Lonnie Brooks obit

Lonnie Brooks, a symbol of Chicago blues, dies at 83

 

He was not on the list.

When Chicago blues giant Lonnie Brooks appeared with the Chicago Jazz Ensemble in 2005, he dazzled the audience, but not with fast finger work alone.

He picked up his guitar and began playing it with his teeth and tongue, proving more skilled with his mouth than many competitors are with their hands.

More important, the music that thundered from Brooks' instrument and voice on this occasion — and uncounted others — shook the room. His sound was so huge and delivery so ferocious as to make everything alongside him seem a little smaller.

Brooks died Saturday night at age 83 in Chicago, said his son, Ronnie Baker Brooks, a blues guitarist who toured prolifically with his father.

"He had his own sound, his own style," said Chicago blues singer Shemekia Copeland, who grew up in Texas and knew Brooks and his family from when they lived there.

"Something about that Texas thing made him different than the other blues artists here in Chicago," added Copeland. "They grew up listening to country music.

"There was just a different type of a swagger to their music."

Brooks certainly came to the blues circuitously. Born Lee Baker Jr. in Louisiana, he focused on the guitar comparatively late in life, when he was in his 20s. But he learned fast, soon playing for zydeco king Clifton Chenier and scoring a Gulf Coast hit in 1957 with "Family Rules," which he recorded under the name Guitar Junior.

Soul singer Sam Cooke invited the emerging guitar phenom to come to Chicago with him in either 1959 or 1960 (reports vary), whereupon the young guitarist discovered that Luther Johnson already was performing under the name Guitar Junior.

So he anointed himself Lonnie Brooks and discovered a sound that changed the course of his music and life: Chicago blues.

"I would see guys like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker for $1, and I always wondered how they got all that soul into their playing," Brooks told the Tribune in 1992.

"Then one night, I saw Magic Sam in a little blues club on the South Side. He went on stage right after he'd gotten into a big fight with his girlfriend, and it was like he was taking it out on his guitar. I seen how it came from the heart, so I went home to the basement, and got into that mood that Magic Sam had been in, and the blues came to me."

Brooks' journey to the blues produced a singular, dynamic sound that made him an increasingly important figure on the Chicago scene in the 1970s. The scorching tracks he recorded for Chicago-based Alligator Records' "Living Chicago Blues" series led to a long run of albums for the label under his own name, including classics such as "Bayou Lightning" (1979), "Hot Shot" (1983) and "Lone Star Shootout" (1999).

Over time, the explosive energy of Brooks' live performances, searing intensity of his guitar playing and rough-and-ready character of his vocals made him an international attraction and a living symbol of Chicago blues. Appearances in the Dan Aykroyd film "Blues Brothers 2000" and alongside Paul Shaffer's band on "The Late Show with David Letterman" only heightened his profile.

"Lonnie Brooks was a Chicago blues legend with a towering talent and soulful style that won him legions of fans across the country and around the world," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement. "His celebrated career inspired generations of music lovers, garnered numerous awards and brought him from the clubs of Chicago's west side to the concert halls of Europe and beyond."

Brooks explained his larger-than-life performance manner in a 1997 Tribune interview.

"It's almost like (being) a comedian," he said. "The one that can make the people laugh the most is the one that they like the most. So that's why I do (it), to get the people interested."

He brought sons Ronnie Baker Brooks and Wayne Baker Brooks, both guitarists, into his music from the time they were children, and he regarded them as the future of his music.

"I'm looking for my kids to take it even further," he said in a 1998 Tribune interview.

Said Ronnie Baker Brooks: "My father taught me everything I know, but not everything he knew. He was my best friend, my mentor and my father. He taught me and Wayne.

"My dad loved his family, and he loved his music. He did a hell of a job at maintaining both."

Funeral services are being planned, Ronnie Baker Brooks said.