Table of Contents
With Chicago Music Forever, the Reader hopes to capture some of the many histories that have shaped the city’s multifaceted music community. Music journalism is often ephemeral, and that’s not a knock on it—the same quality that makes show recommendations useful also means they rarely have long shelf lives, and very few album reviews or artist interviews still feel relevant 20 years later. What would it look like to create music stories with an eye toward future audiences?
The Reader already does this to some extent, of course. Our archives contain a great deal of Chicago music history that’s just as informative now as when it was written, and we continue to publish such stories every year.
The ten new pieces at the heart of Chicago Music Forever add to the Reader’s record of this history, describing not just current events but also developments that span nearly 150 years. One chronicles the development of duranguense in the city’s Mexican American community around the turn of the 21st century; another details the Catholic school parties on the south and west sides that helped incubate the house-music scene in the 1970s and ’80s; a third describes Chicago’s emergence as an epicenter for the manufacture and distribution of musical instruments after the Great Fire.
By filling in gaps and corners and illuminating subterranean connections, this sort of storytelling can make it easier to grasp Chicago’s music history as an almost infinitely detailed and constantly evolving tapestry. In defiance of the segregation that blights the city, it demonstrates that no single thread exists apart from the others.
Aside from these ten pieces, this page contains an evolving selection from the Reader archives, which heavily favors material without an expiration date: oral histories, deep dives, memorial tributes, and obituaries. We’ve also included a link to our continuously updated community calendar of upcoming music events. Thank you for visiting, and we hope to see you again soon. —Philip Montoro, music editor
Chicago has had a role not only in shaping the sound of popular music for more than a century, but also in who’s made it and how.
Clubs and cabarets on the south side and beyond provided spaces for early jazz innovation as well as challenges to racial and gender norms.
R.H. Harris of the Soul Stirrers connected gospel to blues and jazz in the 1930s and ’40s, and through his influence on Sam Cooke he’s still shaping pop music today.
Vee-Jay Records was one of the country’s most successful Black-owned labels, helping launch the careers of artists as diverse as Curtis Mayfield, the Four Seasons, and the Staple Singers.
Sun Ra, Phil Cohran, and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians have influenced art and culture for more than half a century.
From the late 60s through the early 90s, trumpeter Paul Serrano and his independent south-side studio produced hit jazz, soul, blues, and gospel.
Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso teamed up with Chicagoans Adam Rudolph, Hamid Drake, and Joseph Thomas to prefigure what would be called “world music.”
In the 1970s, teenagers at Catholic-school parties on Chicago’s south and west sides helped pioneer house-music culture.
Experimental Sound Studio houses a vast and varied collection of jazz, rock, and experimental recordings created by the late anti-war activist.
The city’s Mexican American community transformed the regional genre into a transnational hit.
La comunidad mexicoamericana de Chicago hizo de este género regional un éxito transnacional.
From the Reader‘s Music Archives
Chicago Music history
Give your money to Mary Lane
The 84-year-old Chicago blueswoman should be a legend. She can barely pay her bills.
Summoning the ghosts of Record Row
For two decades, a short stretch of Michigan Avenue hosted a concentration of creative entrepreneurship whose influence on Black popular music is still felt today.
An oral history of the Green Mill
The neon-lit bar at Lawrence and Broadway, now a legendary jazz club, has been around for 107 years—and has more stories than any tavern in town. Here are a few from the past three decades.
Why the AACM and AfriCOBRA still matter
MCA curator Naomi Beckwith discusses a new exhibit called “The Freedom Principle” that connects the legacy of the Black Arts Movement to current cultural and political battles.
An oral history of the Chosen Few Picnic, the ‘Woodstock of house music’
How a family Fourth of July party grew into an annual event that attracts more than 40,000 fans
Building on the pillars of Blue Groove Lounge
The history of DJ Jesse de la Peña’s foundational Chicago hip-hop series, in the words of the people who made it work
The saga of Punkin’ Donuts
How a doughnut-shop parking lot became a confluence of Chicago youth subcultures—and what killed it off
Thirty years ago, a Black queer zine captured the scene that birthed house
Robert Ford and Trent Adkins shaped the bold, subversive, gossipy, funny, deeply engaged voice of Thing, felled by the AIDS pandemic in 1993.
How Homocore Chicago propped open the gate for queer punks
Today’s activist bookers face dramatically different hurdles, but Joanna Brown and Mark Freitas gave them all a running start with this 1990s concert series.
