Not only is 2020 the Year of Chicago Music, it’s also the 35th year for the nonprofit Arts & Business Council of Chicago (A&BC), which provides business expertise and training to creatives and their organizations citywide. To celebrate, the A&BC has launched the #ChiMusic35 campaign at ChiMusic35.com, which includes a public poll to determine the consensus 35 greatest moments in Chicago music history as well as a raffle to benefit the A&BC’s work supporting creative communities struggling with the impact of COVID-19 in the city’s disinvested neighborhoods.
Damon Locks: The experiences in my list of [moments] were things that caused ripples that went on forever. So I’m not talking about when I saw Fred Anderson take apart Peter Brötzmann at the Empty Bottle, which was great. I’m talking about the emergence of Soul Train [which premiered in Chicago in 1970]. Even in Maryland, where I was from, we felt the effects of Soul Train when it expanded and became a nationwide show.
I was in New York, and I went to the School of Visual Arts. I was an illustration major. And at the time I wasn’t that happy in New York. It wasn’t what my imagination said it was going to be. There was a woman that I was interested in that came out to the Art Institute of Chicago, and I came to visit the Art Institute and I saw a whole school full of weirdos. And it was different than being in New York. It wasn’t organized.
