In the waning days of 1965, noted author and scholar Sam Charters, along with his wife Ann, had been so caught up in the flurry of activity involved with producing a series of Blues recordings for the Vanguard label, that when they entered a little café looking to have a late breakfast one blistery morning, they hadn't even realized it was Christmas Day. Although they ended up having a good laugh about it, what they didn't realize is that the subsequent LPs that came out the following year would go on to be something of a defining, high water mark in the history of Chicago Blues. Three LPs, each sporting the work of three different musicians from the Windy City — all of them entitled “Chicago/The Blues/Today!” With just a few tracks on each album designed to give the artists a chance to shine just a little bit — that's exactly what they did, by the way — it gave much needed boosts to already promising careers, and in other cases, ended up giving some of them the opportunity to start out fresh after their careers had become sidetracked years earlier. As for the recordings on “Blues Southside Chicago,” it too presented a cross-section of working musicians in the Windy City at the time, with such artists as Sunnyland Slim, Eddie Boyd, Johnny Young, Homesick James, Walter Horton, Poor Bob Woodfork, and Robert Nighthawk appearing for a few tantalizing moments each. The tapes later wound up in England, where they were issued by the good folks at Decca, with liner notes written by Mike Leadbitter. Another reissue on the Flyright label a dozen years later was basically it — the tracks were never slated for release in America, and as far as we know, never made the transition to the digital age. Last, but certainly by no means least, is the work of Swedish broadcasting legend Olle Helander (roughly: uhl-lah hel-AHN-dur). He was born in Sweden in 1919, and became a serious admirer of Jazz and Blues from an early age. In 1947, he authored his first book on the subject, “Jazzens Väg” (“The Road of Jazz”), which became the first Swedish language work on the subject. Starting in the late 1940s, Helander began sharing his love and knowledge of the music over the Swedish airwaves, with a series of regular Jazz programs. In 1961, he made a trip to the U.S., spending several months hearing and interviewing musicians from New York to Los Angeles. In May 1964, he came back with a hand-picked sound engineer, Hans Westman, determined to make a documentary record of the music. Later, when he returned with a hundred recordings by more than a dozen different musicians, it became the basis for a ground-breaking 21 part documentary series on Swedish Radio called “I Blueskvarter,” or simply, “In The Blues Quarters.” Partly by design, Helander set out not to record the big names of the blues — people like B.B. King or Muddy Waters — but rather, the overlooked and the forgotten: elder statesmen who hadn’t recorded in a while, or in some cases, a few fresh new faces just starting out. Once in Chicago, he set up shop at the Sutherland Lounge on Drexel Avenue, and word quickly got out that blues musicians could come and record and make a few bucks. As for the Swedish public, Helander's documentary radio series became the stuff of legend. For some listeners, it was the clarion call that led to a life-long interest in this strange and fascinating music — as one listener put it, after hearing Walter Horton's amplified harmonica playing for the very first time, he shook his head in disbelief, thinking that it wasn't possible for a harmonica to sound like that. Tapes of the radio shows circulated amongst collectors for years, while three subsequent repeat broadcasts made it one of the most requested shows in Swedish broadcasting history. The tapes essentially lay dormant in the vaults for almost 35 years, before a proper reissue program finally gave them the recognition they so richly deserved, starting in 1999. It is the driving passion and love for the music that led people like Willie Dixon, Sam Charters and Olle Helander to make these recordings, and as we dive head first into the “Blues Quarters” of the mid-1960s Chicago Blues — the first of a three part series — we can only offer our sincere and undying gratitude to them. Pictured: The cover from "Chicago/The Blues/Today!", featuring Ann Charters' iconic photo of winter snow on the El tracks. This episode is also available as a high quality digital download from Bandcamp: http://tinyurl.com/gqt7ffh
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