"First impression: why is everyone playing so badly"

Mikhail Mishuris continues his story about his trip to Chicago, studying at a local music school, jam sessions, and about the self-service laundry.

YMCA

Meanwhile, my friend was carrying out my mom's plan, trying to convince me to stay longer. And my visa was one of those deals where it was issued for six months. To this day, I'm not sure I didn't mess things up so badly that I'll never be allowed back into America.

In theory, I had a two-week visa, but I ended up staying for several months on my own. When I was leaving, someone angrily pointed at something in my passport, but I didn't understand what. So that's why I'm saying—I'm not sure if I'm still banned there to this day.

Chicago, downtown

So, my friend Kostya convinced me, and he didn't actually live in Chicago—he lived not far from Chicago, but in a different state. There's a university in Madison there. That's also, by the way, a unique place. There was an indie studio there that recorded all sorts of great people, like Cobain. When I was riding the bus to Madison itself, some clever-looking young guy explained to me that he was going to Madison specifically for that studio.

At that festival I happened to pick up a brochure advertising a music school for adults. We just kind of went there on a whim, and they signed me up for several courses for the whole summer. And that was it, basically—the deal was done.

The problem was that I didn't have anyone I knew in Chicago, and we had to find housing in just one day.

At first we checked into some hotel downtown, but it looked incredibly grim and was a lot like the place where Elwood Blues stayed in "The Blues Brothers" movie. It was terrifying, filthy, a room with no windows, some crazy fan rattling away.

A place straight out of a horror film. It must have cost us something fairly expensive. But after driving around all day, we decided to go back there anyway. But they wouldn't rent us the room again—they basically told us to get lost. They apparently decided we looked suspicious.

In the end, they got me registered at this strange place called the YMCA. It's a hostel, a 25-story hostel kind of thing, supposedly social housing. Basically, before someone ends up completely on the street, they spend some time flailing around at the YMCA.

And on the same floor, in the room next to mine, it turned out, lived Loury Bell. That was his last stop too before sleeping rough on the streets. I ran into him there more than once—he was always bumming cigarettes off me. Overall, he made the impression of just some crazy guy from the street.

Then someone asked me: "Do you know Luri Bella? He lives somewhere around here." From the description, I immediately understood it was him. And I kept running into him at clubs, though he never played there. And it turns out that way back, right when we first arrived in Chicago, I saw him playing on the street and even filmed him on camera, but somehow I didn't put it together at the time.

Well, it turns out I was living right next to a great bluesman of our time.

Concerts and Clubs

I searched for blues concerts in the free newspaper, I didn't really like leaving the center. At most, I'd make it out to the Old Town.

At Blues Central I listened to Otis Rush, they took me to the Checkerboard Lounge, that's the club where Muddy performed with the Rolling Stones. We ended up there on some kind of off day, not particularly a big blues night. There was a band playing, even a white one. It seemed like a gloomy place to me.

Well, actually, that's how it is in Chicago too. There's nowhere that's really "fancy and upscale" like that. The closest place would be Buddy Guy's Legends, but it's touristy. And there, of course, they have the best performers, the most famous ones. And it's essentially a restaurant. I can't remember another club there that even served any food at all.

A typical Chicago blues club is a rather gloomy, dingy establishment where there's nothing but alcohol—no food or anything else.

With Buddy Guy at Buddy Guy's Legends

I wasn't in some of the fairly well-known establishments. And from what I understood, everything there is divided up into these kind of communities: one crowd in one place, another crowd in another place.

It was around the time I started living in Chicago that I really understood blues. Before that, it seemed to me that things were even more interesting in Moscow somehow. And the playing was better, or so I thought.

I've heard this strange opinion from people here who were in the same Chicago, in the same places I was. They say, "We play blues better." Now I can't even hear such a thing. We don't play blues better. Well, back then my first impression was also "why does everyone play so badly."

And then there were breakthroughs — Otis Rush got me right away, struck a chord with me immediately.

I didn't have much erudition back then, I lacked the knowledge to know who I might run into. So unfortunately, I missed Solomon Burke. But I saw a lot of great things.

Old Town School of Folk Music

Classes took place every day. I had lessons in singing, guitar, and harmonica.

Group singing lessons were fun, we had that too, just like in the movies—outside the window there's that famous elevated railway rumbling along, and whenever it passes, everyone goes silent. The train goes by, and then you can continue the lesson.

To be honest, I remember the lessons pretty poorly. Guitar lessons were the usual thing — they'd show you something and you'd repeat it. As for singing, I really don't remember much. It was an ensemble. Everyone would get together and try to do something within the limits of our modest abilities. They split up everyone who wanted to be in the ensemble into several groups.

At school during class

And then the director said: "Everyone needs to bring two songs." And then we performed with this ensemble at Buddy Guy's Legends. We had a special student set before the main concert, a school set.

And the main concert that time turned out to be unusual — Luther Allison had just died, and they put together a big memorial evening for him. It happened that we even became part of that evening.

A huge crowd showed up because Buddy Guy promised to bring all the stars. And honestly, I probably would never have made it in there otherwise. There was a line stretching out onto the street.

We performed, didn't go anywhere else after that, just stayed by the wall. There was absolutely nowhere to sit, and you could barely find a place to stand.

