Chicago Red - In This Life (2021)

Born in 1955 on Chicago’s Westside, Red began taking piano lessons at the age of six, switching to guitar at 12. By the time he was 15 he was playing and listening to the music of the still heady Windy City blues scene. Seeing Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Blind Jim Brewer perform, as well as meeting Louis Armstrong as a nine year old all had a lasting impact on his life and gave him a passion for creating his own music.

In the mid ‘70s, Red moved to Las Vegas for a few years and then hitchhiked across the United States a few times, finally settling in New Orleans for awhile with occasional side trips to Houston. He visits Mexico often—where he recalls lying in the back of a pickup truck in the Mexican desert looking up at the sky on starry nights and listening to the recordings of the old bluesmen he loved such as Big Maceo, Tampa Red and Big Bill Broonzy.

Now based in Los Angeles when he’s not touring, Red enjoys playing occasional “live” radio shows on KPFK FM and KUCI FM as well as performing around Hollywood with friends like Kenny Lee Lewis (Steve Miller Band) or Max Bangwell (Robert Jr.Lockwood, B.B. King). Red is also heard internationally on the radio (BBC) London, Spain, France and Germany and had his original “Cipro Prescription Blues,” from his

In This Life CD, played on Amy Goodman’s popular, nationally syndicated “Democracy Now” program.

As Red’s father used to say when he would take him both to the fabled Maxwell Street Market (where Red recalls hearing Blind Arvella Gray) as well as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Sir Georg Solti conducting— “Music is life and where there’s life there’s hope.” Words to live by.