Blues and the Spirit IV Symposium Participants

Keynote Speakers

Tricia Rose, Professor of Africana Studies and the Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University, is an internationally respected scholar of post-civil rights era black U.S. culture, popular music, social issues, gender and sexuality. She is most well known for her groundbreaking book on the emergence of hip hop culture. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America is considered a foundational text for the study of hip hop, one that has defined what is now an entire field of study. Black Noise won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1995, voted among the top 25 books of 1995 by the Village Voice, and in 1999 was listed by Black Issues in Higher Education as one of its "Top Books of the Twentieth Century." In 2003 Rose published a rare oral narrative history of black women's sexual life stories, Longing To Tell: Black Women Talk About Sexuality and Intimacy. In 2008, Professor Rose returned to hip hop with: The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop-And Why It Matters. In all her work, and with particular relevance to the Blues and the Spirit theme, Rose dissects the ways in which the commercialization of black popular culture has shaped racial and gender images, perceptions and policies.

Professor Rose was born and raised in New York City and spent her childhood in Harlem and the Bronx. She graduated from Yale University where she received a BA in Sociology and then received her Ph.D. from Brown University in American Studies. She has taught at NYU, UC Santa Cruz, and Brown. In addition to her duties at Brown, Professor Rose sits on the Boards of the Nathan Cummings Foundation and Black Girls Rock, Inc. and is serving as the Lund-Gill Chair at Dominican University during the Spring 2014 semester. Rose has been a CurrentTV contributor and has also been featured on MSNBC, CNN, NPR and other national and local media outlets. More of her work can be found in Time, Essence, The New York Times and The Village Voice to name a few. She encourages you to connect with her on her website, www.triciarose.com, on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. As the Lund-Gill Chair, Dr. Rose is teaching an undergraduate Honors Seminar in Spring 2014 on African American Popular Culture. During her residency, she presented a public lecture on March 17. We are delighted that she will deliver the keynote address for the Blues and the Spirit Symposium on May 31.

Lance Williams created Blacks on Blues in 1992 as a way of preserving and venerating one of Americas greatest cultural resources. The intent of Blacks on Blues is to encourage African-Americans to place a high value on their rich cultural heritage. Blacks on Blues events and activities are devoted to acknowledging and encouraging strong interest in the cultural forms of the people of the African Diaspora. Blacks on Blues events feature music, lecture, and multi-media in a two-hour interactive format. The series is presented monthly in the greater Los Angeles area. A wide range of topics has been covered over the years, and the presentations have been well received in the community. The events average forty attendees and Dr. Williams videotapes each presentation for archival purposes. He has also videotapes artists to allow them to tell their stories as active presenters of the blues legacy. In the past year, Dr. Williams has developed a Blacks on Blues website www.blacksonblues.com. He also has a strong Facebook presence.

Dr. Williams was the first African-American student to graduate from UCLAs prestigious Folklore and Mythology graduate program. In the process he won one of the first two American Folklore Society Ethnic Minority Fellowships. He also edited and published Blackfolk, a journal of African-American Folklore while a grad student. He earned his Ph. D. from UCLA in Anthropology at the age of 27. With numerous colleagues, he co-founded the Association of African and African-American Folklorists, and shot What Time Is De Meetin, the first African-American folklore documentary, in 1977-8. Dr. Williams has taught at sixteen college and universities in southern California, including USC, UCLA, Loyola Marymount, and the Claremont Colleges. He was Vice-Chair of the Afro-Ethnic Studies Department at California State University, Fullerton in the 1970s.He has been a professional writer since the age of 18. He has interviewed hundreds of artists including Muddy Waters, Lightnin Hopkins, Koko Taylor, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder. He wrote the lead article for the legendary Wattstax concert for the Los Angeles Times, as well as the liner notes for the concert rerelease album. He has published over 300 articles on American culture and is the co-author of the music industry study, The Anatomy of A Record Company. He previously served as Artistic Director of the Quincy Jones Production Workshop, Artistic Director of Black Radio Exclusive Magazine and has done various stints as a producer-host on numerous radio stations. He is an accomplished photographer who has shot photos on four continents-including thirteen regions in Brasil; Malaysia, Senegal, South Africa, The Bahamas, and many parts of the United States. Dr. Williams multimedia presentation, Blues Didnt Start at the Bandstand, will close the symposium with a consideration of two equally important premises: a systematic appraisal of the Music Has No Color/Anybody Can Play the Blues argument; and the need to develop a strategic plan, with action steps, to continually preserve and protect the integrity and value of the music and continually acknowledge and venerate the original culture that created and nurtured the blues.

