
2020 kicked off the Year of Chicago Music and also marked the nonprofit Arts & Business Council of Chicago’s 35th year supporting creative enterprises.
#ChiMusic35
To celebrate, we asked the public to vote on great moments in Chicago music history and to help us in our work supporting the talented creatives who will keep Chicago a vibrant city for the next 35 years. You did. Thank you!
Music has always found a home in Chicago. It’s where Louis Armstrong cut his first big records in the 1920s. It’s where Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley made the blues electric, building the foundations of rock & roll. It’s where genres like gospel, house, juke, footwork, and drill, were invented and reinvented. Not to mention the countless influential record labels, producers, instrument makers, and other industry leaders emanating from Chicago.
To celebrate its 35th anniversary and the City of Chicago’s Year of Chicago Music, A&BC has launched #ChiMusic35 to shine a spotlight on Chicago’s music legacy and raise funds to help restore and rebuild the creative enterprises that will help shape the next 35 years of Chicago culture.
As the city grapples with the impact of COVID-19, it’s particularly important that Chicagoans support what makes this city great. Neighborhoods of color in particular, that have suffered generations of disinvestment, are the hardest hit and they're also where the majority of the city's world-changing music comes from.
The Arts & Business Council of Chicago is committed to sharing business know-how to help support the next generation of creative entrepreneurs in an effort to help recover and rebuild the creative economy and ensure that the beat goes on.
#ChiMusic35 Challenge
The public was invited to vote for their favorite Chicago music moments. 35 great moments in Chicago music history were announced in the Chicago Reader and on this site on July 23, 2020.
#ChiMusic35 Raffle
The public was also invited to support Chicago's creative communities by entering the ChiMusic35 Raffle which is now closed but we still encourage you to make a donation.
- Media#ChiMusic35 in the News
Thirty-five moments that brought Chicago music to the world (Chicago Reader)
For more than a century, Chicago has played an outsize role in shaping music trends worldwide. Much of the credit is due (and often long overdue) to Chicago's Black artists, who formed the city's epicenters of jazz, blues, and gospel, laying the groundwork for rock 'n' roll. Black artists in Chicago also made the music that would become known as house, sparking a global dance movement. In a staunchly segregated city where neighborhood boundaries hem in people and possibilities, Black artists have repeatedly created music that crosses national borders to move bodies, change minds, and touch hearts—and in doing so they've established the foundations for the success of so many artists who followed them.
Cadien Lake James’ greatest moment in Chicago music history (Chicago Reader)
For this final installment of the ChiMusic35 interview series, we hear from Cadien Lake James, vocalist and guitarist in prolific indie-rock band Twin Peaks. The group is part of a young garage-band explosion that came out of Chicago around 2010. Their newest release, the four-song EP “Side A,” consists of material they finished remotely or under socially distanced conditions after the pandemic shutdown in March; it includes contributions from Ohmme, V.V. Lightbody, Lala Lala, and Tom Reeder, and it came out Friday, July 3. Cadien honors the lessons that the city’s early house scene taught today’s DIY garage rockers.
Damon Locks’ greatest moment in Chicago music history (Chicago Reader)
This week, we hear from visual artist, educator, and musician Damon Locks who was a founding member of influential Chicago post-hardcore band Trenchmouth, which split in 1996, and he still fronts the Eternals (where he plays alongside former Trenchmouth bandmate Wayne Montana). He's been a vocalist with Exploding Star Orchestra, one of many hard-to-categorize groups led by cornetist and composer Rob Mazurek, and his latest album, 2019's Where Future Unfolds, features a similarly ambitious group that he leads himself, the Black Monument Ensemble. Locks still feels the ripples from Soul Train 50 years after its Chicago premiere.
Martin Atkins’ greatest moment in Chicago music history (Chicago Reader)
Martin Atkins joined Johny Rotten's Public Image Ltd in 1979. After his time in London and then New York, he moved to Chicago in 1989—"by choice," as he's quick to point out. Here he joined the seminal industrial band Ministry, worked with Nine Inch Nails, Killing Joke, and formed the supergroup Pigface. “There are other cities that claim to be the capital of this or the center of that. And I think everybody here is so busy actually doing it that nobody takes the time to wave the flag,” he says.
