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The State of Sound: A World of Music from Illinois
from August 16 - 22
by Suzanne Hanney
"The State of Sound: A World of Music from Illinois” at Navy Pier is true to its title in that the exhibit shows the diversity of 13 genres of Illinois music – many of them intersecting. Its boldface names run the gamut from John Prine to Chance the Rapper, Naked Raygun, Chaka Khan, Miles Davis, and more.
“People have gotten so fragmented in the last eight years, it’s important to know what Eddie Blazonczyk did, [win a 1986 Grammy for best polka recording] what other communities living in Chicago have to offer in terms of art,” said exhibition writer Dave Hoekstra, who was a feature writer and columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times from 1985 to 2014, in an interview with StreetWise. The exhibit has been well-received, both at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which produced it, and at Navy Pier, “so I hope we accomplished that.”
As Hoekstra writes in the exhibit, “The spirit of possibility moves us. Generations of musicians have come to Illinois by train, bus, airplane and automobile. Maybe some hitchhiked. The Land of Lincoln has offered the promise of jobs, housing, and a new way of looking at life….You can feel this powerful sense of adventure in ‘The State of Sound.’ There are no borders. Illinois music reflects America’s diversity: gospel and blues, country, soul and rock, international, and hip-house and house…Music tells us who we are and where we have been.”
Like Los Angeles and New York, Chicago’s music story is influenced by immigration and domestic relocation, such as the Great Migration of African Americans up from the rural South
between World War I and 1970. However, the distinguishing characteristic of Illinois music, Hoekstra says, is its purity.
“It’s more the heartbeat of America, more genuine influences. LA and New York are big industry places. Chicago has a lot of that. It’s not as commercial or polished. But there’s a greater chance to be yourself in the Midwest.”
The Springfield and Chicago venues for “The State of Sound” are the first occasions these artifacts – donated by the artists or their families – have been exhibited. Curator Lance Tawser is exhibits director at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Tawser played with power pop band Material Issue before entering the museum field, Hoekstra said. “He thinks outside the box, is very creative. That’s why the exhibit sings, because of his spirit. He went out and picked the items.”
Here are snippets about the exhibit’s 13 genres:
Spiritual and Empowerment
“Mahalia Jackson was gospel music’s first superstar,” according to the exhibit. Jackson moved to Chicago in 1927 at age 16 and recorded “God’s Gonna Separate the Wheat from the Tares,” “Keep Me Every Day” and two other sides at Decca Studios in the Furniture Mart, 680 N. Lake Shore Drive. In 1956, she bought a house at 8358 S. Indiana Ave. that became a gathering place for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., radio host Studs Terkel and Roebuck “Pops” Staples, of the Staple Singers. The next year, she was the first gospel artist to sign with Columbia Records. She is also known for her version of “How I Got Over” at Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the August 1963 March on Washington, and for “Precious Lord,” his favorite hymn, which she sang at his funeral.
The Staple Singers, also featured in the exhibit, provided the soundtrack for the Civil Rights Movement” with a blend of folk, gospel and soul. In 1961, the Staples had their last studio session at Chicago’s Vee-Jay records for “Sit Down Servant” with Pops on tremolo guitar, Mavis on lead vocals; and Cleotha, Pervis and Yvonne singing.
Curtis Mayfield is also highlighted in the R&B and Soul sections of the exhibit; his “It’s All Right” has been covered by Etta James, Phil Collins and Bruce Springsteen and been featured in the Disney/Pixar movie, “Soul.” The Soul Stirrers, a Chicago-based gospel quartet, launched the careers of Lou Rawls, Johnnie Taylor and Sam Cooke, who branched into a solo career in 1957 with hits such as “Twistin’ the Night Away,” and in 1964, “A Change is Gonna Come” for the Civil Rights Movement.