Presenters, Featured Musicians and Special Guests

Jazzii A is the CEO/founder of Jazzii Entertainment and Productions, journalist, producer, TV and radio show host, Ole Hen for Blues artist Bobby Rush, manager for several recording artists, and the fourth in the world to have a copyright on a dance, the Cha Cha Slide. Jazzii has been in show business for 38+ years, working with various artists in the Gospel and Jazz genres. In 2011, Jazzii became a columnist for the worlds oldest Blues publication, Jefferson Blues Magazine, and in 2012 launched N-Da-Kno her radio segment that can be heard on WBOL 1560 AM, WAGR-Lexington Hot 102.5 FM, KSIP 91.5 FM, WJUS AM1310 & FM 94.3, WDSV 91.9 FM, WNBN AM1290, WVHB 105.3 FM, KMGC FM 104.5, WCLM AM 1450, Jus Blues Radio, Chicos Radio, SBR Radio, Boogies Radio and her own Internet Radio Station WNDK. She also has her own TV show. Julius Bailey, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Wittenberg University, is a Christian existentialist, philosopher, cultural critic, social theorist, and diversity lecturer. He is the author of Philosopher and Hip Hop: Ruminations on Post Modern Cultural Form and has edited two volumes, The Cultural Impact of Kanye West and Jay Z: Essys on Hip Hops Philosopher King.

Lincoln T. Beauchamp, Jr., aka Chicago Beau is a Blues artist, record producer, writer, and publisher. He has made numerous Blues, Jazz and other genre recordings under his name and in collaboration with other world class artists including Pinetop Perkins, Memphis Slim, SunnyLand Slim, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Billy Cobham, and Archie Shepp. Beau is Founding Editor and Publisher of Literati Chicago, Literati Internazionale, and the Original Chicago Blues Annual, which has been translated into three languages. In 2010, he edited and contributed to the highly acclaimed work titled BluesSpeak, published by the University of Illinois Press. Beau currently teaches teaching reative non-fiction, and fiction writing classes at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois. Cicero Blake is truly a living legend who began his illustrious career as a founding member of the Golden Tones, a doo-wop ensemble that evolved into the legendary Kool Gents. His first solo recordings can be characterized as soft Soul, but it was not until the mid-1970s that he struck immortality with what has become his signature song, Dip My Dipper. Despite recent health issues, Cicero continues to perform at Chicago clubs where he is revered as a beloved elder statesman for the music.

Mark Camarigg is Publications Manager and former Assistant Editor for Living Blues Magazine at the University of Mississippi. Founded in Chicago in 1970, Living Blues has set the standard for Blues journalism around the world. Mark, who joined the magazine in 2003, is also a respected writer and researcher, an attorney and a committed advocate for Blues and Blues musicians. He is currently co-editing a collection of interviews with Blues musicians for the University of Illinois Press.

Rosalind Cummings-Yeates is a freelance journalist, blogger and arts critic specializing in travel and culture. She writes "Sweet Home," a monthly Blues column for the Illinois Entertainer. Her book, Exploring Chicago Blues: Inside the Scene, Past and Present, was published by The History Press in April. Rosalind writes extensively about the power and influence of Black culture on global society. She is an adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia College Chicago. You can read more of her work on her web site, www.RosalindCummingsYeates.com and connect with her on her blog, Farsighted Fly Girl

Gil Cook is an Assistant Professor of English at Dominican University. Teaching in the English and Black World Studies departments, his courses include African American Literature, Literature of the African Diaspora, and Black Women Writers. He was a contributor for Jay-Z: Essays on Hip Hops Philosopher King (McFarland Press 2011) and has two articles under review with prominent literary journals. Now in his fourth year at Dominican, Gil is a member of the Blues and the Spirit Symposium planning team.

