Since 2005 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in ...

Of all the moods, tones, and colors the blues has offered music in the last 100-odd years, there’s nothing quite like the sound of a barrelhouse upright playing that old boogie woogie. And back in its ...

Barrelhouse blues gets its name from early American bars known as barrel houses, usually on the outskirts of town or near labor camps, where African-American workers would get together, drink, and ...

The Chicago label The Sirens has been issuing (or reissuing, as the case might be) compilations of piano blues and Boogie Woogie by the Windy City's leading exponents of that pianistic art. The cuts ...