“Welcome to the least funky juke joint in the world,” announced WXRT’s Tom Marker into the microphone, scaling his eyes around the ornate interior of the Symphony Center on Michigan Avenue.Indeed, the home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is a far cry from the shanty, rundown music venues throughout the South during the ’20s and ’30s. But on Friday, Feb. 11, the lavish auditorium was the most authentic Mississippi blues shack this side of the Mason-Dixon line. It’s the least the blues capital of the world could do to celebrate the 100th birthday of the long-gone musician credited with penning “Sweet Home Chicago.”
That evening, four of the most relevant living blues acts brought their songful sorrows to the stage for Blues at the Crossroads: The Robert Johnson Centennial Concert. With the help of Big Head Todd & The Monsters, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Hubert Sumlin and Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcolm, the spirit of Robert Johnson was alive and well.
Big Head Todd was the first to grace the polished, wooden stage for the mostly graying audience filling out the venue. In his own version of classic Robert Johnson fashion (or what we know to be his fashion, anyway, as only a few photos of the bluesman exist), Todd sported jacket, tie and Johnson-signature tilted hat. What was more specific to Johnson, however, became apparent seconds after Todd hoisted his all-metal guitar and riddled out the delta-born, metallic sounds.
It was refreshing to see Todd keeping consistent with Johnson’s definition of blues versus the full, jam-bandesque version from the ’60s most equate with the genre. A man on a stage, alone with his unamplified, slide guitar and brokenhearted tales of his dirty, mistreatin’ women: That was Johnson.
After two Johnson-appropriate renditions of his classic tunes, including “Love In Vain,” The Monsters joined Todd along with Cedric Burnside (grandson to blues legend, R.L. Burnside) and Lightnin Malcolm. The following songs with the more complete outfit weren’t the most Johnson-y, although written by him, but they incited mass, venue-wide foot stomping among the majority middle aged crowd. Where Johnson featured his brilliance in simplicity and nuances, the now six-piece on the stage boasted their technical skills and complexities. Not the most historically accurate, but who really cares when Burnside’s drum break is making the 70 year-olds in the balcony hoot and holler?
As enjoyable and masterful as Todd and co. were, the audience kept one eye on the wheelchaired man tucked in the side of the stage, sitting politely with hands folded and “Chicago” baseball cap shadowing his face. Watching the 95-year-old Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award winner David “Honeyboy” Edwards finally stand up and cane his way over to a chair center stage initiated a long-awaited standing ovation.
The process of walking to the chair and saddling up his guitar was slow, allowing the audience to time travel back to 1930’s Mississippi where Edwards and his real-life friend, Robert Johnson, played the juke joints. After long, silent minutes of preparation and apparent confusion with modern technology, Edwards mumbled his only spoken words into the microphone, “Wanna hear me play the blues?” The overwhelming audience reaction confirmed that, yes, they wanted to hear “Honeyboy” Edwards play some blues.
Accompanied by the joyfully starstruck Lightnin’ Malcolm, Edwards launched “Sweet Home Chicago,” repeatedly crooning the chorus alongside guitar playing that was seemingly untouched by time. The history alone that was implied with Edwards’ performance was surreal. Yet the historical relevance of the night escalated once again when Edwards and Malcolm were joined onstage by 79 year-old Hubert Sumlin, the former guitarist for Howlin’ Wolf. Sumlin lead the others in a shrieking Wolf original, “Wang Dang Doodle.”
The two legends onstage together, the older of the pair wheelchair-confined and the other assisted by a breathing tube, smacked their guitars, jiggled their knees and shook their heads to the pulse of days long gone buried in the deep south. The duet erased any memory the audience had of walking into the swanky, Michigan Avenue venue and seemingly forgot themselves that it had been half a century since their heydays.
The aged delta heroes slowly-very slowly-shuffled offstage to another standing ovation to allow Big Head Todd & The Monsters and Cedric Burnside & Lightnin Malcolm to again wow the audience with musical dexterity. The mega group churned out Johnson standards like “Come On in My Kitchen,” “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom” and “Last Fair Deal Going Down,” spinning each song’s staple guitar riffs with updated interpretation. The styles danced from funky to a slow groove to rockabilly, offering the audience the opportunity to dance (if they really had the guts to do so in such an unfittingly formal setting, which a couple did), clap or close their eyes and hum along.
The night’s entire cast, including Edwards and Sumlin, flooded the stage to close the concert with, what else, another taste of “Sweet Home Chicago.” The final standing ovation was hardy and lengthy, aimed at the musicians onstage and the one to whom the night was dedicated. The shining house lights were bittersweet as the crowd exited the extravagant music palace. The modern world had returned and Robert Johnson and the juke joint were gone, like Cinderella’s carriage turning back into a pumpkin.