Steve Cushing, the host and producer of Blues Before Sunrise, has a long and multifaceted career with Blues. His interest in the Blues began in high school and he has been collecting Blues records for over 40 years. He combined his love for Blues with broadcasting classes at Columbia College in Chicago. Steve began hosting Blues Before Sunrise at WBEZ, Chicago's public radio station, in June 1980. The program went into national syndication in September 1990. He served as the anchor for WBEZ's national broadcast of the Chicago Blues Festival from 1986 to 1996. Steve also pursues his passion for Blues as a professional musician and he has produced a series of recordings by such well known Blues men as Magic Slim, Smokey Smothers, Big Wheeler, Jimmy Lee Robinson and Lurrie Bell. He is the author of Blues before Sunrise: The Radio Interviews and, most recently, Pioneers of the Blues Revival with the University of Illinois Press.

L. Stanley Davis is a noted clinician, historian, and specialist in Black Sacred Music with an emphasis in Gospel and Black sacred music history and performance, and has taught at both DePaul and Loyola Universities in Chicago. He served as Associate Editor of GIA Publications African American Heritage Hymnal, and as a sales representative and presenter for the companys African American Church Music division at workshops, conferences and annual conventions across the country. He co-founded Gospel Arts Workshop, a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to the preservation, production, and promotion of the Gospel music art form. The groups trail-blazing concert productions, O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing, served as the catalyst and primary model for the city of Chicagos annual Gospel Fest series.

Bryan Froehle is a Professor of Pastoral Sociology and the Executive Director of the Ph.D. Program in Practical Theology at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens, FL. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Organization at the University of Michigan and served as the founding director of the Siena Center at Dominican University until his appointment at St. Thomas in 2008.

Paul Garon has written about the Blues for nearly fifty years. A co-founder of Living Blues Magazine, he is also the author of The Devils Son-in-Law: The Story of Peetie Wheatstraw and His Songs; Blues and the Poetic Spirit, Woman with Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues (with Beth Garon); and Whats the Use of Walking if a Freight Trains Going Your Way: Black Hoboes and Their Songs. A new edition of Woman with Guitar has just been published by City Lights Books.

Jeannie Holliday, who divides her time between Milwaukee and Chicago, possesses a distinctive voice that ranges from a melismatic pop-Jazz flutter to a Soulful, Blues-inflected wail. A rising Soul-Blues artist, her 2010 debut CD, You Can't Blame Me was recorded by the Chicago-based Blast label

HoneyDew, aka Melon Green Lewis came by both her stage monicker and her vocation almost as birthrights---she was named after her mothers favorite fruit, and she grew up in Chicago, surrounded by music. By the time she finished grammar school, she already had her sights set on a musical career (her role models included such diverse stylists as Koko Taylor, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, and Chicago-based R&B vocalist/multi-instrumentalist/producer Shaquane Davenport). In recent years, HoneyDew has become a favorite on the local and regional club circuits, and she has also appeared on various festivals in and near the Chicagoland area.

Theo Huff is a young Chicagoan who has already had the opportunity to perform on stage with some of the greatest contemporary Blues, Soul and R&B singers, including Koko Taylor, Bobby Rush, Gene Chandler, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Willie Clayton, Denise Lasalle, Garland Green, Darius Brooks, Albertina Walker, and Millie Jackson. He is also an aspiring actor and has been affiliated with the Chicago Black Ensemble Theatre since he was 14 years old. In 2009, he was named "Best Blues Act" by the Chicago Reader.

Leslie Keros is a manuscript editor by day and a disc jockey by night. She is the host of Chicago Bound, Messin' with the Blues, and Crossroads: Where Jazz Meets Blues for WDCB and WHPK. She is a native of the Detroit area and has been steeped in music since childhood, taking classical piano lessons from age 7 throughout her school years, singing in youth and adult choirs, and attending fine arts camp every summer until high school. She entered college intending to be a music major but was seduced by English literature, a romance that eventually spawned a career in book publishing. She can also be heard on Taintradio and Radio Free Amsterdam. Greg Kot has been the music critic at the Chicago Tribune since 1990. He cohosts the nationally syndicated public-radio show Sound Opinions and is the author of several books, including I'll Take You There: Mavis Staples, the Staple Singers and the March up Freedom's Highway, Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music, and Wilco: Learning How to Die.

