Musicians, Scholars Gather for “Blues and the Spirit” Symposium May 22-24

NOTE: On Saturday, May 24, TBGB Founder and Radio Host Bob Marovich will present some of his research findings on the history of gospel music in Chicago at the Blues and the Spirit symposium:

Saturday, May 24, 2008:
11:45 am-12:45pm (Lunch Break and Brown Bag presentations):

“The History of Gospel Music in Chicago”
(Parmer Hall Room 107) – Bob Marovich

To register for the conference, go to www.dom.edu/bluesandthespirit.

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Three days of singing, talking about the blues
By ROBERT LOERZEL Contributor

For most people, two of the least exciting words imaginable are “academic symposium.”

But you won’t have to be a professor to have fun at a symposium May 22-24 at Dominican University in River Forest.

“Blues and the Spirit” will feature acclaimed musicians playing blues and gospel tunes — along with the requisite experts spouting theories about the music. And how many symposiums conclude with a nightclub crawl?

“Anybody who knows me knows we’re going to have fun,” says organizer Janice Monti, who chairs Dominican’s sociology department.

Body and soul
“Blues and the Spirit” is the first national academic symposium exploring the connections between gospel music and the blues, two forms of music with deep histories in Chicago.

Monti, a sociologist and criminologist, says she “reinvented” herself as an expert on the blues, a style of music she has loved since she was a girl. Monti leads Dominican students on annual tours of the Mississippi Delta. These trips are more than musical vacations — the students earn college credit.

“Everybody said, ‘Why doesn’t Chicago do something?'” Monti says. “And I just ran with it.”

Over the decades, the boundaries between gospel and blues music have been controversial, especially when performers such as Sam Cooke switched from singing sacred music to secular love songs. Some churchgoers called blues “the devil’s music.”

“That’s a tense space, historically,” says George Bailey of Oak Park, an English professor at Columbia College taking part in the symposium. “But the division of gospel music from pop music — I don’t think the stigma is as strong as it was.” Monti says the two genres are inextricably tied together.

“The father of gospel music, Thomas Dorsey, began as a blues musician,” she says. “This music comes out of the same traditions and culture.”

The symposium begins May 22 with a tour of Bronzeville, followed by the “Evening Elders Council.” Bailey, who is taking part in that event, called his fellow panelists “august personages” and “elder statesmen” in the study of the blues. They include Sterling Plumpp, Timuel Black, Paul Garon, Jim O’Neal, Marie Dixon and Barry Dolins.

On May 23, Portia Maultsby gives a keynote speech on “From the Margins to the Mainstream.” Guitarist James Wheeler and bassist Bob Stroger play that afternoon at the O’Connor Art Gallery. The day closes with a concert by Sharon Lewis and Otis Clay.

A Legend
“(Clay is) one of the few performers who don’t make the distinction between sacred music and the blues — he does both,” Monti says. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s a god.”

On May 24, theologian and musicologist James Abbington will speak on “Spirits That Dwell in Deep Woods: Music and Black Religious Experience.” Blues harpist Billy Branch leads a panel on blues education, while other experts deconstruct the Delta blues and talk about today’s music industry.

Later on that day, musicians Larry Taylor, Billy Boy Arnold, Stan Mosley and Sharon Lewis take part in a discussion titled “I’ve Lived the Life I Sing About in My Songs.” Local hip-hop artists, poets and “krunk” dancers will then perform during a multimedia presentation.

And then the symposium ends with that Chicago blues club crawl.

Don’t be surprised if you occasionally hear some of the blues musicians in attendance challenging what the academics have to say about their music.

“They rarely come together,” Monti says. “We know that that could be somewhat combustible.”

Bailey, who is also a blues and jazz musician, is encouraged about the state of the blues today. More clubs have opened on the South Side in the last several years, and young African-Americans seem to be more aware of the music’s cultural importance, he says.

“The blues are an African-American living tradition,” he says. “It’s the tip of the spear of who we are and who we could be.”

BLUES AND THE SPIRIT
May 22-24 at Dominican University, 7900 W. Division St., River Forest.

$150 for all sessions, concerts and the club crawl.

$50 Friday-only or Saturday-only, doesn’t include concert or club crawl.

Bronzeville tour is $30.

Registration is due May 6. www.dom.edu/bluesandthespirit or
(708) 524-6050