Steve Knopper

Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker saw that jazz would take over the U.S. But they may not have guessed their musical seeds would spread to Asia, where...

As bloody Chicago-New York confrontations go, Bears-Giants games are nothing. Those wimps wear helmets. For real man-to-man violence, you have to watch amateur boxing. Top fighters from the first and...

This year's Battle of the Brains should provide many moments of "Jeopardy!"-level tension, as smart people from the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois-Chicago and the Illinois Institute of...

In the time it takes for the Ramones to play "Blitzkrieg Bop," each of 30 Chicago rock bands will jump on stage, plow through a song (or two) and jump...

Various artists Electro-Lounge (The Right Stuff/Capitol) The hipsters who lord over modern dance music want to confess a secret inspiration: They love Martin Denny, John Barry, April Stevens and other...

Wilson Pickett It's Harder Now (Bullseye Blues/Rounder) Voice-wise, Wilson Pickett sounds almost as good as he did in the '60s, when he rolled out "Mustang Sally" and "Land of 1,000...

Odetta Blues Everywhere I Go (M.C. Records) It's too bad '60s folk holdover Odetta is unwilling to play the regular-CD game, because her first album in 14 years and second...

By sheer coincidence, many of the supernatural phenomena on ghosthunter Richard T. Crowe's long-running bus tours can be found in Chicago bars. So even if Resurrection Mary and the other...

Syl Johnson "Talkin' Bout Chicago!" (Delmark) Soul-star-turned-fish-market-restaurateur Syl Johnson sings as strong as he did in 1975, when his version of "Take Me to the River" climbed the charts. But...

Paul Jones Pucker Up Buttercup (Fat Possum/Epitaph) Fat Possum Records, out of Oxford, Miss., has a knack for finding deranged singers and guitarists who have long tired of traditional moaning...