Sharon Lewis has steadily entrenched her status as one of Chicagos true Blues Divas since her debut in the early 1990s. Internationally known, she has performed at some of the largest and most well-known festivals in the world including Lucerne, Switzerland; Monterey, California and the Chicago Blues Festival. An accomplished public speaker who talks openly about her own difficult lifes journey and the spiritual and healing dimensions of the music, her biography was featured in David Whiteis book Chicago Blues: Portraits and Stories. Her long awaited Delmark produced CD, The Real Deal, released in October 2011, has received rave reviews to further solidify her Diva status. Sharon and her band, Texas Fire, hold down a Sunday night residency at Kingston Mines in Chicago and they have been Blues and the Spirit favorites since the first symposium in 2008.

Claudette Miller was raised during the sixties singing do-wop on the corner and praising God on Sunday in the church choir. She used those experiences to color her voice and those experiences have become her Blues. She received her first opportunity to display her talent on the stage with the late Albert King. She has performed with or opened for such greats as the late Tyrone Davis and Little Milton Campbell along with Billy Branch and Lonnie Brooks to name just a few. She flows effortlessly through Jazz and Blues with a repertoire that includes the stylings of Dinah Washington and Nancy Wilson on the Jazz end with soaring renditions of Koko Taylor and Etta James on the Blues end, infused with Gospel throughout. Over the course of her career she has performed at all of Chicagos major Blues venues; Kingston Mines, Buddy Guys Legends and Blues Chicago (where she has a weekly Monday residency).

Regina Mullen is the owner of HarrietVinson, LLC, a multi-platform publisher of "interesting things," including Passway and AfroTrad Magazines. Passway Magazine explores Blues aesthetics through the lens of music, art, culture and tradition. AfroTrad will explore melodic, narrative and thematic music including fife and drum, country, hillbilly, Americana, folk, spiritual and multi-cultural and traditional African-American music. Regina, who earned a BA at Harvard-Radcliffe College and her JD at the University of Michigan, is a mediator, arbitrator, attorney, photographer, writer, web programmer, teacher and very proud parent. Jim O'Neal is a co-founder of Living Blues Magazine and Blues Hall of Fame inductee, O'Neal also cofounded Rooster Blues Records, and, since 2007 has operated the Stackhouse record label. He is co-editor of the book The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine (Routledge, 2002). Jim also serves as the research director for the Mississippi Blues Trail project.

Sterling Plumpp, Professor Emeritus in English and African American Studies at the University of Chicago, is a poet who employs the imagery of Blues music and culture as the subject matter of his work. He has written numerous books, including Hornman (1996), Harriet Tubman (1996), Ornate With Smoke (1997), Half Black, Half Blacker (1970), and The Mojo Hands Call, I Must Go (1982) and Home/Bass (2013). He also served as an advisor for the television production of The Promised Land. Among his many acolades, Sterling received the prestigious Carl Sandburg Literary Prize for poetry for The Mojo Hands Call, I Must Go. Sandra Pointer-Jones has written for Living Blues, Blues Access, King Biscuit Time, and other Bluesoriented magazines worldwide including Il Blues in Italy. She has done liner notes for Evidence, Delmark as well as Earwig Records and is the former editor for the late Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation. Sandra wrote the definitive history of Delmark Records, which can be read on delmark.com. Her video-taped interviews with Chicago Blues legends are part of the permanent collection at the Chicago Cultural Center of the Harold Washington Library in Chicago. Her unique perspective as a seasoned female African American writer has given her unparalleled insights into the men and women behind the music that is the Blues. Jamiah On Fire Rogers and The Red Machine is a three piece power group representing the young faces and future of the Blues. The band is comprised of 18 year old Jamiah on guitar and vocals; 14 year old Jalon on drums and vocals; and 12 year old Kenyonte on bass and vocals. The Red Machine has been together for three years. Members of the band have played the Chicago Blues Fest, Taste of Chicago, Buddy Guy's Legends, the 18th International Mont Tremblant Blues Festival, the Montreal International Jazz Festival, and the Ottawa International Blues Festival. They have opened for Ronnie Baker Brooks, Billy Branch and the Kinsey Report. Jamiah On Fire and the Red Machine continue to sharpen their music skills, learn new material and expand their repertoire, as evidenced in their new CD, Takin the Stage.

Patricia R. Schroeder is the McClure Chair of English and Coordinator of American Studies at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. Her publications include two books and numerous essays on American drama, as well as more recent works on Blues culture. These include Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture (Illinois 2004), several articles on Blues-based literature, and an essay on African American performers of coon songs. Her study of three plays about Robert Johnson will appear in 2015. She is currently exploring the Blues aesthetics of performance novelist Sharon Bridgforth. Patti is delighted to be participating on a panel with her former Blues-lit student, Dominican Assistant Professor of English Gil Cook.

