The Soul of Bronzeville

The Soul of Bronzeville

Date Posted: May 01 2010

Written By: chicago blues

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‘The Soul of Bronzeville – The Regal, Club DeLisa and the Blues’ presented by the Chicago Blues Museum exemplifies Bronzeville’s unique offerings to Chicago music- The Original Regal Theater, Bronzeville entertainment venues, and the blues on Chicago's South side.

This attendance-records breaking exhibit by the Chicago Blues Museum focuses on American music traditions and features portions of the vast blues museum collections, on display for a second run at DuSable Museum of African-American History. Through images, music and movie footage, and artifacts such as instruments, personal ephemera and various memorabilia, “The Soul of Bronzeville” chronicles the musical contributions of Bronzeville and the artistic legacy of the blues.


‘The Soul of Bronzeville – The Regal, Club DeLisa and the Blues’ pays tribute to this historic black entertainment district and its legendary venues. Celebrating Bronzeville’s legacy, the exhibit takes the visitor on a tour of the historic theaters and clubs on Bronzeville's nightlife. Revisited are the big venues as well as smaller lounges and clubs from the Sutherland Show Lounge, Robert's Show Lounge, and the staples of Chicago Blues Smitty's Corner, the 708 Club and the Checkerboard Lounge where the new intense electrified blues evolved and reached its commercial and artistic apex when Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers, Junior Wells, 'Sonny Boy' Williamson and Memphis Slim lit up the nightclub scene in Bronzeville.

These great artists, - who personified in their lives and music a common African-American heritage and experience- performed the venues, created new forms of music and entertainment, and were a true link to the beginnings of the popular music, with their music recorded and distributed on Chicago's Record Row.


Rare unique artifacts include an original interior from the legendary Checkerboard Lounge, original 1928 blue prints from the Regal Theater and Howlin' Wolf's and Jimmy Rogers' original guitars. The displays of rare images, memorabilia and artifacts from the blues museum archives are accompanied by presentations of footage and uncut film performances with biographical and documentary tidbits on legendary Bronzeville performers and celebrities.
A rebuilt 1950s Living Room in the Bronzeville section features the interior of a typical living room from that decade including original furniture, decorations, radio and television set with music and news footage as well as commercials from the fifties through seventies.

The historic district of Bronzeville was second only to New York’s Harlem district in providing a rich legacy of cultural gifts to America and the world. A largely African-American area of Chicago, Bronzeville was the cultural and economic center of the black community during the segregation era.
In the twenties, the ‘Stroll’, a nationally known urban strip on East 35th Street bustling with jazz cabarets, was the city’s first black entertainment district, which was lined with posh theaters and black-and-tans, notably the Sunset Cafe, the Apex, the Annex, the Plantation Cafe, and earlier venues, namely the Pekin, Dreamland Cafe, the Royal Gardens/Lincoln Gardens, the Deluxe Cafe and the Vendome.
From the thirties through the fifties, the area around 47th & South Parkway formed the commercial and cultural heart of the ‘Black Metropolis’ after ‘black Broadway’ shifted here through the opening of the Regal Theater, the Savoy Ballroom, and the Metropolitan Theater in 1927-28. They ranked with the city's premier entertainment venues and created a whole new generation of theaters, clubs and talk-of-the-town dancing, spreading even further South and East with the Club DeLisa and the Joe Louis’ Rhumboogie.


DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 East 56th Place(Washington Park) Chicago, IL 60637
Tuesday – Saturday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Free Sundays: Noon – 5 p.m.

Presented by: Chicago Blues Museum, P.O. Box 81410, Chicago, Illinois 60681
773-723-5031, chicagobluesmuseum@ att.net, chicagobluesmuseum.com

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