if revitalization projects such as the Soul City Corridor come to fruition and the right entrepreneurs negotiate the expensive bureaucracy required to get the necessary clearances (“It’s hard, for some reason, for African Americans to get a title or license to keep venues going on the west side”). The resulting combination of community support and hipster cred, which once supported venues like Eddie Shaw’s 1815 Club on Roosevelt, could make the west side a blues nexus not just for the city but also for the country or even the world. 

The Bronzeville Blues event promises to be even more varied than Soul City. Bassist Freddie Dixon and his Chicago Blues Allstars invoke the spirits of Dixon’s father (the late Willie Dixon) and of Muddy Waters, who recorded many of the elder Dixon’s best-known compositions (“I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man,” “I’m Ready”). Twenty-eight-year-old Michael Damani, a veteran of Dixon’s Allstars, modernizes that sound with a high-energy guitar style that recalls Otis Rush and Magic Sam; trombonist Big James Montgomery and his Chicago Playboys update the tradition with propulsive post-James Brown funk; guitarist Vance Kelly and his Backstreet Blues Band are one of the most eclectic acts on the Chicago scene, with a repertoire that includes postwar blues chestnuts, contemporary soul-blues hits, 60s and 70s teen dance classics, and funk, soul, rock, and pop standards (“Purple Rain” is a perennial showstopper). 

Bronzeville Blues
Part of the Chicago Blues Festival, which runs from Thu 6/9 through Sun 6/12. In order of performance, the day’s lineup is Michael Damani, Melody Angel, Freddie Dixon’s Chicago Blues Allstars, Vance Kelly & the Backstreet Blues Band, Big James Montgomery, and Mud Morganfield. Morganfield will be backed by Bob Stroger, Harmonica Hinds, Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith, Rick Kreher, and Sumito “Ariyo” Ariyoshi; his set will include guest appearances from Billy Branch, Freddie Dixon, Big James Montgomery, Vance Kelly, and Melody Angel. Sun 6/12, noon-8 PM, Lillian Hardin Armstrong Park, 4433 S. St. Lawrence, free, all ages

Guitarist Melody Angel 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.

Mud Morganfield, who headlines Bronzeville Blues, plays in the Netherlands in 2013.

The homecoming theme that Mzz Reese mentions also resonates for Branch, who was mentored in the 1970s by the likes of Junior Wells and James Cotton in such fabled Bronzeville clubs as Theresa’s and the original Checkerboard Lounge. In his case, though, the gig is more a continuation than a return. “Throughout my career,” he says, “I always maintained a presence on the south side. Even though they weren’t [all] located in what you’d consider Bronzeville proper, I was always consciously trying to maintain a presence of the blues on the south side.”

Like Ed Williams, Branch recognizes that the kind of blues he plays has fallen out of favor among mainstream Black audiences, but he’s never let that deter him. “I like to say we baptized our own people!” he says. “Sometimes we tricked ’em into liking blues, because word would get around that there’s these hot young cats playing blues. And music, if it’s good, you can’t deny it. It doesn’t matter what genre; good music is good music. So ultimately what we did, in some instances, the people at first weren’t very warm to the idea of the blues, but we would convert them. Because we were good.”

Billy Branch and his band the Sons of Blues play the title track of the album Blues Shock in 2014.

Branch hopes that events such as Bronzeville Blues can accomplish such conversions on a larger scale. “I think it’s really important to have this showcase in Bronzeville, where the blues used to flourish and now it’s virtually nonexistent,” he says. “It’s very important that the Black community starts to really embrace this great, dynamic, vibrant living cultural legacy. Having the Bronzeville festival, the Mojo project restoring Muddy’s house into a museum—those are baby steps that are long overdue. The city needs to actively, fervently get engaged in preserving and promoting the blues culture.”

For Melody Angel, who lives in Bronzeville, this event—like the blues itself—is more about looking forward than looking back. “I just think this is good for the future, to show that it’s a big part of our future as a generation, and that it’s still very relevant,” she says. “I think it’s pretty great that we have older people performing and younger people, to prove that the blues hasn’t gone anywhere. People really get confused about the blues, like it’s ever been one sound. And it’s never been one sound. It’s just a continuation of people using their own style to perform.”

