Chicago

A live set celebrating the group’s 50th anniversary loops in a 20-piece orchestra, rousing poetry and new improvisers among the hardcore veterans.

This is an excellent '60s recording by the down-home urban singer, guitarist, and mandolinist, accompanied by Otis Spann on piano and James Cotton and Big Walter Horton on harmonicas.

Rhino's 2012 box set The Studio Albums 1969-1978 rounds up their remasters of what many consider Chicago's golden period: the band's first ten albums. Every one of the albums from 1969's Chicago Transit Authority to 1978's Hot Streets is here, packaged as paper-sleeve mini-LPs. For hardcore fans, this is a handsome way to get the remasters, and for more casual fans, it's a convenient and relatively affordable way to get the best albums of Chicago in one place.

Chicago guitarist Jimmy Dawkins would have preferred to leave his longtime nickname "Fast Fingers" behind. It was always something of a stylistic misnomer anyway; Dawkins' West Side-styled guitar slashed and surged, but seldom burned with incendiary speed. Dawkins' blues were generally of the brooding, introspective variety - he didn't engage in flashy pyrotechnics or outrageous showmanship.
It took a long time for Dawkins to progress from West Side fixture to nationally known recording artist. He rode a Greyhound bus out of Mississippi in 1955, dressing warmly to ward off the Windy City's infamous chill factor. Only trouble was, he arrived on a sweltering July day! Harpist Billy Boy Arnold offered the newcomer encouragement, and he eventually carved out a niche on the competitive West Side scene (his peers included Magic Sam and Luther Allison).