Siegel-Schwall Band
Encyclopedia
The Siegel–Schwall Band is an American
electric blues
band from Chicago
, Illinois
. The band was formed in 1964 by Corky Siegel
(harmonica
and piano
) and Jim Schwall
(guitar
), and still tours occasionally.
. Siegel, originally a saxophonist, was interested in blues
, while Schwall's background was mostly in country music
. They combined these two genres, producing a lighter sounding blues as compared to Butterfield Blues Band
or John Mayall
. The Siegel–Schwall Band included Shelly Plotkin on drums and Rollo Radford on bass. Radford had previously played with Martha and the Vandellas
and Sun Ra
.
They were the house band at Pepper's Lounge on Chicago's South Side
. Every important Chicago blues
musician sat in with Corky and Jim at Pepper's, including Junior Wells
, Buddy Guy
, Billy Boy Arnold
, Little Walter
, Muddy Waters
, Magic Sam
, Otis Spann
, Bo Diddley
, Lazy Lester
and Sam Lay
, just to name a few. The band moved to Big John's in Old Town
after the Butterfield Blues Band began touring and left a vacancy.
In 1965, Sam Charters
signed the band to Vanguard Records
. In 1966, the band released their first eponym
ous album, and began a national tour in 1969. While they weren't as commercially successful as Butterfield or Mayall, the band was still able to perform at large venues such as Fillmore West
. Also around that time, the Siegel–Schwall Band became the first blues band to ever perform with a symphony. They performed "Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra" with the San Francisco Symphony. The piece was written by William Russo
and conducted by Seiji Ozawa
. After four albums with Vanguard, the band signed with Wooden Nickel
, a Chicago label distributed by RCA
. Their first release on the label won a Grammy Award for Best Album Cover in 1973.
The band broke up in 1974 after releasing the album R.I.P. Siegel/Schwall, and reunited in 1987. Alligator Records
signed them and released a live reunion album in 1988. The band continues to tour occasionally, usually during summer because Jim Schwall is now a professor of music. Schwall also ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Madison
, Wisconsin
. The Siegel–Schwall Band released a second album on Alligator Records in 2005, entitled Flash Forward, which was a top 15 hit on the Billboard Blues Albums chart.
In 1975, Siegel formed the Happy Year Band with Sam Lay
, Albert Joseph on guitar and Rollo Radford on bass. Siegel later formed the ensemble Chamber Blues with a string quartet, tabla and harmonica/piano. This unusual group features Frank Donaldson, a 20-year veteran drummer with jazz musician Ramsey Lewis
. Siegel continues to record, has earned several composing honors and is a regular performer and lecturer in the Chicago Public Schools. In 2007 he wrote a book, Let Your Music Soar: The Emotional Connection.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
electric blues
Electric blues
Electric blues is a type of blues music distinguished by the amplification of the guitar, bass guitar, drums, and often the harmonica. Pioneered in the 1930s, it emerged as a genre in Chicago in the 1940s. It was taken up in many areas of America leading to the development of regional subgenres...
band from Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. The band was formed in 1964 by Corky Siegel
Corky Siegel
Mark Paul "Corky" Siegel is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and composer. He plays harmonica and piano. He plays and writes blues and blues-rock music, and has also worked extensively on combining blues and classical music...
(harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
) and Jim Schwall
Jim Schwall
Jim Schwall is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as a co-founder and member of the Siegel-Schwall Band.-Musical career:...
(guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
), and still tours occasionally.
History
Corky Siegel and Jim Schwall met each other when both were music students at Roosevelt UniversityRoosevelt University
Roosevelt University is a coeducational, private university with campuses in Chicago, Illinois and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university is named in honor of both former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university's curriculum is based on...
. Siegel, originally a saxophonist, was interested in blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, while Schwall's background was mostly in country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
. They combined these two genres, producing a lighter sounding blues as compared to Butterfield Blues Band
Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield was an American blues vocalist and harmonica player, who founded the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the early 1960s and performed at the original Woodstock Festival...
or John Mayall
John Mayall
John Mayall, OBE is an English blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, whose musical career spans over fifty years...
. The Siegel–Schwall Band included Shelly Plotkin on drums and Rollo Radford on bass. Radford had previously played with Martha and the Vandellas
Martha and the Vandellas
Martha and the Vandellas were among the most successful groups of the Motown roster during the period 1963–1967...
and Sun Ra
Sun Ra
Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...
.
They were the house band at Pepper's Lounge on Chicago's South Side
South Side (Chicago)
The South Side is a major part of the City of Chicago, which is located in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Much of it has evolved from the city's incorporation of independent townships, such as Hyde Park Township which voted along with several other townships to be annexed in the June 29,...