Angel sees a lot of potential in the ancestral links between the blues and hip-hop. “A lot of hip-hop artists today use live bands,” she points out, “and they all use, like, blues and funk and jazz to create amazing live shows. So it would have been nice to correlate that. We’ll have opportunities, I’m sure, to get that going.”

The first video from Melody Angel’s new album, Foxy

Angel released her new album, Foxy, earlier this week. She links her music to her social justice work, which includes founding and serving as president of the Black Revolutionary Collective, which combines activism with education and human services in an echo of the agenda Fred Hampton pursued with the Black Panthers in the 1960s. She embraces the blues’ hard-won celebration of life (as poet Toi Derricotte puts it, “Joy is an act of resistance”) and the commitment to social change exemplified by the likes of Gil Scott-Heron and Nina Simone. “I have to be true to myself,” she says. “I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not.”

Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf were iconoclasts in their time. Seen in that light, Angel’s words embody the blues tradition as authentically as any of the music being played at the 2022 Chicago Blues Festival.

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This year, the Chicago Blues Festival will again include shows on the west and south sides as well as in Millennium Park. The agendas of these neighborhood shows are more ambitious, though, than just getting a collection of locally rooted musicians onto the same stage. Both are presented in coordination with larger projects intended to spur economic and cultural revitalization of their communities. 

Saturday’s Soul City Blues event (part of the Taste of Chicago preview Taste of Austin) is linked to the Soul City Corridor project. Under the auspices of Mayor Lightfoot’s INVEST South/West program, the Soul City Corridor initiative will spend $21 million on improvements to the stretch of Chicago Avenue from Austin to Cicero, intended to create a greener, safer, more beautiful, and more pedestrian-friendly street. 

Bronzeville Blues is produced by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and the Bronzeville Blues Collaborative, a collective of nonprofits whose mission is to celebrate and revitalize the community’s blues heritage. A major participant in the collaborative is the Mojo Museum project, led by Muddy Waters’s great-granddaughter Chandra Cooper—it’s working to rehabilitate Waters’s old home at 4339 S. Lake Park and turn it into a blues museum. 

In an acknowledgment that the contemporary blues scene actually consists of several different fan bases that don’t necessarily overlap, the Blues Festival planning committee has crafted lineups drawn from various “schools,” so to speak, and included some artists who make it a point to defy genre expectations entirely and go their own way. 

At the Soul City event, 86-year-old Mary Lane, whose Chicago career extends back to the late 1950s, represents the traditionalist camp. (She’ll also be honored at Pritzker Pavilion on Sunday afternoon with a tribute during the Women in Blues showcase.) Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials, despite their well-earned “houserockin’” reputation, are in their own way almost as rootsy as Lane: Ed Williams learned his searing slide-guitar style from his uncle, J.B. Hutto, himself a disciple of the legendary Elmore James. Demetria Taylor, daughter of guitar master Eddie Taylor, sticks close to the shuffle-oriented postwar sound he helped codify, but like most of her generation she gooses it with more contemporary soul and R&B. James “Tail Dragger” Jones is a gutbucket-raw Howlin’ Wolf stylist known for his witty, aphoristic lyrics and sometimes provocative stage shows. All four artists have deep roots in the community, but only Dragger has remained a steady presence on the neighborhood circuit. 

The Soul City acts who’ll probably be most familiar to west siders are Joe Pratt & the Source One Band (who’ve backed such soul and soul-blues stalwarts as Artie “Blues Boy” White, Tyrone Davis, and Otis Clay) and vocalist Mzz Reese, 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.

Taste of Austin featuring Soul City Blues
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. In order of performance, the day’s lineup is Mzz Reese, Joe Pratt & the Source One Band, Mary Lane & the No Static Blues Band, Tail Dragger, Demetria Taylor, and Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials. Sat 6/11, noon-8 PM, 5720 W. Chicago, free, all ages

Lil’ Ed Williams grew up around Lake and Paulina and got his start in clubs like Big Duke’s Blue Flame at Roosevelt and Washtenaw and the Riviera at Lake and Kedzie (formerly Silvio’s, a Howlin’ Wolf stronghold). He’s looking forward to the Soul City gig, but he’s hardly sentimental about his west-side roots. 

“I haven’t played on the west side [for] 30 years,” Williams says. “It’s a whole different world now. I go where I used to live, I don’t know nobody. It’s gone. This is a whole new generation. But in some ways, I’m thinking, well, maybe this is something they need. [With] the pandemic, and the way things are happening, I’m sure a lot of people over there’s got the blues!”

