XRT Red, White & Blues Concert with Lonnie Brooks

Blues legend Lonnie Brooks will grace the Miller Lite Band Stage at Arlington Park for a special post race show presented by WXRT. Come early and enjoy live thoroughbred racing action and stay for a post race encore concert featuring Lonnie Brooks. Lonnie Brooks brings his legendary sounds to Arlington Park for the first time, but has an accomplished performing career having played the San Francisco Blues Fest, Montreux Jazz Festival, David Letterman¹s Late Show and he's put 150,000 people on their feet as headliner of the Chicago Blues Festival.

Lonnie Brooks Biography

Long before Lonnie Brooks was headlining major blues festivals and sharing stages with the likes of Eric Clapton, he was forging his bayou-swamp-music-meets-Chicago-blues-via-Texas style. Born Lee Baker, Jr. in Dubuisson, Louisiana on December 18, 1933, he began his career playing everything from rock 'n' roll to country & western and R&B. Originally desiring to play banjo (his grandfather was an accomplished banjo player), Lonnie instead mastered the guitar. His first professional job came when zydeco legend Clifton Chenier saw him playing guitar on his front porch and drafted him into the famous Red Hot Louisiana Band. In the mid-1950s, Brooks, now known as Guitar Junior, cut a series of Gulf Coast proto-rock 'n' roll hits for the Goldband label, now considered swamp rock classics. He hitched a ride with Sam Cooke's touring caravan and got off in Chicago in 1960. Because Chicago already had a Guitar Junior, he changed his name to Lonnie Brooks, and jumped headlong into Chicago blues. He joined Jimmy Reed's touring band, and also recorded singles for Mercury, Chess and other labels in the 1960s, before Capitol released Brooks' first album, Broke And Hungry (under the name Guitar Junior) in 1969.    

During the 1960s and 1970s, Brooks performed regularly in some of Chicago's toughest clubs, playing blues, rock, and R&B (and backing up strippers) for audiences composed of pimps, hookers and gangsters. Although he was forced to perform other artist's hits, he was never without a gig. His big break came in 1978, when Brooks introduced four songs on Alligator Records' Living Chicago Blues anthology. By now he had forged his own sound -- a vibrant mix of rock 'n' roll, R&B, funky Cajun boogie, country twang, and hard Chicago blues, a style his band dubbed "voodoo blues." The success of these recordings led him to a full recording contract with the label and a series of stellar albums, each loaded with Brooks' signature guitar playing and rich, expressive vocals. And, as anyone who has seen him in concert can attest, his live shows are legendary for kick-starting parties and spreading good times like wildfire. "Sheer energy and excitement," raved the Village Voice, "Brooks brings an original brilliance to the blues."

Lonnie Brooks Reviews:
"Sheer energy and excitement...Brings an original brilliance to the Blues"
-- VILLAGE VOICE

"Lonnie Brooks naturally adds an R&B touch to his hard-edged urban blues. Brooks' shouting, growling, and playing drives well placed guitar licks over a tight, no-nonsense rhythm section. Brooks expands on traditional blues forms by adding pop, rock, and funk hooks to keep things interesting. If you like the blues hard, loud, and with a sense of humor, check this out."         
-- OPTION

"A hard-driving contemporary blues-man with a distinctive, high-pitched voice and a penchant for well-crafted lyrics. Even when he's rocking the house down there's a starkness to his sound, and on slower numbers his voice can modulate from loving to desolate. He's one of the relatively few blues artists who can be depended on to put forth all he's got in live performance, and I've never come away from one of his shows disappointed."
-- CHICAGO READER

"Brooks' live shows are a joyful paean to the power of the blues. Brooks is equally at home playing rock and roll as he is Blues...six-string fire power...One of the genre's fiercest guitarists."     
-- CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"Brooks bridged country and urban styles with great case, fingerpicking some solos and flatpicking others while his band contrasted smoldering, low-key shuffles with insistent, surging rhythms...piercing guitar breaks full of bent, hammered and sustained notes."       
-- WASHINGTON POST

"Strong, rocking tunes showcase Brooks' emotionally charged guitar and vocals."
-- LOS ANGELES READER