The Scott Family represents one of Chicagos richest and most diverse musical legacies. Kenneth Buddy Scott is recognized as a legend on the Chicago club circuit. In the early 1960s, the Scott Brothers became one of Chicagos most in-demand session units and show bands. When bassist and bass singer Howard Scott left the Scott Brothers to work as a standup vocalist, he assembled a new group that eventually incorporated his other guitarplaying brother, Walter, and they became christened the Scott Brothers World Band. The World Band eventually joined forces with yet more family members, the Young Scotts, who included nephews Jerome and Kenneth Hollywood Scott to serve as Tyrone Daviss backup band. When the Scott Brothers half of the contingent departed in 1983, Hollywood and the others re-christened themselves Platinum. Walters versatile guitar work has graced countless Chicago Soul recording sessions through the years; he continues to work with the Chi-Lites, among others, as well as fronting a reconstituted World Band behind various vocalists on local shows. Howard still sings occasionally, and he has become an esteemed mentor to young artists. Buddy, along with his band, the Rib Tips, held down the show at Lees Unleaded Blues on South Chicago Avenue for many years; his wife, the late Pat Scott, was usually the featured vocalist. He passed away in 1994. The Scotts, in their various permutations, with a track record extending back over five decades, represent one of Chicagos most enduring and robust family legacies, and we are proud to honor them with this years Blues and the Spirit Award.

Kenneth Hollywood Scott hails from a long line of Chicago music legends. The late Kenneth Buddy Scott is his father and Howard and Walter Scott, mainstays on the local Blues and R&B scene, are his uncles. Hollywood, who led Tyrone Daviss Platinum Band and continues to front Platinum for Otis Clay, is a frequent and respected guitarist on the Soul Blues circuit.

Amy van Singel has been involved in the Blues scene for decades, most recently as a DJ at WERU FM in Blue Hill, Maine, broadcasting under her Atomic Mama moniker. In 1970, she co-founded Living Blues Magazine with several others who became prominent in Blues documentation, history, criticism, and recording. She co-authored The Voice of The Blues: Classic Interviews From Living Blues Magazine, winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award in 2003. Beginning with her early days as a DJ in Chicago, she has interviewed many Blues legends, including Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, and Howlin' Wolf. The interview she conducted with Howlin' Wolf as a 19 year old DJ for her Northwestern University radio show became Living Blues Magazine's first cover feature. Gayle Dean Wardlow, collector, independent Blues researcher, historian and journalist, is a leading authority on Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson and the development of the Delta Blues. Among his many publications is the book Chasin' That Devil Music Searching for the Blues, which was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 2006 as a classic of Blues scholarship.

David Whiteis, Ph.D. is an independent scholar living in Chicago. He has written many articles on the Blues and, in 2001, won the Blues Foundation's Keeping the Blues Alive Award for Achievement in Journalism. His first book, Chicago Blues: Portraits and Stories, appeared in 2006 followed by Southern Soul-Blues in 2013. He has taught for many years at the college level and is currently an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Dominican University.

Walter Whitman Jr. is the President and Musical Director of the Soul Children of Chicago, Inc., a choral group he founded in 1981. Participation in the group provides young people with the opportunity of studying the history and techniques of a vast range of music modes such as classical, Gospel, Negro Spirituals, hymns and anthems. The citywide youth choir averages 70+ members between the ages of 7 to 17 years, with a waiting list of over three hundred youth. Recognized as an award-winning cultural group, this select choir of talented young voices is fast becoming "Goodwill Ambassadors" for Chicago and role models for young people everywhere. Walter has recorded and/or performed with some of the world's great artists including Rev. James Cleveland, Tremaine Hawkins, Neil Diamond, Diana Ross, Mavis Staples, Kirk Franklin, Sandi Patti, Stevie Wonder, Darryl Hall, Gladys Knight and many others. He has been musical director of such award-winning plays such as Godspell, Don't Bother Me I Can't Cope and In De Beginning. He has also produced such mammoth productions as the Soul Children of Chicago version of the famed Broadway musical, The Wiz, and his own special original creation, From Generation to Generation.