Williams also has little nostalgia for the “good old days” of the west side as a roots-blues stronghold. “It was always hard for the blues on the west side,” he explains. “Years ago, it took my uncle to come in the clubs and actually get on the people to clap for us, you know? And that was back then! The two main cats were Bobby Bland and B.B. King. And if you wasn’t doing that back then, you wasn’t probably hittin’ on too much.”

Lil’ Ed Williams shows off in the intro to this live 2011 performance of “Hold That Train.”

That’s not to say he’s worried about the reception he’ll get at the Soul City show. He’s used to winning over crowds with his high-octane showmanship and fretboard prowess. “There will be people out there that really want to get into the music,” he says. “There is always a few Blacks who come in, like, Rosa’s or the Kingston Mines and go, ‘Ed, you’re the greatest.’ And I’m getting a lot of youngsters walking up, goin’, ‘Wow, that’s a great sound you got. That’s a good thing you’re doing with that slide, I’m loving it.’ So we got a variety of different music going, and I think everybody’s just trying to get in the groove. I think it’s going to be really nice. We can do it!”

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.”

She remembers the area in those days as a vital community with a thriving social and cultural life. “They’re going to set the stage up right across the street from Mt. Olive Church,” she says. “Mt. Olive used to be the old Chateau, before Pastor [James] Bass bought the place and Mt. Olive moved in there. And it was so many nice clubs up and down that avenue. You had Chicken George, you had Club Eloise, the Chateau before it became Mt. Olive, Godfather and Shorty’s club was up the street, and further down to Cicero towards Lake Street, you had Shaw’s Corner—nothing but clubs all through there.”

Mzz Reese performs her signature tune, “Cookies,” in 2019.

It’s not like that anymore, of course, but the west side still has a healthy contingent of working musicians. And Reese is convinced that the clubs can come back, if revitalization projects such as the Soul City Corridor come to fruition and the right entrepreneurs negotiate the expensive bureaucracy required to get the necessary clearances (“It’s hard, for some reason, for African Americans to get a title or license to keep venues going on the west side”). The resulting combination of community support and hipster cred, which once supported venues like Eddie Shaw’s 1815 Club on Roosevelt, could make the west side a blues nexus not just for the city but also for the country or even the world. 

The Bronzeville Blues event promises to be even more varied than Soul City. Bassist Freddie Dixon and his Chicago Blues Allstars invoke the spirits of Dixon’s father (the late Willie Dixon) and of Muddy Waters, who recorded many of the elder Dixon’s best-known compositions (“I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man,” “I’m Ready”). Twenty-eight-year-old Michael Damani, a veteran of Dixon’s Allstars, modernizes that sound with a high-energy guitar style that recalls Otis Rush and Magic Sam; trombonist Big James Montgomery and his Chicago Playboys update the tradition with propulsive post-James Brown funk; guitarist Vance Kelly and his Backstreet Blues Band are one of the most eclectic acts on the Chicago scene, with a repertoire that includes postwar blues chestnuts, contemporary soul-blues hits, 60s and 70s teen dance classics, and funk, soul, rock, and pop standards (“Purple Rain” is a perennial showstopper). 

Bronzeville Blues
Part of the Chicago Blues Festival, which runs from Thu 6/9 through Sun 6/12. In order of performance, the day’s lineup is Michael Damani, Melody Angel, Freddie Dixon’s Chicago Blues Allstars, Vance Kelly & the Backstreet Blues Band, Big James Montgomery, and Mud Morganfield. Morganfield will be backed by Bob Stroger, Harmonica Hinds, Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith, Rick Kreher, and Sumito “Ariyo” Ariyoshi; his set will include guest appearances from Billy Branch, Freddie Dixon, Big James Montgomery, Vance Kelly, and Melody Angel. Sun 6/12, noon-8 PM, Lillian Hardin Armstrong Park, 4433 S. St. Lawrence, free, all ages

Guitarist Melody Angel 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.

Mud Morganfield, who headlines Bronzeville Blues, plays in the Netherlands in 2013.

