Seigal-Schwall BLUES BAND
The Siegel-Schwall alignment was one of the first white bands — along, of course, with Paul Butterfield — to bridge the gap between the older bluesmen and the emerging young audience.
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I first saw the Siegel-Schwall Band at the club 47 in Cambridge, a smallerthan-stuffy basement hole that helped change the entire complexion of music on the East Coast in the early-mid Sixties. As a high school student going through the initial phase of my formal blues training, I eagerly soaked up whatever influences passed through town. And I knew about the SiegelSchwall Band long before I saw them perform.
The Siegel-Schwall alignment was one of the first white bands — along, of course, with Paul Butterfield — to bridge the gap between the older bluesmen and the emerging young audience. More than that, though, they were (and are) one of the finest blues bands this country has produced period. People would walk out of their gigs with jaws at knee level, mumbling about how they couldn’t believe the sounds that Jim Schwall wrenched from that beat-up guitar and tiny amplifier. Likewise Corky Siegel, blowing a nasty harp from behind shades and a piano. The group quickly attracted a small but devoted following, which helped sustain them through four fine albums on Vanguard.
Unlike Butterfield (who merely used traditional blues as a base from which to explore its stylistic possibilities), the Siegel-Schwall Band has remained close to its roots. This essentially low-key approach kept their cult following moderately sized until their last album (and first on Wooden Nickel), when it appears that a substantial audience has finally accorded them the recognition they’ve deserved all along. We asked Corky Siegel to outline the band’s history for us, and what follows is his account.
Ben Edmonds
Corky Siegel/harmonica, piano, vocals Jim Sch wall/guitar, vocals A1 Radford/bass, vocals Shelly Plotkin/drums
Corky and Jim met at Chicago Musical College about eight years ago. A1 and Shelly joined the band about two years ago. The band got its start playing in the beautiful little blues clubs of Chicago like Big John’s and Mother Blues. Although these clubs no longer exist, they still have a strong influence on the band, along with Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, Qtis Spann, Buddy Guy, Lightnin Hopkins and of course the greatest blues drummer, Sam Lay (who was once a member of Siegel-Schwall). The band still plays regularly at a great club in Chicago called the Quiet Knight.
They have also played with the Chicago Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, The San F,rancisco Symphony, The Boston Pops and the Milwaukee Symphony, as guest artists performing a piece written by a friend, Bill Russo, called “Three Pieces for Blues Band and Orchestra”. The piece was conceived by Seiji Ozawa (then the conductor of the Chicago Symphony and now the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony) and was recently recorded.
The band is just finishing their 6th album, to be released by Wooden Nickel.
Corky Siegel
