Saturday Slumgullion

Depending on when you read this, you can watch powerhouse vocalist Cathy Richardson traveling the streets of Berwyn and Oak Park on the back of a pickup truck. Her performance starts at 4:00 p.m. today and is the third round of Fitzgerald’s Stay-At- Home Concert Series. Residents are encouraged to come out and enjoy her songs while maintaining social distancing, and everyone can watch the entire rolling concert on the music venue’s Facebook page. Richardson is a veteran of the Chicago music scene, and portrayed Janis Joplin in a critically acclaimed musical. Dag Juhlin and Jon Langford performed last Saturday and the Saturday before respectively, so Stay-At-Home is off to an impressive start. Juhlin played originals and cover tunes for over 90 minutes last week, and I realized he and I like a lot of the same bands.

The One World: Together At Home Global Broadcast takes place tonight at 7:00 p.m. CST and will be hosted by Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and Stephen Colbert. The performers will include Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift, Elton John, Billie Eilish, Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes, Stevie Wonder, Lizzo, Eddie Vedder, John Legend, Chris Martin, Kacey Musgraves, J Balvin, Keith Urban, Alicia Keys, Andrea Bocelli, Billie Joe Armstrong, Jennifer Lopez and the recently added Rolling Stones.

Tickets are now on sale for Every Shiny Thing: A Tribute to Joni Mitchell with Andrea Bunch at Mauer Hall, Old Town School Of Folk Music on June 12; Off Broadway and The Handcuffs at Reggies Rock Club on August 22; and Duke Tomatoe and The Power Trio and Joanna Connor Blues Band at Kingston Mines on June 10 and 11. The Off Broadway/Handcuffs gig is a newly rescheduled date postponed from earlier this year. By then, we should be familiar with the all the songs on The Handcuffs’ new album and able to sing along.

The above listings are from this week’s edition of The Reader, which had a very limited distribution but is available online. Not to sound like young George Bailey bragging to Mary Hatch about his National Geographic subscription in It’s A Wonderful Life, but I get a copy of The Reader sent to my door. You can subscribe too by going to the publication’s website.

Happy Birthday to actor David Tennant. The BBC Doctor Who Instagram site posted an eye-popping montage to its former star today. Tennant will be part of the Big Night In BBC Comic Relief special next Thursday night.

The Lost Weekend. I’ve had April 18 marked on my calendar for a couple months because it would have been day two of International Pop Overthrow - Chicago, as well as Record Store Day. The latter has been rescheduled for June 20, so I’ll hang on to my wish list of limited-edition vinyl releases and be ready to stand outside Reckless Records on that (hopefully) warm and sunny Saturday morning. As for International Pop Overthrow, which was slated for nine days at the LiveWire Lounge on Milwaukee Avenue, the picture is less clear. A message on the official IPO site states, “Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, all IPO festivals originally planned in April and May are either cancelled or possibly postponed. - - - Schedule details for all IPO 2020 cities to be announced once the current worldwide health crisis is over.” Here’s wishing IPO founder David Bash the best of luck with his traveling power pop/indie rock festival.

Record Store Day UK has launched #RSDFillTheGap to celebrate this year’s original date. “To celebrate what would have been Record Store Day on Saturday 18th April, we’re asking our community of music lovers to support their local record shop.” Noble sentiment, indeed. Let’s all buy some vinyl today from a local record store.

I’m halfway through Bobby Elliott’s fun and interesting autobiography It Ain’t Heavy, It’s My Story - My Life In The Hollies. Like me, he fancied World Wart II airplanes as a child, and still has a model of a Spitfire his uncle made from scratch decades ago. His harrowing descriptions of working in the depths of an English coal mine as a lad underscore his gratitude that he made it out alive and went on to a highly successful rock and roll career.

As I started reading about The Hollies’ first trip to Chicago in the mid-1960s, I flashed back to hearing the band being interviewed on WLS. That was right around the time I became an avid fan. Sure enough, Elliott brings up that occasion, and I love his recollection: “WLS was one of the most listened to radio stations in the Chicago area, and we were invited on for an interview with DJ Ron Riley. We liked Ron and he seemed to like us. He asked us to take turns manning the phones so that kids could call in and ask questions or chat to us. Good fun and a first for us.”

In addition to The Reader, I got my copy of the April issue of Shindig magazine in the mail today. It has an interview with Bobby Elliott about his new book, as well as a tribute to the late Neil Innes and a cover story on The Beau Brummels.

Here’s hoping everyone stays safe, healthy and sane as we follow what the medical community tells us regarding the coronavirus quarantine. We can make it though this together.