The homecoming theme that Mzz Reese mentions also resonates for Branch, who was mentored in the 1970s by the likes of Junior Wells and James Cotton in such fabled Bronzeville clubs as Theresa’s and the original Checkerboard Lounge. In his case, though, the gig is more a continuation than a return. “Throughout my career,” he says, “I always maintained a presence on the south side. Even though they weren’t [all] located in what you’d consider Bronzeville proper, I was always consciously trying to maintain a presence of the blues on the south side.”

Like Ed Williams, Branch recognizes that the kind of blues he plays has fallen out of favor among mainstream Black audiences, but he’s never let that deter him. “I like to say we baptized our own people!” he says. “Sometimes we tricked ’em into liking blues, because word would get around that there’s these hot young cats playing blues. And music, if it’s good, you can’t deny it. It doesn’t matter what genre; good music is good music. So ultimately what we did, in some instances, the people at first weren’t very warm to the idea of the blues, but we would convert them. Because we were good.”

Billy Branch and his band the Sons of Blues play the title track of the album Blues Shock in 2014.

Branch hopes that events such as Bronzeville Blues can accomplish such conversions on a larger scale. “I think it’s really important to have this showcase in Bronzeville, where the blues used to flourish and now it’s virtually nonexistent,” he says. “It’s very important that the Black community starts to really embrace this great, dynamic, vibrant living cultural legacy. Having the Bronzeville festival, the Mojo project restoring Muddy’s house into a museum—those are baby steps that are long overdue. The city needs to actively, fervently get engaged in preserving and promoting the blues culture.”

For Melody Angel, who lives in Bronzeville, this event—like the blues itself—is more about looking forward than looking back. “I just think this is good for the future, to show that it’s a big part of our future as a generation, and that it’s still very relevant,” she says. “I think it’s pretty great that we have older people performing and younger people, to prove that the blues hasn’t gone anywhere. People really get confused about the blues, like it’s ever been one sound. And it’s never been one sound. It’s just a continuation of people using their own style to perform.”

Angel sees a lot of potential in the ancestral links between the blues and hip-hop. “A lot of hip-hop artists today use live bands,” she points out, “and they all use, like, blues and funk and jazz to create amazing live shows. So it would have been nice to correlate that. We’ll have opportunities, I’m sure, to get that going.”

The first video from Melody Angel’s new album, Foxy

Angel released her new album, Foxy, earlier this week. She links her music to her social justice work, which includes founding and serving as president of the Black Revolutionary Collective, which combines activism with education and human services in an echo of the agenda Fred Hampton pursued with the Black Panthers in the 1960s. She embraces the blues’ hard-won celebration of life (as poet Toi Derricotte puts it, “Joy is an act of resistance”) and the commitment to social change exemplified by the likes of Gil Scott-Heron and Nina Simone. “I have to be true to myself,” she says. “I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not.”

Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf were iconoclasts in their time. Seen in that light, Angel’s words embody the blues tradition as authentically as any of the music being played at the 2022 Chicago Blues Festival.

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In its nearly 40-year history, the Chicago Blues Festival has frequently saluted the city’s vibrant soul-music legacy with all-star sets underscoring the connection between soul and blues. This year is no exception.

On Saturday, June 11, at Pritzker Pavilion, what’s billed as a Chicago Soul Tribute pays homage to three local legends: saxophonist-producer Gene “Daddy G” Barge, soul-blues singer Cicero Blake, and baritone sax man Willie Henderson. The latter’s Big Bad Blues Band will provide backing for a lineup of vocalists, including Samota Acklin, Theresa Davis, Joe Barr, and Willie White.

Headlining that lineup is soul singer Ruby Andrews, best known for the 1967 R&B smash “Casonova (Your Playing Days Are Over).” Released by Ric Williams’s Zodiac Records, that seductive platter poured her irresistible vocals over a majestic violin-enriched backdrop. Andrews recorded it in Detroit, rather than in her hometown, as she did several of her subsequent hits. None of Zodiac’s other signees ever approached her success, and she emerged as the label’s flagship artist.

Ruby Andrews’s biggest hit and signature tune, complete with center-label typo

Andrews has starred at the Blues Festival several times, and she and Henderson have often shared stages. “Willie and I go back—well, I ain’t gonna tell you how long ago,” she says, laughing. “Way, way back. He’s a good man. In fact, he’s the one that called me for the show.”

