`Ruthie, you’ve got to start eating lunch,” Ruth Schuman says to Ruth Blanchard one night at Crooner’s, the Andersonville Cajun club.
“What do you mean?” says Blanchard, a thin, active 78-year-old dressed in a perfect blue ensemble that shows off her healthy, active figure.
“You’ve got to start eating lunch — you’ve lost too much weight,” says Schuman, who’s retired and irrepressible. “You look better with a fat ass, really.”
The two laugh uproariously. They’ve just spent the evening listening to the Windy City Jammers, an informal group of banjo players who gather every Monday night at Crooner’s to pick and strum.
The Windy City Jammers come from all over — Barrington and Elk Grove Village and around the corner in the evermore gentrified neighborhood — to run through a repertoire that includes oldies like “Oh Susanna” and “Sweet Georgia Brown” and the occasional more current tune like, say, The Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty-Four” (released about 30 years ago, it’s an example of how time is measured with this group).
There are parodies among the tunes, including this twist on “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”: “My Bonnie lies over the ocean/ My Bonnie lies when she’s at home/ Of truth she has never a notion/ So please let my poor Bonnie roam.”
Schuman comes to Crooner’s once in a blue moon, usually to accompany her companion of eight years, Sol Stolowich, who plays the upright bass with the group. Stolowich has a niece who lives in Cuba and who married a member of Los Van Van, the island’s best-known songo group.
“Man, they’re really good,” he says, grinning.
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Schuman loves Stolowich but says she won’t marry him. “Marry a musician? Are you crazy?”
But Blanchard’s here for a whole different reason. She’s the Windy City Jammers’ unofficial historian. Next to her at the table are two books. One is a neatly alphabeticized songbook with keys and lyrics. The other is filled with memorabilia about the group. There are color photos of members past and present, short bios and a newspaper piece or two. A fair number of the photos show now-deceased members.
“We’ve been here at Crooner’s since 1990,” says Blanchard, blue eyes twinkling, her smile perpetual. Everybody knows her — the guys playing, the young couple who’ve wandered in to hear the gentle noise, and all the elderly women surrounding her at the table where she holds court.
“We’re all friends here, we’ve all known each other for about 20 years,” says Blanchard, making a sweeping gesture over the table. “And can you believe it? We’re all widows.”
They call themselves the Croonettes, groupies for the Windy City Jammers who are as loyal as Elvis fans.
“Don’t think anything, though,” warns Blanchard, winking. “We don’t know any one of those guys from a hole in the ground” she says of the players.
But there is at least one other musician and fan couple, a guitar player named Bill and a beautiful blue-eyed lady named Joan. Some nights Joan dances — by herself or with whoever can keep up with her.
“They play songs you just don’t hear anymore,” says Blanchard, swinging along to “Am I Blue.”
Tonight there are seven banjo players, two guitar players and Stolowich on bass. Banjo player Irene Nakamura is the sole woman in the group, and she sits on the end of the male musical lineup, on the side close to the all-female Croonettes table. They’re sitting in the back room, under black and white streamers hanging from the ceiling. In the corner, there’s a Christmas tree that Crooners management keeps up all year.
“It’s still got those pink roses from Mother’s Day,” notes Blanchard. “The owner usually changes it, you know, for each holiday. But I guess he’s a little late this year. The 4th of July already went by.”
Most of the songs the group plays are instrumentals, although sometimes someone will give the microphone a try. Between songs, the patter’s about chords and settings, as if they were figuring out a word in a crossword puzzle.
“Actually, the group started about 30 years ago,” says Glenn Peisker, whose wife, Barbara, used to play bass with them until her death a few years ago. Peisker, who plays banjo, can tell the entire history of the group, each little bar they’ve spent time at.
The banjos are really humming when a young fellow steps into the room, curious about the sounds. He’s wearing a baseball cap and a T-shirt that shows off some chest muscles.
“You play an instrument?” Blanchard calls out to him.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says.
“What?”
“Guitar.”
“Bring it in,” she says to him. “We’ll find a place for you.”
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The facts
Mondays, 8 to 10 p.m., Windy City Jammers, Crooner’s, 5101 N. Clark St. Call 773-883-1090. Crooner’s is wheelchair accessible.