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If success in the music business world is
measured on the basis of peer recognition, good bookings, and
creative output, singer/songwriter/player Chris Vallillo deserves a
gold star for achievement. The multitalented multiinstrumentalist
from west-central Illinois began more than 25 years ago as a
songwriting guitar picker looking for steady work. Today Vallillo
is recognized as one of the Midwest’s premier artistic voices
in traditional and contemporary roots music. Since his 1985
finalist placement at the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival
songwriting contest, he has forged a career that includes several
respected releases of his own work, plus numerous outstanding special projects.
From 1990 to 1997 Vallillo hosted and
co-produced Rural Route 3, an award-winning public-radio music program. He
developed education-oriented historical programs based on original
and traditional folk music, including a successful show on
Springfield’s most famous citizen, called Abraham Lincoln in Song. His
days and nights are filled with folk-festival showings, county- and
state-fair bookings, kids’ shows, a monthly hosting slot for
an acoustic-music concert, and the occasional gig on the Twilight, a steamboat that
cruises the Mississippi up Iowa way. “I always say there aren’t really
any bad shows,” Vallillo says, “though some are
definitely better than other ones.”
During 2006, Vallillo broadened his range from
the familiar vistas of west-central Illinois by co-hosting Arts Across Illinois on
Chicago public television, a live program later broadcast
statewide. In September he appeared at Millennium Park in Chicago
for the newly instituted Great Performers of Illinois festival.
Recently he was chosen state scholar for New Harmonies, a traveling
roots-music exhibit sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution
that’s scheduled for six museum stops in Illinois. “It’s part of a program called
Museum on Main Street that brings an exhibit about the national
history of roots music to smaller towns,” Vallillo says.
“Each region adds its own local history to the
show.”
Vallillo has always been known for his strong,
melodic voice and exemplary finger-picking. Lately, though,
he’s acquired a different technique. “I find playing bottleneck slide an
interesting art form and a very expressive medium,” he says.
“It incorporates well into the songs I do, from Jimmie
Rodgers and the Carter Family to Civil War songs, a John Gorka tune
or an original. It translates an emotive sound.”
How does Vallillo explain his ability to
maintain a successful career?
“I want to play music, so I do it more
as a survival technique than anything else,” he says with a
laugh.
Chris Vallillo performs at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Jan. 13, at the Hoogland Center for the Arts (420 S.
Sixth St., 217-523-2787), sponsored by the Prairie Grapevine
Folklore Society.
Tom Irwin at tirwin@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jan 4-10, 2007.