Born Ruby Stackhouse in 1947, Andrews began singing in her native Hollandale, Mississippi, when she was barely old enough to toddle. “I think I might have been maybe three years old,” she says. “Being from Mississippi, you went to church. I don’t care how young or how old you were. Either you’re going to sit in the audience and be bored, or you’re going to get in the choir.” 

Andrews came to Chicago at age five. “The only thing I remember is the train ride,” she says.

Chicago Soul Tribute
Part of the Chicago Blues Festival, which runs from Thu 6/9 through Sun 6/12. This tribute to Gene Barge, Cicero Blake, and Willie Henderson features Willie Henderson’s Big Bad Blues Band with special guests Ruby Andrews, Samota Acklin, Theresa Davis, Joe Barr, and Willie White. Sat 6/11, 2:55 PM till 4:10 PM, Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, Michigan and Columbus, free, all ages

Growing up in Hyde Park, Andrews became friends with another golden-voiced teenager. “I went to Hyde Park High School, and Minnie Riperton and I were in the same music class,” she says. When school let out for the day, the two friends would occasionally scope out the nightlife around the Sutherland Hotel at 47th and Drexel. “Minnie and I would sneak into Cadillac Bob’s joint in front of the hotel,” she says. “I met Walter Jackson. I guess he adopted me as his little sister. Curtis Mayfield and everybody used to hang up in there.

“At Hyde Park, I don’t know whether any other high schools did this, but we had a senior variety show,” she says. “I signed up one time. Then I had a band. I don’t know where they came from. But we rehearsed and we rehearsed. I did [Ted Taylor’s] ‘Be Ever Wonderful.’ And I did all the notes like he did, and they gave me a standing ovation. And while they were doing that, I said, ‘This is what I want to do!’”

In 1964, Andrews sang with the Vondells, then riding the local hit “Lenora.” In 1965, still using her birth name, she cut her debut single, “Wishing,” for Leon Singleton’s fledgling Kellmac label. “I was 17 going on 18,” she says. “I just went in there and did it.” At the end of that year, she also sang on Kellmac’s only major hit, “Michael” by the C.O.D.’s. 

While still performing as Ruby Stackhouse, Andrews sang backup on this hit by the C.O.D.’s in 1965.

“That was me in the background with the high note back there,” Andrews says. “We all grew up in the same area, 47th and Drexel. We were on Drexel, and we used to play in the park all the time. They found the song ‘Michael (The Lover),’ and so we all went in the studio. It was like a big happy family back then.” 

Andrews’s big break came not long after that. Her manager, Bob Morris, introduced her to another new label owner—and this one would help put her on the national map. “He said, ‘This is Ric Williams, and Ric Williams is looking for an artist. And I was telling him about you.’” Williams was about to launch Zodiac Records.

Prior to her first Zodiac release, Andrews had decided that “Stackhouse” wasn’t a name destined for stardom. “I got tired of them ribbing me,” she says. “I changed it to one of my best movie actresses. Her name is Julie Andrews.” The newly christened singer’s sizzling “Let’s Get a Groove Going On” launched Zodiac in 1967.

Andre Williams produced Andrews’s Zodiac encore, “I Just Can’t Get Enough,” a fine record spoiled by a mix that buried her voice so badly it was almost inaudible. “He said, ‘I’ve got these songs I want you to sing,’ so we went in and did them,” she says. “But they weren’t exactly what Ric was looking for.” 

Andrews’s next release would be recorded in Detroit. Joshie Jo Armstead, a successful songwriter who’d worked with Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson before moving to Chicago from New York, supplied what would become Andrews’s eternal signature theme.

Andrews remembers the conversation Williams had with Armstead about coming up with a tune for her: “He said, ‘Let’s write a song about a player.’ So she said, ‘OK—Don Juan?’ He said, ‘No, that don’t work.’ She said a couple more names, and then she says, ‘How about Casanova?’ And he said, ‘Yeah! That’s the one!’ And she sat there, in five minutes she wrote that song, and the next week we were in Detroit recording it.”

Produced by Mike Terry (formerly of Motown’s house band, where he supplied the distinctive baritone sax solos on the Supremes’ early hits) and George McGregor, “Casonova” featured a cast of session musicians that included several rhythm players from the Funk Brothers, who were forbidden to moonlight but frequently did.

