Photo Gallery • Siegel-Schwall
This looks like 1966 during Big John’s (see contract below)
Jim and I just walked into Peppers one afternoon. I didn’t know anything about this place. I had drums under my piano and Jim and I had learned a few tunes as a two-man band and asked to play. Johnny Pepper, the owner, had us set up right on the floor and play to the women’s crowd that came in a bit later. He hired us on the spot to play from 9pm till 4am every Thursday night. Photo use is granted by the Chicago History Museum. See next photo.
Every Thursday Jim and I were the house band at Peppers. We had a different rhythm section every night. Wolf, Muddy, Willie, Walter, Otis … all the blues masters sat in with us night after night. They took us under their wing as we learned to play the blues. (Mac Arnold was our first bass players. Just got in touch with him a little bit ago for the first time in 50 some years ). As Barry Goldberg explains, this was a love story. The little white kids showed up to an all black neighborhood to learn at the feet of the masters. They showed their love toward these great genius icons. The blues men loved the love coming from us and they returned the love in profound fashion. This photo is actually one year before our adventures and the original photo there is part of a head with light colored hair in the audience. That was Charlie Musslewhite. At this point in time Jim and I didn’t have a name for our band. We just played. Photo permission of the Chicago History Museum.
March 30, 1966 - This was our first gig after Pepper’s Lounge on Chicago’s south side at 43rd in Vincennes, where Jim and I were the house band on Thursday nights (9pm till 4 am). Johnny Pepper hired the rhythm section each time. Now Jos Davidson on bass and Russ Chadwick joined us to make our permanent band. We still hadn’t called it Siegel-Schwall until Vanguard Records signed us later on.
First Band - not named yet. Probably March of 1966 on the same block as Big Johns, maybe behind 2nd City. From left: Jos Davidson (bass), Corky Jim, Russ Chadwick (drums) Jos played with Steve Miller and Mike Bloomfield before he joined Jim and I and Russ. And Russ played in the marching band in high school when I was playing clarinet) - Photo by Todd
Left: Corky, Right: Russ Chadwick, back left: Jos Davidson, Right Back: Jim - photo by Todd - 1966.
Early Siegel-Schwall band with Howlin Wolf. From left: Jack Meyers (bass player for Jr. Wells and Buddy Guy on their iconic Hoodo Man recording), Jim Schwall, Wolf, Corky, Russ Chadwick (drums). Yes that’s me sitting on Wolf’s knee. Looks like I just swallowed a harmonica.
Here’s more photos from that shoot with Siegel-Schwall (Getty Images are charging a fortune for these vintage photos but at least you can take a look.
Siegel-Schwall with Jack Myers January 1967 - 1
Siegel-Schwall with Jack Myers - January 1967 - 2
We must’ve been playing the CHESSMATE on Livernois Avenue around this time. This is when we were hanging with Joni Mitchell and her husband, Chuck, who used to open shows for us and we ended up producing her last demo tape with Circle Game around this time.
Stage hand is holding in the fuse in Jim’s amplifier. Some jealous musician had taken a hammer and broken it in San Francisco at the Avalon Ballroom right before our set (and admitted it later), and we never had a chance to get it fixed. Someday I will share the story.