. Every important Chicago blues
Chicago blues
The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...
musician sat in with Corky and Jim at Pepper's, including Junior Wells
Junior Wells
Junior Wells , born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was an American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist...
, Buddy Guy
Buddy Guy
George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...
, Billy Boy Arnold
Billy Boy Arnold
Billy Boy Arnold is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter.-Biography:...
, Little Walter
Little Walter
Little Walter, born Marion Walter Jacobs , was an American blues harmonica player, whose revolutionary approach to his instrument has earned him comparisons to Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix, for innovation and impact on succeeding generations...
, Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
, Magic Sam
Magic Sam
Samuel "Magic Sam" Gene Maghett was an American Chicago blues musician. Maghett was born in Grenada, Mississippi, United States, and learned to play the blues from listening to records by Muddy Waters and Little Walter...
, Otis Spann
Otis Spann
Otis Spann was an American blues musician, who many consider the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist.-Career:Born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, Spann became known for his distinct piano style....
, Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
, Lazy Lester
Lazy Lester
Lazy Lester is an American blues harmonica player, whose career spans the 1950s to the 2000s....
and Sam Lay
Sam Lay
Sam Lay is an American drummer and vocalist, who has been performing since the late 1950s.-Life and career:...
, just to name a few. The band moved to Big John's in Old Town
Old Town, Chicago
Old Town is a neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, bounded by the Ogden Ave. right-of-way on the northwest, Larrabee Street on the west, Clybourn Avenue on the southwest and Division Street on the south and Clark Street on the east and northeast. It spans across eastern parts of the community areas...
after the Butterfield Blues Band began touring and left a vacancy.
In 1965, Sam Charters
Samuel Charters
Samuel Charters, born Samuel Barclay Charters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 1, 1929 , is an American music historian, writer, record producer, musician, and poet...
signed the band to Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
. In 1966, the band released their first eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
ous album, and began a national tour in 1969. While they weren't as commercially successful as Butterfield or Mayall, the band was still able to perform at large venues such as Fillmore West
The Fillmore
The Fillmore Auditorium is a historic music venue in San Francisco, California, made famous by Bill Graham. Named for its original location at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard, it lies on the boundary of the Western Addition and the Pacific Heights neighborhoods.In 1968,...
. Also around that time, the Siegel–Schwall Band became the first blues band to ever perform with a symphony. They performed "Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra" with the San Francisco Symphony. The piece was written by William Russo
William Russo (musician)
William Russo, better known as Bill Russo , was an American jazz musician. He is considered one of the greatest jazz composers and arrangers.-History:...
and conducted by Seiji Ozawa
Seiji Ozawa
is a Japanese conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of large-scale late Romantic works. He is most known for his work as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera.-Early years:...
. After four albums with Vanguard, the band signed with Wooden Nickel
Wooden Nickel Records
Wooden Nickel Records was an American independent record label started in 1971 by Bill Traut, Jim Golden and Jerry Weintraub as a successor to Dunwich Records. Most of Wooden Nickel's releases were by acts based in the Chicago area, including the Siegel-Schwall Band, Megan McDonough and Styx. The...
, a Chicago label distributed by RCA
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
. Their first release on the label won a Grammy Award for Best Album Cover in 1973.
The band broke up in 1974 after releasing the album R.I.P. Siegel/Schwall, and reunited in 1987. Alligator Records
Alligator Records
Alligator Records is a Chicago-based independent blues record label founded by Bruce Iglauer in 1971.Iglauer started the label with his own savings to record and produce his favorite band Hound Dog Taylor & The HouseRockers, whom his employer, Bob Koester of Delmark Records, declined to record...
signed them and released a live reunion album in 1988. The band continues to tour occasionally, usually during summer because Jim Schwall is now a professor of music. Schwall also ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
. The Siegel–Schwall Band released a second album on Alligator Records in 2005, entitled Flash Forward, which was a top 15 hit on the Billboard Blues Albums chart.
In 1975, Siegel formed the Happy Year Band with Sam Lay
Sam Lay
Sam Lay is an American drummer and vocalist, who has been performing since the late 1950s.-Life and career:...
, Albert Joseph on guitar and Rollo Radford on bass. Siegel later formed the ensemble Chamber Blues with a string quartet, tabla and harmonica/piano. This unusual group features Frank Donaldson, a 20-year veteran drummer with jazz musician Ramsey Lewis
Ramsey Lewis
Ramsey Emmanuel Lewis, Jr. is an American jazz composer, pianist and radio personality. Ramsey Lewis has recorded over 80 albums and has received seven gold records and three Grammy Awards so far in his career.-Biography:...
. Siegel continues to record, has earned several composing honors and is a regular performer and lecturer in the Chicago Public Schools. In 2007 he wrote a book, Let Your Music Soar: The Emotional Connection.
