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Forget that summer-solstice business. Memorial Day weekend
marks the real start of summer, and the best part of summer is all the
wonderful outdoor live music. Here’s a lineup of three best bets:
• The Shambolee Golf Club, in Petersburg
(217-632-2140) hosts Melvin Taylor, a fantastic and renowned blues
guitarist, 8 p.m.-midnight Friday, May 25. Taylor is the real deal, with
reviews by Rolling Stone magazine, The New York Times, and Living Blues magazine among his press credits. Taylor was born in
Mississippi and raised in Chicago. When little Melvin was but a child, his
Uncle Floyd Vaughn (a good surname for a bluesman) taught him to play
guitar. He was out gigging by age 12. Since then Taylor has toured the
States and Europe extensively and released several albums of quality blues
music on a good-size independent label.
Word has it that Taylor’s a fire-breather in
his live shows, walking a fine line between hard-edged blues and sinewy
jazz. He’s mostly an original-music man, but when he does cover
something it’s likely to be a song by Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray
Vaughan, or
Carlos Santana. A quick look at his recent itinerary indicates that the
bluesman is a monthly regular at Rosa’s, one of Chicago’s elite
blues clubs. He returned from an Eastern European tour in the middle of May
and will be heading off to Chile in June, filling in the schedule holes
with gigs here, there, and everywhere, like the one in Petersburg on Friday
night. • Continuing the fine Menard County tradition of
great live music, the Hill Prairie Winery, in Oakford (217-635-9900),
presents its Third Annual Music and Wine Festival. The festival starts on
Sunday, May 27, with a day of blues by Black Magic Johnson and Sally
Weisenburg and Her Famous Sidemen, 1-6 p.m. The bands will alternate every
hour, keeping both the music and the musicians fresh and inspired. Memorial
Day brings bluegrass: Luke Turasky, Antone DeRocchi, and the River Ramblers
trade sets noon-5 p.m. The winery, with its pond and fields of grapevines
under a big, beautiful sky, is a lovely setting for outdoor music.
• Celebrate the upcoming opening of American
Legion Post 32’s new location, 1120 Sangamon Ave., on Sunday, May 27,
with an all-day party, 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Called the “Mile Mixer,”
the event offers the blues-based dynamic duo of Hip Bone Sam and Bad Bill,
7-10 p.m. The post should complete its move from the downtown facility
sometime in June.
Contact Tom Irwin at tirwin@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in May 17-23, 2007.