“When we were in the studio, Berry [Gordy] would send his point man around to see what [the musicians working for Motown] were doing,” says Andrews. “We knew they were coming, so we’d turn out the lights, and everybody would hide behind their instruments until the engineer said, ‘Well, he’s gone now!’ Then we’d turn on the lights and crank it up again. That was so fun!”

“Casonova” soared to number nine on Billboard’sR&B charts in late summer 1967, typo and all. The song made Andrews a star and sent her on tour—she performed at Harlem’s Apollo Theater several times.

“You Can Run (But You Can’t Hide)” was the first song written for Andrews by the Brothers of Soul.

Andrews’s 1968 Zodiac single “You Can Run (But You Can’t Hide)” wasn’t a hit, but it was significant for another reason: it was the first to pair her with the Detroit production and songwriting triumvirate of Fred Bridges, Robert Eaton, and Richard Knight, collectively known as the Brothers of Soul. (They also recorded under that name, scoring a hit the same year with “I Guess That Don’t Make Me a Loser” on the Boo label.) 

Bridges, Eaton, and Knight also wrote Andrews’s 1969 R&B hit “You Made a Believer (Out of Me),” cut after a long night of partying at Detroit’s 20 Grand entertainment complex.

The sessions for “You Made a Believer (Out of Me)” began a little too early in the morning for Andrews, who’d been out late partying the night before. “I was mad,” she says, “and that’s why the song sounds like that.”

“They came knocking on the door at six o’clock: ‘You got to come out of there, and we got to go to the studio!’” Andrews says. “We got to the studio, I guess about nine or ten o’clock in the morning, and I was mad, and that’s why the song sounds like that. It’s just forceful.” The name of the song was the product of an unlikely inspiration: “Remember the commercial that said, ‘Palmolive, you made a believer out of me?’” asks Andrews. “Robert took the title from the commercial!”

Andrews and Williams had developed a romantic relationship, and as the Brothers of Soul witnessed the personal and professional dynamic between the two of them, they based the songs they wrote for Andrews on her own life. “I would complain about him, and then while I’m complaining, Robert is over there on the piano. Before I knew it, he put a whole song together,” Andrews says. “They were writing about my love life with him.”

One exception to that formula was a ferocious, funk-permeated ’71 rendition of “Hound Dog,” cut in Chicago. This one was Williams’s idea. “He heard Big Mama Thornton sing that song,” says Andrews. “I said, ‘Well, OK, but no more songs like this, because it’s tearing my throat out!’ She used to sing really, really hard. And I got it down. I said, ‘No more! No more!’”

After Zodiac folded in the early 70s, Andrews eventually signed with the major label ABC. By then ABC no longer had a presence in Chicago, so that meant a return to Detroit to work with producers Ron Dunbar and George McGregor on the 1977 album Genuine Ruby. McGregor convinced her to record his song “Queen of the Disco,” in keeping with the times. “Disco came in, so he wanted to do a disco album,” she says. “I said, ‘I’m not a disco singer!’”

The 1977 album Genuine Ruby opens with the song “Queen of the Disco.”

Since then, Andrews has made a handful of additional albums. Her 1993 Goldwax CD Ruby features a ribald version of “Footprints on the Ceiling” that showed she could masterfully belt a swaggering blues shuffle. In the past two decades, she’s done little if any recording and not much gigging, at least not in clubs. 

After Williams’s passing, though, Andrews secured the rights to Zodiac’s catalog, so now she can reissue her classic recordings however she sees fit. She also plans to use the label to release new music by younger artists. Happily, entering the business side of the industry hasn’t stopped her from singing.

“I decided I’m going to incorporate the two,” Andrews says, “because I can’t leave one and stay away from the other.”

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In its nearly 40-year history, the Chicago Blues Festival has frequently saluted the city’s vibrant soul-music legacy with all-star sets underscoring the connection between soul and blues. This year is no exception.

On Saturday, June 11, at Pritzker Pavilion, what’s billed as a Chicago Soul Tribute pays homage to three local legends: saxophonist-producer Gene “Daddy G” Barge, soul-blues singer Cicero Blake, and baritone sax man Willie Henderson. The latter’s Big Bad Blues Band will provide backing for a lineup of vocalists, including Samota Acklin, Theresa Davis, Joe Barr, and Willie White.