Chaka Khan is a hit-making lead singer of the band Rufus, who moved across the soul, funk, rock, and jazz worlds with great success: 22 Grammy nominations and 10 wins. She collaborated with Stevie Wonder on “Tell Me Something Good,” which won a 1975 Grammy for best R&B duo, group or chorus. Born as Yvette Stevens in Hyde Park, she gained the name Chaka (meaning fire, war and the color red) while working with the Black Panther Party, and Khan, from a brief marriage to Hassan Khan, bassist with the Staple Singers.
Jennifer Hudson, who won an Academy Award for her film debut in Dreamgirls (2006), plays the gospel-soul singer Aretha Franklin in the 2021 biographical drama, “Respect,” in which Franklin herself was involved until her death in 2018.
Soul and R&B
It was sometimes controversial when people who started in the church crossed over to secular, but the music “remained filled with clarity and dignity. It played well in the mists of the morning but just as well under the sheets of a candlelit bedtime.” Besides Curtis Mayfield (“People Get Ready,” “This is My Country” and “Keep on Pushing”) there was Donny Hathaway (“The Ghetto”), Sam Cooke, Lou Rawls, Otis Clay, the Staple Singers, even Ike and Tina Turner from East St. Louis and St. Louis. “Rhythm and blues expanded on the faith of soul music by adding spectral group vocals, fiery horns, and a sense of artistic anarchy that was open to rock music, modern jazz, and later, hip-hop.”
Jazz
Louis Armstrong brought his cornet/trumpet up from New Orleans in 1922 and became the first jazz soloist, because of his improvisation and scat-vocals.
Born in 1926 in Alton, IL, and raised in East St. Louis, trumpeter/ composer Miles Davis made a name for himself as part of saxophonist Charlie Parker’s quartet in New York City, where he had moved to attend what is now The Juilliard School. Davis shifted direction musically more than any other jazz musician of his time. He avoided using the word jazz to describe his music, but his involvement in the birth of bop, synthesized Latin rhythms and Afro soul, broadened the appeal of modern-day jazz.
Chicago-born keyboardist Herbie Hancock had a six-decade career in jazz: as a member of the second Miles Davis Quintet between 1963 and 1968; as one of the tracks on Stevie Wonder’s 1976 “Songs in the Key of Life” and in the 2010 “Imagine Project” with Jeff Beck, Chaka Khan, Los Lobos and others.
Blues
A native of Vicksburg, MS, Willie Dixon often said that “The blues are the roots, and the other music are the fruits. It’s better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on.” Led Zeppelin would never have had “Whole Lotta Love” without Dixon’s “You Need Love,” according to the 38-page exhibit catalog, available for free on a table in the seated listening area of the Navy Pier exhibit. His other songs that show a connection to rock ‘n’ roll range from “Hoochie Coochie Man,” covered by Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy and John Mayer, to “Little Red Rooster” redone by Howlin’ Wolf, Tom Petty and the Rolling Stones to “My Babe” by Little Walter and Elvis Presley.
Buddy Guy is the last of the migration generation, in the mode of Muddy Waters and Eddie “Guitar Slim” Jones, whom Guy emulates when he exits the stage to play in the street. When Guy left his native Louisiana in 1957, he promised his mother a polka dot Cadillac. She died before seeing him perform live, but he still plays a white-on-red Fender Stratocaster guitar and works a black-on-silver polka dot bejeweled “wah-wah” effects foot pedal, the latter featured in the exhibit.
Rock
“Illinois rock ‘n’ roll is a cacophony of true emotion...The sound of REO Speedwagon [formed in 1967 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign] is direct, while there’s vehicular Berwyn muscle in Ides of March.” The band "Chicago" became the first act to sell out a week-long engagement at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1971 and its 1984 album Chicago 17 won three Grammy Awards, charted the No. 3 single “You’re the Inspiration,” and has now hit six million in sales. Styx, formed in 1972 in Chicago, blended hard rock, soft ballads and heavy synthesizers and found its first audience playing high school gymnasiums in the suburbs. Its breakout hit was the 1973 ballad “Lady” that co-founder and keyboardist Dennis DeYoung wrote for his wife. Also noted in the exhibit are The Buckinghams, “Chicago’s answer to The Beatles,” formed in 1967, with their No. 1 hit across the U.S., “Kind of a Drag,” recorded at Chess Records in Chicago; Dan Fogelberg, who meshed Southern California with his Peoria roots; and suburban Chicago’s Survivor, with their 1979 hit, “Eye of the Tiger,” from the movie Rocky III, which they wrote at the request of the film’s star, Sylvester Stallone.