There were a lot of elderly Black people there, who you wouldn't usually see in that place—normally it was either tourists or these bearded guys in glasses, like research scientists, blues enthusiasts.

Maybe all the stars really were there. To be honest, I didn't recognize a single one. But my knowledge was pretty limited back then. I didn't stay till the end of the evening—I was tired, and I probably missed the main event. Later I read about that evening in the newspaper, and I still didn't understand who was there. There must have been some great people.

Jam Sessions

To be honest, I don't remember very well. I recall there were quite a few incompetent musicians there. The jam session leader would somehow sort everyone out so it sounded more or less decent. They didn't even want to let me play, actually, because they'd pegged me as a foreigner. Though there were foreigners who came, and there were a lot of Japanese people in particular.

At an open jam session at the B.L.U.E.S. club

One Japanese bass player, he just sat down and played straight through from beginning to end, because there were no other bassists around. It wasn't organized as a band jam—whoever showed up played.

I suppose they thought I'd say something stupid. How could I sing if I can barely speak? I managed somehow, though it was probably awful. I'd like to say they carried me around on their shoulders, but that's not what happened.

At music school I was in good standing—they considered me a promising prospect. But at jam sessions, I can't say people were lining up to embrace me.

Chicago Blues

Chicago blues, as I understand it, is quite an eclectic and messy mix of all sorts of styles—there's no refinement whatsoever, but you get funk in there, soul elements. And that rawness, that garage quality, that's what draws me in. Because when I later heard California musicians, say, everything there is much more refined, much more polished, but that reckless, wild energy of Chicago blues—it's just not there.

But there's a special kind of charming roughness to it, and they can just throw a pop song right into their repertoire.

It happens that musicians play shuffle with such bestial seriousness, veins bulging on their foreheads. I never saw that in Chicago—there it's all lightness, ease.

And it doesn't matter whether you're talking about street musicians or club musicians — they play at different levels, of course, but it's blues, whereas with us (and I use "us" broadly), in Europe too, anywhere really, you can have a situation where everything seems fine on the surface, everything sounds great, everyone's playing together, but what comes out is somehow... not quite the real thing.

And there's a band playing on the street, everything's off-key, everything's wonky, nothing's in tune, but he plays anyway — the blues.

The Laundry

When I realized I'd run through all my clothes, someone told me there was this thing called a self-service laundry. A completely unheard-of concept. Back then, it was absolutely incomprehensible—how could such a thing exist? That washing machines just stood there, you'd buy detergent and wash your own stuff.

You dry them right there. And the thing that comedies show—a person without pants sitting around waiting for their pants to dry—that's actually a perfectly workable scheme.

Well, I had to go to such a laundry too. I asked at the reception desk where one was, and they gave me an address. I looked it up on the map and saw it was quite far away. But I still couldn't figure out how to get there by public transport.

I was honestly scared of getting around there too. I could manage a few metro stops in the right direction and get to school okay. But I was afraid to venture off somewhere in a different direction. The first time I went to that laundromat, I took a taxi.

I never came across American taxi drivers—they were all pretty wild characters. Even if it was a Black guy, he'd invariably be from Africa, speaking no comprehensible language. But it was easy because I communicated uncertainly while they spoke confidently but incomprehensibly. At least that way I felt like we were on equal footing. I could manage to show the taxi driver a piece of paper with the address, and that was enough for me.

With a music school staff member

And the metro there was actually pretty funny. I'd learned how to ride it to school. One time we hung out too long at a bar after class. I went to the metro, and they do have night service there, but the station I needed closed around 10 PM. I showed up and the station was still open, but nobody took a ticket from me. And I didn't have to stick it anywhere—the turnstiles were just open. I was really worried they were going to fine me heavily, throw me in jail, do something terrible to me. But it turned out that right as closing time approached, the station just stood there open with no staff around, so you'd just walk in and ride for free.

So I was really worried that I couldn't buy a ticket. I'm getting a free ride. How is that? I mean, I only had enough of that healthy sense of adventure to leave for America.

Return

I liked America more than I expected, and I really fell in love with it. But there was never any thought of staying there—I probably disappointed my mother. Instead, I was thinking: "Oh, how cool, I'll go back now and tell everyone everything and start implementing all of this." So that's what blues is, it turns out. Man, we're going to make something happen back home!

And the whole band managed to convey that sense of inspiration. We basically got down to it, started working through material, doing it more or less correctly. And almost right away we went to Moscow.

Looking back, I realize that was almost the most important time in my life. I didn't use that opportunity to the fullest, of course—if I'm lucky, I used fifty percent of it—but the fact that it happened, that's absolutely certain. If it hadn't happened, my life would have been completely different. That's when I came to believe that blues should be played and could be played. And most importantly, I realized I was capable of it and that I could fit into any environment.

And again, I'm saying, probably my knowledge just wasn't enough to appreciate how skilled these musicians were, but they weren't really there for the virtuosity anyway—they were just part of the usual atmosphere. It was rare that people would come specifically to a concert. Mainly on Friday evenings in summer, Americans in shorts would just bar-hop: they'd listen here, listen to someone there, and they wouldn't even know who it was.