Country and Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival

Music journalists and aficionados who are knowledgeable of American popular music over the last century are keenly aware of Chicago's central role in the history of blues, jazz, and gospel. They will rattle off names like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Dinah Washington, Koko Taylor, Nat King Cole, Benny Goodman, and Lil Hardin Armstrong. You might even hear Thomas A. Dorsey and the Staples Singers. However, you're likely to get a blank stare if you query them about the city's country or folk music scenes. Someone might call out John Prine or Steve Goodman, but that's about all.Ironically, Chicago deserves a central place in both country and folk history, but until recently few have argued that position. Fortunately, the momentum is shifting. Chad Berry's collection of essays, The Hayloft Gang: The Story of the National Barn Dance (University of Illinois Press) appeared in 2008 and Stephen Parry's PBS documentary film The Hayloft Gang aired 2011. Mark Guarino's book should finally elevate the Chicago scenes to the fore. He offers a much-needed, well-written, readable, detailed historical survey of country (or, country-western, if you prefer) and folk music in Chicago over the last century and convincingly argues the case for the city's place in the history of both genres.Guarino begins with the creation of WLS radio in 1924 and its decision to launch The National Barn Dance early on. Radio was in its infancy and WLS quickly gained a large audience among rural White transplants with the Barn Dance. The author carefully explains how the station increased its broadcast power and the program drew larger audiences across the Midwest and nation, establishing itself as the dominant voice in country music. The Barn Dance included live audiences as well, and over three decades, more than 2.6 million people paid to attend! Some credit goes to crafty showmen-promoters, including John Lair and Bradley Kincaid. A host of legendary performers also offered their talent, including Bill Monroe, Red Foley, Lulu Belle & Scotty, Lily May Ledford, Gene Autry, Patsy Montana, and the Girls of the Golden West. Meanwhile, Nashville played second fiddle.But the glory wouldn't last. By the late 1940s, WLS changed direction and let the show slowly die. Audiences may have been upset, but management stood firm and in 1960 changed formats to rock ’n’ roll. Country music hardly died in Chicago, however. Guarino presents a colorful accounting of thriving country-music, “hillbilly” bars. In the Uptown neighborhood, home to many rural transplants, they proliferated, offering lesser-known country acts a slew of performance venues. Additionally, radio station WJJD went all country and garnered 25 percent of the city's radio audience in the mid-1960s.Meanwhile, the folk revival, typically considered a New York phenomenon, gained ground in the city after the Gate of Horn opened in 1956 with legendary promoter-manager Albert Grossman at the helm. Grossman didn't last long as he soon fled to New York and the world of stardom, but he set the stage and continued to send acts to Chicago. For a time, the club thrived, but the city shut it down in 1963, and the Old Town School of Folk Music remained as the city's folk-music center. Founded in 1957 by a handful of leftists such as Frank Hamilton, Win Stracke, and Dawn Greening, with help from Big Bill Broonzy and Studs Terkel, the school's populist-centered teaching paradigm and concerts engendered tremendous popularity and media attention and still do. Then, in 1961, a cast of musicians and devotees presented the first University of Chicago Folk Festival, which quickly emerged as second only to the legendary Newport Folk Festival. Bill Monroe, Maybelle Carter, and Ralph Stanley and many more graced the festival stage.Ironically, the singer-songwriter variant of the folk revival that followed settled slowly in Chicago, according to Guarino, while the East and West Coasts strands thrived. But without arbiters of taste or major record labels, Chicago's scene developed with a creative freedom lacking elsewhere. The Old Town School flourished and coffeehouses and small clubs like the Quiet Knight, the No Exit, and The Earl of Old Town featured major acts and up-and-coming artists Bonnie Koloc, Steve Goodman, John Prine, Ed and Fred Holstein, as well local lesser knowns.Chicago's creative energy has continued on a variety of fronts within the larger category of “roots music,” which Guarino dutifully describes. Indie labels, including Alligator, Delmark, Flying Fish, and Bloodshot, offered memorable recordings from the 1970s onward. National media neglected Chicago, but local acts such as Special Consensus, the Sundowners, the Texas Rubies, Robbie Fulks, Jon Langford, Freakwater, the Handsome Family, and many more found success, while newer acts continued Chicago's creative use of tradition into the present. Of course, Wilco came along, bringing country and folk full circle. Today, however, the digital world holds sway and the musical future remains unclear. Meanwhile, anyone interested in popular music would do well to read this book. Yes, of course, we might criticize some details and omissions. The role of ethnic “folk” music such as the Irish, Mexican, or Polish, for example, exists outside the parameters of Guarino's categorization. Criticism aside, this is an excellent, noteworthy offering that historians and music devotees will appreciate and find to their benefit.