Power Pop
Rockford’s Cheap Trick was formed in 1973 and is known for hits like “Surrender” and “I Want You to Want Me.” Lead guitarist Rick Nielsen still lives in his hometown and, with other members of the band (singer-songwriter Robin Zander, bassist Tom Petersson, drummer Bun E. Carlos), was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2016. Oak Park’s Pezband, formed in 1971 with a grittier sound, and The Kind, which began in 1977-78, are also featured.
House/Disco
Disco was an R&B-inspired dance music of the mid-1970s that appeared in clubs from Carbondale to Chicago – notably Faces on Rush Street. Its “gaudy outfits, orgasmic lyrics, layered synthesizers and blow-dried hair” defined it commercially and made it an easy target for satire – such as 1979’s “Disco Demolition” at Comiskey Park, hosted by Steve Dahl and Garry Meier of WLUP-FM. “It was the day commercial disco died,” according to the exhibit.
Frankie Knuckles, who was born in the Bronx in 1955, and who came to Chicago in the late 1970s, saw that record companies were no longer signing disco acts, so he created his own genre. He worked with multiple turntables to create a beat closer to the street at the Warehouse Nightclub in the West Loop, which opened in 1977.
“House music has emerged as one of Chicago’s most important cultural exports, along with the blues and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,” according to the exhibit. “There would be no EDM (Electronic Dance Music) and maybe even no Madonna without House.”
The exhibit describes the cultural power of House as equal to blues and gospel. Played fast (120 beats per minute) by DJs, it uses drum machines and bass lines, while its turntables spin off into Latin, soul and rock landscapes. Derrick Carter, raised in the western suburbs, is also credited for taking house across the world. Earth, Wind & Fire, who spent their early years in the late 60s in the Henry Horner development near the Chicago Stadium, combined funk, soul, Latin music, pop and disco into a distinctly urban sound. Like the band "Chicago," they explored horn-driven rock 'n' roll and traveled from Chicago to California; the two bands have toured together.
Rap/Hip-hop
Rap is defined by strong beats and freestyling rhymes, while hip-hop is considered by many to also be a way of life. Chicago’s Common (Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr.) used a neo-soul groove to cross over into Hollywood with a 2015 Academy Award for Best Original Song from the 2014 film, “Selma,” in which he also appeared. Chance the Rapper (Chancelor
Jonathan Bennett) was born and raised in Chicago, where he began on mixtapes. His third release, “Coloring Book,” in 2018, won three Grammys. He has also branched into fashion, politics and media, and donated $1 million to Chicago Public Schools. Chicagoan Lupe Fiasco was inspired by both the African drums of his father and 20th century jazz clarinet player Benny Goodman, who was originally from Chicago. West Sider Da Brat became the first female solo act to go platinum (one million sales) with her 1994 debut “Funkdafied.”
Industrial/Metal
Industrial began in the mid-70s with bits of punk up against electronics and existing rock 'n' roll, one of the first music genres to explore technology. Metal, often characterized by loud drums and distorted guitars, emerged in the late 60s and early 70s through the commercial success of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. Aurora gained fame as a metal nirvana through the 1992 comedy movie, “Wayne’s World.”
In 1981, as Chicago’s urban house music scene was moving to a higher level, Al Jourgensen launched his industrial metal band Ministry, which began with a synth-pop landscape. The band has been nominated for six Grammy Awards for Best Metal Performance.