Headlining that lineup is soul singer Ruby Andrews, best known for the 1967 R&B smash “Casonova (Your Playing Days Are Over).” Released by Ric Williams’s Zodiac Records, that seductive platter poured her irresistible vocals over a majestic violin-enriched backdrop. Andrews recorded it in Detroit, rather than in her hometown, as she did several of her subsequent hits. None of Zodiac’s other signees ever approached her success, and she emerged as the label’s flagship artist.

Ruby Andrews’s biggest hit and signature tune, complete with center-label typo

Andrews has starred at the Blues Festival several times, and she and Henderson have often shared stages. “Willie and I go back—well, I ain’t gonna tell you how long ago,” she says, laughing. “Way, way back. He’s a good man. In fact, he’s the one that called me for the show.”

Born Ruby Stackhouse in 1947, Andrews began singing in her native Hollandale, Mississippi, when she was barely old enough to toddle. “I think I might have been maybe three years old,” she says. “Being from Mississippi, you went to church. I don’t care how young or how old you were. Either you’re going to sit in the audience and be bored, or you’re going to get in the choir.” 

Andrews came to Chicago at age five. “The only thing I remember is the train ride,” she says.

Chicago Soul Tribute
Part of the Chicago Blues Festival, which runs from Thu 6/9 through Sun 6/12. This tribute to Gene Barge, Cicero Blake, and Willie Henderson features Willie Henderson’s Big Bad Blues Band with special guests Ruby Andrews, Samota Acklin, Theresa Davis, Joe Barr, and Willie White. Sat 6/11, 2:55 PM till 4:10 PM, Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, Michigan and Columbus, free, all ages

Growing up in Hyde Park, Andrews became friends with another golden-voiced teenager. “I went to Hyde Park High School, and Minnie Riperton and I were in the same music class,” she says. When school let out for the day, the two friends would occasionally scope out the nightlife around the Sutherland Hotel at 47th and Drexel. “Minnie and I would sneak into Cadillac Bob’s joint in front of the hotel,” she says. “I met Walter Jackson. I guess he adopted me as his little sister. Curtis Mayfield and everybody used to hang up in there.

“At Hyde Park, I don’t know whether any other high schools did this, but we had a senior variety show,” she says. “I signed up one time. Then I had a band. I don’t know where they came from. But we rehearsed and we rehearsed. I did [Ted Taylor’s] ‘Be Ever Wonderful.’ And I did all the notes like he did, and they gave me a standing ovation. And while they were doing that, I said, ‘This is what I want to do!’”

In 1964, Andrews sang with the Vondells, then riding the local hit “Lenora.” In 1965, still using her birth name, she cut her debut single, “Wishing,” for Leon Singleton’s fledgling Kellmac label. “I was 17 going on 18,” she says. “I just went in there and did it.” At the end of that year, she also sang on Kellmac’s only major hit, “Michael” by the C.O.D.’s. 

While still performing as Ruby Stackhouse, Andrews sang backup on this hit by the C.O.D.’s in 1965.

“That was me in the background with the high note back there,” Andrews says. “We all grew up in the same area, 47th and Drexel. We were on Drexel, and we used to play in the park all the time. They found the song ‘Michael (The Lover),’ and so we all went in the studio. It was like a big happy family back then.” 

Andrews’s big break came not long after that. Her manager, Bob Morris, introduced her to another new label owner—and this one would help put her on the national map. “He said, ‘This is Ric Williams, and Ric Williams is looking for an artist. And I was telling him about you.’” Williams was about to launch Zodiac Records.

Prior to her first Zodiac release, Andrews had decided that “Stackhouse” wasn’t a name destined for stardom. “I got tired of them ribbing me,” she says. “I changed it to one of my best movie actresses. Her name is Julie Andrews.” The newly christened singer’s sizzling “Let’s Get a Groove Going On” launched Zodiac in 1967.

Andre Williams produced Andrews’s Zodiac encore, “I Just Can’t Get Enough,” a fine record spoiled by a mix that buried her voice so badly it was almost inaudible. “He said, ‘I’ve got these songs I want you to sing,’ so we went in and did them,” she says. “But they weren’t exactly what Ric was looking for.” 

Andrews’s next release would be recorded in Detroit. Joshie Jo Armstead, a successful songwriter who’d worked with Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson before moving to Chicago from New York, supplied what would become Andrews’s eternal signature theme.

