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Fannie Rushing
Dr. Fannie Rushing, Associate Professor of History at Benedictine University, has wide-ranging research interests in the African Diaspora and black resistance movements. She has created a guided tour itinerary of the Bronzeville neighborhood that explains its historical, political and cultural importance.
Gayle Dean Wardlow
Gayle Dean Wardlow is an independent scholar and major collector of the pre-war Blues 78s known as "race records." The discoverer of the Robert Johnson death certificate, he was among the first to research the early Blues artists. His book, Chasin' The Devil's Music, received a 2006 Blues Foundation Award for Blues scholarship.
George Bailey
George Bailey received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago and teaches English at Columbia College in Chicago. He is an accomplished poet, Blues and Jazz musician.
James Abbington
James Abbington, a theologian and musicologist at Emory University, publishes widely on African American Gospel traditions. As the Executive Director of the African American Sacred Music Series, he conducts Gospel workshops across the country.
Horace Maxile
Horace Maxile, Ph.D., is the Associate Director of Research at Columbia College's Center for Black Music Research. He is a musician and scholar whose work explores the various manifestations of the Blues trope in Blues, Gospel, jazz and classical American music.
Otis Clay
When Chicago was one of the world's soul-hit recording capitals, Otis Clay was its most vital and spirited vocalist. Still true to the mid-'60s traditions, he's now a global ambassador for the Windy City's soul-blues sound, a timeless mix of supercharged vocal intensity, churning grooves and an emotional uplift born of the testifying in gospel music. Clay, who has long made Chicago his home, earned his Billboard chart pedigree with sides like "She's a Mover" and "Trying to Live My Life Without You." Like his colleagues Al Green and Ann Peebles, he's crossed back and forth between spiritual music and the sensually secular. On stage, he proves the soul-blues sound remains irresistible, a lover's Saturday night shout that's just a whisper away from Sunday's revival meeting.
Paul Garon
Paul Garon has written about the Blues for over thirty years. A co-founder of Living Blues Magazine, he is the author of Woman with Guitar, The Devil's Son-in-Law, and Blues and the Poetic Spirit.
Portia Maultsby
Portia Maultsby, Ph.D., Professor of Ethnomusicology and Folklore at Indiana University, is a composer, pianist and writer. She is currently working on a new manuscript, tentatively titled From the Margins to the Mainstream, focusing on what has happened to Black musical genres within American popular culture.
Sharon Lewis
Sharon Lewis, a Blues vocalist who has performed with such artists as Koko Taylor, Son Seals, Denise LaSalle, and Billy Branch, is an accomplished public speaker who talks about her own life's journey as a Blues artist and the spiritual and healing dimensions of the music.
Sterling Plumpp
Sterling Plumpp, Professor Emeritus in English and African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is a poet who employs the imagery of Blues music culture as the subject matter of his work. Among his many publications is the book Blues: The Story Always Untold.
David Whiteis
David Whiteis, Ph.D., a Chicago-based freelance writer, educator, and contributing reviewer for Living Blues Magazine, won the Keeping the Blues Alive Award from the Blues Foundation in 2001. His book, Chicago Blues: Portraits and Stories, appeared in 2006.
Stephanie Shonekan
Stephanie Shonekan is a professor of humanities and cultural studies and Director of the Black World Studies program at Columbia College in Chicago. She received her doctorate in Ethnomusicology at Indiana University. Her research centers on the literary, musical and cultural parallels and distinctions that exist between Africa and the African Diaspora.
Timuel Black
Timuel Black is a well-known and respected Chicago-based educator, activist, community leader, oral historian and philosopher. His book, Bridges of Memory: Chicago's First Wave of Great Migration, chronicles black Chicago history from the 1920's to the present.
Billy Branch
Billy Branch, the much honored Chicago bluesman and driving force behind the formation of the Sons Of Blues, is also a dedicated blues educator and one of the founding architects of Blues-in-the-Schools programs, teaching in the Chicago public school system for over twenty years as well as across the nation.