Chicago metal band Disturbed was started by lead guitaristkeyboardist Dan Donegan in 1994. The band has sold more than 17 million records worldwide, making them one of the most popular bands in the genre. Five of their seven studio albums consecutively debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
Alternative/Punk
Loud guitars, scorching vocals and attitude “layered with a blitzkrieg of emotion” was a gritty, late 70s contrast to the commercial success of disco. Smashing Pumpkins, formed in 1988 in Chicago by lead vocalist-guitarist Billy Corgan, bassist D’arcy Wretsky, guitarist James Iha and jazz-influenced drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, are “icons of the genre…The band’s exploration of metal, rock, and psychedelic pop helped put Chicago back on America’s musical map,” according to the exhibit catalog. The band, with varied members, has sold 35 million albums worldwide and won two Grammys for Best Hard Rock Performance: “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” (1996) and “The End is the Beginning is the End” (1997).
In 1980, Naked Raygun, founded by Jeff Pezzati and Santiago Durango, came out of the South Side Beverly neighborhood, and they evolved to include power pop and rock. When Durango left, John Haggerty defined the band’s unique sound with his guitar contributions. During their 11year career, they were famously credited for being the first live show that Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters (an American rock band) ever saw. Grohl invited Naked Raygun to open for Foo Fighters at several shows, including their 2015 performance at Wrigley Field.
Punk band Rise Against was formed in 1999 by Tim Mc Illrath, who had been studying at Northeastern Illinois University, and Joe Principe. The band has maintained a passion for political commitment: from Amnesty International to PETA, and the gay activist It Gets Better Project. Fall Out Boy, formed in Wilmette in 2001, went double platinum with its “From Under the Cork Tree” album in 2005, and has been nominated nine times for best rock video at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Folk
Chicago is the nation’s biggest small town, and a fertile ground for singer-songwriters like John Prine, Steve Goodman (“The City of New Orleans”) and Andrew Bird. “It has been said that if it was never new and it never gets old, then it is a folk song.” The music is a hybrid of banjo, dulcimer, fiddle, guitar, harmonica, ukulele, and more.
Chicagoan James Roger McGuinn, a house musician at the Gate of Horn nightclub on the Near North Side, enrolled in the Old Town School of Folk Music in 1957; he later cofounded The Byrds and influenced R.E.M., Tom Petty and Wilco.
Americana/Country
Americana is progressive country that incorporates rock, folk and bluegrass. It also stretches into American roots music like gospel, blues, honky tonk and R&B. Alison Kraus, originally from Decatur, collaborated artistically with Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant. Chicago songwriter Shel Silverstein, a successful children’s author, wrote “A Boy Named Sue” for Johnny Cash.
Jeff Tweedy, originally from Belleville, has been writing songs since he was 14. He and Jay Farrar created their first successful band, Uncle Tupelo, in 1987; after it broke up, he formed Wilco in 1995. Mixing country, blues and rock, he has created 11 albums, including “A Ghost is Born,” which won the 2005 Best Alternative Album Grammy.
International
“The sound of hope is all around us”: flutes brought by Irish immigrants, guittaron and marimba from Mexicans, accordions from Mexico, Poland and Czechoslovakia, the stringed zither from Germany and Ukraine.
Eddie Blazonczyk began in rock 'n' roll at 16, but worked his entire life (1941-2012) to destigmatize polka’s novelty image. In 1998, he was named a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow. Walter (Lil’ Wally) Jagiello released more than 80 albums and co-wrote the 1959 Chicago White Sox fight song, “Go Go White Sox!” His primary instrument was a concertina, (similar to an accordion).
The genre also encompasses Native American dance like the Black Hawk Performance Company.
Played at weddings, funerals, and birthdays across Illinois, “the collective elements of this immigrant sound created a new dance card. It is the soundtrack of a land filled with possibility, power, and the promise of a better tomorrow.”
