One week before our visit to New Orleans we had an bluespacked week in Chicago.At this time we had Sven Zetterberg with us as an additional guide as he had been here several times before and played a lot on the clubs. We stayed at singer / harmonica player Lynwood Slims place not to far from the heart of the windy city.He had a two room apartment on top of a bar. There were five of us sleeping on the fllor in a room without furniture.(You got to get the blues somehow). The first night we went to the Kingston Mines and saw Lurrie Bell, Barkin Bill and BB Kings daughter, Shirley King(she was not near the karisma of her father).The night didn´t offer any highlights but we were happy just to be in Chicago and have bluesclubs all around us.The next day we were invited by Lynwood to Koko Taylors place were he was gigging with David Specter.This was another story musically and KnockOut Greg jammed with the band.We thought we had been warmed up but the next days event was Taildragger(who is coming to Sweden in late May) in a club called 5102 Club.We had heard that it was important to keep yourself on the right side of town and we did get kind of worried when no taxidriver would drive us there.Finally we got hold of a good man from India who would take us cause, as he said , he could lock the car from the inside and he had two guns in the glove compartment.The 5102 club proved to be an experience I wont forget in the first place.You could sum it up in a few words.Shaft,gold and gambling. They had a blues DJ too.We didn´t feel any safer by the fact that Taildragger just had come out of jail. But to our relief, everyone was really friendly and when Taildragger heard there was a couple of white guys who had travelled fromSweden to see him he was so touched, he emmediately came over and gave us a big hug.Surprise. Later when he took the stage( in this case the floor) he did a lot of Howlin Wolf songs and he sure had the voice for it.The PA begged for mercy as it distorted every frase in a very pleasent way.A lot of beers later we was even given a ride home to Lynwoods place. Another pleasent event tokke place when we went to Fitzgeralds an half hours ride outside Chicago were we met Nick Moss, avery good guitarplayer, sort of a mix between very early Freddie King (without vibrato) and T-Bone Walker. The Mighty Blue Kings played at the same place, a great band palying their own material in a 40 and 50s vein.Their guitarplayer was totally T-Bone.At Rosas we were supposed to see Pinetop Perkins but he didn´t show up.Instead Little Mac Simmons came with his band and Sven was really happy about it cause he´s been a fan for a long time. We had a long talk with Mac about the working conditions in Chicago for bluesmen and about his records.

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