The best Chicago albums of the 2010s
The Reader polled dozens of critics to arrive at an absolutely indisputable ranked list of several hundred records that will definitely not start any arguments.
Remembering my 1973 introduction to Von Freeman
By coincidence or luck, I published the very first interview with the south-side saxophonist
Neo: where misfits fit in
The Lincoln Park club closed in 2015, after providing a sanctuary for generations of night crawlers—but its subcultural legacy continues to reverberate.
The Woman on the Right
An uncaptioned photo in the Numero Group’s recent book about south-side nightlife in the 70s set Jake Austen on the trail of this story about one crazy week in the life of longtime promoter Helen Wooten.
Spoon’s last dance
For six decades, Fletcher Weatherspoon has been a pillar of Chicago’s African-American social-club scene. On Mother’s Day, he handed down his crown.
Andrew Kitchen’s boogie strikes back
The Soul Train veteran and host of Attack of the Boogie celebrates the reissue of his dance show’s 1984 theme song.
It beats dancing about architecture
The Reader’s current music writer surveys all 50 years of the paper’s coverage and reports back.
Honoring the vanishing musical culture of Wicker Park
In some ways, Dorian’s is just one more boutiquey bar and restaurant. But its record store and music bookings connect it to the neighborhood’s 1990s arts community.
Keeping the beat
Chicago’s beat scene has to do without the attention the city’s rappers get, but it’s a vital incubator for adventurous, ambitious instrumental hip-hop.
The Jackson Find
This was supposed to be the story of the Jackson Five’s first single, cut in Chicago in 1967. But while writing it, Jake Austen picked up the trail of a tape nobody knew existed: the earliest known studio recording of Michael Jackson and his brothers.
Chicago label Still Music rescues decades of house history from a south-side storage locker
Jerome Derradji is restoring dozens of decaying reel-to-reel tapes and releasing their contents—including unissued tracks and DJ mixes from some of the genre’s early giants.
Obituaries, tributes, and lost legends
Dave ‘Medusa’ Shelton was a fairy godmother to Chicago’s club scene
He didn’t just found the legendary Medusa’s—he also helped everyone in his orbit shine like a star.
Did John Prine die for Donald Trump’s sins?
The cruelty, ignorance, and incompetence of the federal pandemic response have cost the life of a beloved singer-songwriter who stood against all those things.
Mic Shane helped boost Chicago hip-hop onto a global stage
He cofounded the city’s first hip-hop magazine in 1991 and worked tirelessly for decades to help the scene grow.
Goodbye to songwriter Michael Smith
With “The Dutchman” and other widely recorded songs, he created emotional realities that let you feel along with his characters.
The House That Fred Built
Tenor-sax giant Fred Anderson and the community he sustained
Bob Koester leaves a colossal legacy in Chicago jazz and blues
For nearly 70 years, he owned the Jazz Record Mart and Delmark Records—and though his businesses could be “crazy town,” they helped nurture thriving communities.
Doom-metal pioneer Eric Wagner has left our plane too soon
The inimitable voice of Chicago bands Trouble and the Skull has been silenced by COVID-19.
Long live Squeak
A personal memorial for the Pivot Gang producer and DJ
Remembering the quiet king of Chicago music promoters
Eddie Thomas discovered the Impressions, founded Curtom Records with Curtis Mayfield, and ran the 1970s DJ pool the Dogs of War.
Remembering Chicago music champion Christen Thomas
She booked shows for a decade with the Empty Bottle and Metro teams, but that work was just the beginning of the love, joy, and support she showered on the local scene.
A memorial to Alejandro Morales
His death doesn’t just leave a hole in Chicago’s DIY music scene—it’s a loss to community activists, to affordable housing advocates, and to countless friendships.
Parker Lee Williams helped shape Chicago hip-hop—and he never stopped building
He threw the city’s first recurring hip-hop party, worked with the likes of Grandmaster Caz and Jamal-Ski, and built commercial music libraries that continue to support local artists.
Farewell to unsung house-music architect Rodney Bakerr
He led early Wax Trax! group Strange Circuits, ran underground label Rockin’ House, and wrote ubiquitous house-music rhythm patterns for Roland.
Remembering Benji Espinoza, champion of Chicago house music
His work for Quantum Distributors and the D.J. International label helped boost house into its exalted place in the global pop pantheon.
Comprehensive listings of concerts and music events from a wide variety of event organizers—including Reader readers. Click “Promote your event” below to submit event listings.
You can also browse full, unfiltered event listings in all categories and browse a page of event listings prefiltered for arts categories.
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