Studio and live albums
- The Siegel–Schwall BandThe Siegel–Schwall Band (1966 album)The Siegel–Schwall Band is the first album by the Chicago-based blues-rock group the Siegel–Schwall Band. It was released by Vanguard Records in 1966. It is not to be confused with the band's fifth album, which is also titled The Siegel–Schwall Band....
, VanguardVanguard RecordsVanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
, 1966 - Say Siegel–SchwallSay Siegel–SchwallSay Siegel–Schwall is an album by the blues-rock group the Siegel–Schwall Band. Their second album, it was released in 1967 by Vanguard Records as a vinyl LP...
, Vanguard, 1967 - Shake!Shake! (album)Shake! is an album by the blues-rock group the Siegel–Schwall Band. Their third album, it was released in 1968 by Vanguard Records as a vinyl LP...
, Vanguard, 1968 - Siegel–Schwall '70Siegel–Schwall '70Siegel–Schwall '70 is an album by the blues-rock group the Siegel–Schwall Band. Released in 1970, it was their fourth album, and their last one for Vanguard Records...
, Vanguard, 1970 - The Siegel–Schwall BandThe Siegel–Schwall Band (1971 album)The Siegel–Schwall Band is an album by the blues-rock group the Siegel–Schwall Band. Released in 1971, it was their fifth album, and their first to be released by Wooden Nickel Records. It is not to be confused with the band's 1966 debut album, which is also titled The Siegel-Schwall Band.The...
, Wooden NickelWooden Nickel RecordsWooden Nickel Records was an American independent record label started in 1971 by Bill Traut, Jim Golden and Jerry Weintraub as a successor to Dunwich Records. Most of Wooden Nickel's releases were by acts based in the Chicago area, including the Siegel-Schwall Band, Megan McDonough and Styx. The...
, 1971 - Sleepy HollowSleepy Hollow (album)Sleepy Hollow is an album by the Siegel–Schwall Band. Their second album on the Wooden Nickel Records label, and their sixth album overall, it was recorded at Paragon Recording Studios in Chicago. It was released on vinyl in 1972...
, Wooden Nickel, 1972 - 953 West953 West953 West is an album by the Siegel–Schwall Band. Their third album on the Wooden Nickel Records label, and their seventh album overall, it was recorded at Paragon Recording Studios in Chicago in August 1973, and was released later that year...
, Wooden Nickel, 1973 - Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony OrchestraThree Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony OrchestraThree Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra is an avant-garde musical composition written by William Russo in 1968. It combines classical music played by an orchestra with blues music played by a four-piece band....
, Deutsche GrammophonDeutsche GrammophonDeutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
, 1973 - Live: The Last SummerLive: The Last SummerLive: The Last Summer is an album by the blues-rock group the Siegel–Schwall Band. Their ninth album, it was recorded live in the summer of 1973 at the Brewery in Lansing, Michigan and at the Quiet Knight in Chicago, Illinois. It was released as a vinyl LP by Wooden Nickel Records in 1974. It was...
, Wooden Nickel, 1974 - R.I.P. Siegel/SchwallR.I.P. Siegel/SchwallR.I.P. Siegel/Schwall is an album by the blues-rock group the Siegel–Schwall Band. It was recorded at Paragon Recording Studios in Chicago. It was released as a vinyl LP by Wooden Nickel Records in 1974...
, Wooden Nickel, 1974 - The Siegel–Schwall Reunion ConcertThe Siegel–Schwall Reunion ConcertThe Siegel–Schwall Reunion Concert is an album by the Siegel–Schwall Band. It was recorded live in 1987, and released by Alligator Records in 1988....
, AlligatorAlligator RecordsAlligator Records is a Chicago-based independent blues record label founded by Bruce Iglauer in 1971.Iglauer started the label with his own savings to record and produce his favorite band Hound Dog Taylor & The HouseRockers, whom his employer, Bob Koester of Delmark Records, declined to record...
, 1988 - Flash ForwardFlash Forward (album)Flash Forward is an album by the Siegel–Schwall Band. Released by Alligator Records in 2005, it was the second album recorded by the band after they re-formed in 1987, and their first studio album since R.I.P...
, Alligator, 2005
Compilation albums
- The Best of Siegel–Schwall, Vanguard, 1974
- Where We Walked (1966–1970), Vanguard, 1991
- The Wooden Nickel Years (1971–1974), Varèse SarabandeVarèse SarabandeVarèse Sarabande is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums as well as newer releases by artists no longer under a contract...
, 1999 - The Complete Vanguard Recordings and More, Vanguard, 2001
- Vanguard Visionaries, Vanguard, 2007