Music once rang from the building at 1815 W. Roosevelt Road, filling the west-side night with the sound of the blues. Some of the greatest masters in the music’s history–Howlin’ Wolf, Hubert Sumlin, Freddie King played there.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
A lot of places have called themselves the home of the blues, but few have had a more legitimate claim to the title. When Eddie Shaw purchased it in 1974, it was called the Alex Club, and through the years it had featured performances by the cream of the west-side blues crop–Otis Rush, Magic Sam–as well as Muddy Waters, Freddie King, and others from around the city. Shaw played sax in Howlin’ Wolf’s band, and the club soon became Wolf’s local base. Throughout the mid-70s, the 1815 Club was his musical home.
But by 1974, the Alex Club had fallen on hard times. Blues wasn’t the draw in the black community that it had been, and to make matters worse, a good part of the neighborhood had burned down during the riots after Dr. Martin Luther Kings assassination in 1968. The original owner died, and his wife ran the club for a few years until she passed away. Then her brother inherited it. “He really ran it because it was handed down to him, not because he liked it so much,” Shaw recalls. “I was driving down the Dan Ryan once, and his cousin pulled me over on the Dan Ryan. He knew that I was kind of into clubs a little bit. So he asked me, ‘You think you want a club, Eddie?’ I said, ‘I dont know, man.’ ‘Come on by and we’ll talk about it.’ So I went by, and we got together, and they let me have it. It was just kind of handed down.”
But after nearly ten years, Shaw has decided to try it again. His cousin LeRoy Edwards is his partner now, and Shaw says that Edwards’s experience and trustworthiness will provide what was lacking last time around. The New 1815 Club opened nearly two months ago; its grand opening featured such contemporary west-side luminaries as Little Addison, Big Mojo Elem, Johnny Dollar, Willie D., and Norma Jean, as well as Shaw and his band.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Bruce Powell.