Andrews remembers the conversation Williams had with Armstead about coming up with a tune for her: “He said, ‘Let’s write a song about a player.’ So she said, ‘OK—Don Juan?’ He said, ‘No, that don’t work.’ She said a couple more names, and then she says, ‘How about Casanova?’ And he said, ‘Yeah! That’s the one!’ And she sat there, in five minutes she wrote that song, and the next week we were in Detroit recording it.”

Produced by Mike Terry (formerly of Motown’s house band, where he supplied the distinctive baritone sax solos on the Supremes’ early hits) and George McGregor, “Casonova” featured a cast of session musicians that included several rhythm players from the Funk Brothers, who were forbidden to moonlight but frequently did.

“When we were in the studio, Berry [Gordy] would send his point man around to see what [the musicians working for Motown] were doing,” says Andrews. “We knew they were coming, so we’d turn out the lights, and everybody would hide behind their instruments until the engineer said, ‘Well, he’s gone now!’ Then we’d turn on the lights and crank it up again. That was so fun!”

“Casonova” soared to number nine on Billboard’sR&B charts in late summer 1967, typo and all. The song made Andrews a star and sent her on tour—she performed at Harlem’s Apollo Theater several times.

“You Can Run (But You Can’t Hide)” was the first song written for Andrews by the Brothers of Soul.

Andrews’s 1968 Zodiac single “You Can Run (But You Can’t Hide)” wasn’t a hit, but it was significant for another reason: it was the first to pair her with the Detroit production and songwriting triumvirate of Fred Bridges, Robert Eaton, and Richard Knight, collectively known as the Brothers of Soul. (They also recorded under that name, scoring a hit the same year with “I Guess That Don’t Make Me a Loser” on the Boo label.) 

Bridges, Eaton, and Knight also wrote Andrews’s 1969 R&B hit “You Made a Believer (Out of Me),” cut after a long night of partying at Detroit’s 20 Grand entertainment complex.

The sessions for “You Made a Believer (Out of Me)” began a little too early in the morning for Andrews, who’d been out late partying the night before. “I was mad,” she says, “and that’s why the song sounds like that.”

“They came knocking on the door at six o’clock: ‘You got to come out of there, and we got to go to the studio!’” Andrews says. “We got to the studio, I guess about nine or ten o’clock in the morning, and I was mad, and that’s why the song sounds like that. It’s just forceful.” The name of the song was the product of an unlikely inspiration: “Remember the commercial that said, ‘Palmolive, you made a believer out of me?’” asks Andrews. “Robert took the title from the commercial!”

Andrews and Williams had developed a romantic relationship, and as the Brothers of Soul witnessed the personal and professional dynamic between the two of them, they based the songs they wrote for Andrews on her own life. “I would complain about him, and then while I’m complaining, Robert is over there on the piano. Before I knew it, he put a whole song together,” Andrews says. “They were writing about my love life with him.”

One exception to that formula was a ferocious, funk-permeated ’71 rendition of “Hound Dog,” cut in Chicago. This one was Williams’s idea. “He heard Big Mama Thornton sing that song,” says Andrews. “I said, ‘Well, OK, but no more songs like this, because it’s tearing my throat out!’ She used to sing really, really hard. And I got it down. I said, ‘No more! No more!’”

After Zodiac folded in the early 70s, Andrews eventually signed with the major label ABC. By then ABC no longer had a presence in Chicago, so that meant a return to Detroit to work with producers Ron Dunbar and George McGregor on the 1977 album Genuine Ruby. McGregor convinced her to record his song “Queen of the Disco,” in keeping with the times. “Disco came in, so he wanted to do a disco album,” she says. “I said, ‘I’m not a disco singer!’”

The 1977 album Genuine Ruby opens with the song “Queen of the Disco.”

Since then, Andrews has made a handful of additional albums. Her 1993 Goldwax CD Ruby features a ribald version of “Footprints on the Ceiling” that showed she could masterfully belt a swaggering blues shuffle. In the past two decades, she’s done little if any recording and not much gigging, at least not in clubs. 

After Williams’s passing, though, Andrews secured the rights to Zodiac’s catalog, so now she can reissue her classic recordings however she sees fit. She also plans to use the label to release new music by younger artists. Happily, entering the business side of the industry hasn’t stopped her from singing.

“I decided I’m going to incorporate the two,” Andrews says, “because I can’t leave one and stay away from the other.”

Read More