Bob Koester
Bob Koester is the founder of Chicago's independent Delmark Records label. He has been responsible for recording and releasing some of the finest jazz and blues of the last half of the 20th century.
Barry Dolins
Barry Dolins, Deputy Director of the Mayor’s Office of Special Events, captains the programming division that presents Chicago’s largest music festivals including such signature events as the Blues, Gospel and Jazz festivals as well as music festivals dedicated to Latin American and Celtic culture.
Fernando Jones
Fernando Jones, musician, actor and author of the book, I Was There When the Blues Was Red Hot, is the Director of Columbia College’s Blues Ensemble and the founder of the blues education initiative, Blues Kids of America.
Larry Taylor
Chicago singer-drummer Larry Taylor learned his trade from his stepfather Eddie Taylor Sr. and, for the past thirty years, he drummed behind all the greats of Chicago blues. He is currently organizing a West-Side Revue for the 2008 Chicago Blues Festival featuring his friends and several of the Taylor brothers and sisters.
Frank "Little Sonny" Scott Jr.
Octogenarian Frank Scott Jr., one of the last of the Maxwell Street bluesmen, is an accomplished folk artist who also plays his blues percussive house keys and tambourine.
Bob Stroger
Bob Stroger, the blues bassist, has been playing in Chicago since 1955. He has performed and recorded with the best including Eddie King, Otis Rush, Jimmy Rogers, Eddie Taylor, Eddie Clearwater and Sunnyland Slim.
James Wheeler
Blues guitarist James Wheeler has been playing Chicago blues since the late fifties. His first big break came when he played with Billy Boy Arnold, in 1963, backing up B.B. King, Millie Jackson, O.V. Wright, and Otis Clay. He records on the Delmark label and continues an active international touring schedule.
Jim O’Neal
Co-founder of Living Blues Magazine and Blues Hall of Fame inductee, Jim is a historian, author, producer, and research director of the Mississippi Blues Trail historical marker project.
Marie Dixon
Widow of blues legend Willie Dixon, Marie is the CEO and President of the Blues Heaven Foundation, whose mission is to assist in the documentation and promotion of the blues, supporting artists and educational initiatives. The foundation is located in the landmark Chess Records building, 2120 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
Bob Davis
Bob Davis is the founder of Soul-Patrol.com and Black Music Suite Director for RadioIO.com.
Imago Dei Ministries Community Choir
Imago Dei Ministries Community Choir, whose founder and director is Dominican University alumnus Victor Junious, has been serving the Chicago community through its music ministry for the past 6 years.
Nat Dove
Nat is the founder of the Bakersfield Blues Preservation Society, a musician, historian and educator who teaches and promotes blues, boogie-woogie and barrelhouse piano.
Billy Boy Arnold
Billy Boy Arnold, a leading blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter has enjoyed a remarkable career spanning six decades. He lists among his many credits the landmark 1955 Chess hit single, Bo Diddley.
Stan Mosley
Malaco recording artist and veteran soul blues singer, Stan Mosley has been in the music business for over three decades. He has won the ChicagoMusic Award Best Male R&B vocalist two years in row.
Suzanne Flandreau
Head Librarian and Archivist at the Center for Black Music Research. She previously headed the Blues Archives at the University of Mississippi.
Bob Riesman
Bob Riesman’s biography of Big Bill Broonzy, I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy, is under advance contract with the University of Chicago Press. He produced and co-wrote the documentary American Roots Music: Chicago, which was broadcast on WTTW-Channel 11 in Chicago.
Bob Jones
Bob Jones is a blues songwriter, producer and historian. Jones has enjoyed a storied career, working on the old Chitlin’ Circuit and writing songs for such luminaries as Cicero Blake, Willie Clayton, Tyrone Davis, James Carr, Little Milton, Artie "Blues Boy” White, Otis Clay, and many others.