Vince Lawrence’s greatest moment in Chicago music history (Chicago Reader)
House-music pioneer, businessman, producer, and promoter Vince Lawrence remembers the huge scene-defining parties he helped throw as a teenager. A key figure in the early history of Trax Records, he shares credit with high school friend Jesse Saunders for what's widely considered the first house-music release, 1984 classic “On and On.” Lawrence's vast music-business resumé also includes co-writing the 1986 Farley “Jackmaster” Funk hit “Love Can't Turn Around,” the first house record to chart in the UK.
Rhymefest’s greatest moment in Chicago music history (Chicago Reader)
The Grammy Award-winning rapper and activist remembers an all-star festival by and for the community. “One of the most powerful, understated moments in Chicago music history of the last five years—and Kanye and I were just speaking about this a day ago—was an event called Aahh! Fest.
Chicago Music Revealed with Mike Jeffers Episode 46
Special guest Jake Trussell serves on the board of directors for the Arts & Business Council of Chicago and is working on an initiative to define the 35 greatest moments in Chicago music history.
Chicago’s all-time top musical moments? That’s for you to decide. (WFMT 98.7 FM)
In a city replete with an embarrassment of musical riches, you can help decide the 35 musical moments and events that will be remembered in years to come. Or, as the organizing nonprofit Art & Business Council of Chicago, which supports arts, music, and cultural organizations, puts it, you can “help ensure that the beat goes on.”
Sima Cunningham’s Greatest Moments in Chicago Music History (Chicago Reader)
The Ohmme cofounder spent years in a children’s choir that sang for the Dalai Lama—and she hopes to help such groups continue nurturing young musicians.
Lori Branch’s Greatest Moments in Chicago Music History (Chicago Reader)
The pioneering house DJ shouts out her fellow Windy City originators, including Chaka Khan and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
The Arts Section (WDCB, 90.9 FM)
New Campaign Aims to Define Chicago's Greatest Music Moments
How to Help Select Chicago’s Greatest Musical Moments of All Time (NBC 5 Chicago)
Which Chicago musical moments do you think deserve to be on a list of the city's top 35 of all time? You can pick up to five to be featured on The Arts and Business Council of Chicago's new #ChiMusic35, aimed at drawing attention to the city's music scene and the council's relief plan for local artists amid the coronavirus pandemic. More ->
What are the greatest moments in Chicago music history? (Chicago Reader)
Starting today, #ChiMusic35 invites you to submit candidates and vote.
Chicago has sent a lot of great sound into the world, not always getting back the recognition due. If you’ve got an opinion about which moments in our city’s music history were the most important (CSO’s first concert, 1891? "Johnny B. Goode" at Chess, 1958? Muddy? Mavis? Ardis?), the Arts & Business Council of Chicago wants to hear it. They’re making a list, and offering a prize for help in compiling it.
Partners
The Arts & Business Council of Chicago champions the city’s arts, cultural, and creative sectors by strengthening the relationship between the arts and businesses, connecting people across all 77 of the city’s community areas, empowering creative enterprises with the business acumen needed for them to succeed, cultivating pro bono volunteers and providing high-quality board leadership training, and promoting a social and economic future where creativity, vitality, and racial equity are enjoyed by all Chicagoans.
Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events have designated 2020 as the Year of Chicago Music. This citywide, year-long focus on music is one of the first of its kind in the U.S. The initiative includes a marketing campaign; additional financial grants for musicians and music projects; dialog around inclusion and equity; and a call to civic, philanthropic, arts and business leaders to support the music industry. Start exploring music in the key of Chicago at YearOfChicagoMusic.org and join the conversation on social media using #YearOfChicagoMusic.
The official media sponsor of #ChiMusic35 is The Chicago Reader, Chicago's largest free weekly newspaper, nationally recognized as a leader in the alternative press. Since 1971, the Reader has been the city's political conscience, and consistently provides an essential weekly guide to the city's most important cultural events, reviews and listings of dining, film, theater and the arts, and is the leading voice of Chicago's vibrant music scene.
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