Hard Luck Story

Since I still have no time for a proper post, here's another audio clip for your streaming pleasure. Like "Sky Song," "Hard Luck Story" is from the first Illinois Speed Press album and was written by Kal David. I chose it because, even though it was written and sung by the same person and is performed by the same musicians on the same album, it sounds nothing like the other song. This sort of stylistic breadth was once fairly normal, but is now pretty rare.

In this selection Kal David pays tribute to his hometown of Chicago. Like Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield, David was a young white guy who began to spend time in the blues clubs of Chicago's largely African-American South Side, and soaked up as much as he could. For most of the last thirty-five years he has mostly focused on the blues, performing with B. B. King among others. If you like this, look him up on YouTube to see more recent work.