Chicago All-Stars Gig To Help Blues Legend Get Back On His Foot

CHICAGO — A few weeks back, Chicago bluesman Carl Weathersby had surgery to amputate right toe. Then doctors took his right leg up to the knee. And his kidneys started to fail thanks to diabetes.

But that’s just the bad news.

“His hands still work," said Kathleen Davenport, Weathersby's wife and the former manager at Kingston Mines in Lincoln Park.

“He’s got his guitar is in rehab and he’s sittin’ on the bed, playing. Carl without that guitar is like a fish out of water," she said. "That’s the thing that keeps him going."

When word of Weathersby’s health troubles reached Amberly Stokes, a talent manager and fixture behind the bar at Rosa’s Lounge, she knew just what to do.

“Chicago Blues is a community. We’re a family,” she said. “We help the people we really love.”

It only took Stokes four days to stack a bill with All-Star blues musicians — Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Ronnie Baker Brooks and Grammy Award-winning harmonica player Billy Branch, among them — to play a Nov. 24 benefit show at Rosa’s Lounge to raise cash for Weathersby’s recovery.

“Chicago blues guys like Carl aren’t getting any younger. Some of them never had health insurance. A lot of them don’t make enough money to get through complicated issues,” Stokes said. “As a community, we want to put money in their hands to make it a little easier. Everybody I called was onboard right away. They’re good friends and their response was really touching.”

All the musicians donated their time and even picked up their own travel expense. Kingfish and Marquis Knox each agreed to detoured their tours to make a special stop at the sold-out show, which is set to be broadcast live online by Dacast Streaming for $10.

Stokes said she considered booking the benefit at a venue bigger than Rosa’s 120-person capacity, but Weathersby wouldn’t have it.

“Carl wanted it at a real blues club and Rosa’s is our community spot,” she said. “It’s one of the last real blues clubs and part of the blues experience is being in an intimate space.”

After all when Rosa’s Lounge opened in Logan Square 35 years ago, Weathersby was there with his Gibson guitar in hand.

"I played that first night. Rosa's was just an idea back then," Weathersby said. "And I played there over 3o years. It really was the friendliest club, especially back when momma Rosa would make those authentic Italian meals. And it's still cool."

“A Modern Blues Legend”

In 1953, Carl Weathersby was born in Jackson, Mississippi. He moved with his family to East Chicago, Ind. when he was eight years old and started playing guitar along with albums, trying to mimic blues greats.

He often shares the story of how a family friend, “Albert the mechanic,” once stopped by while young Weathersby played along with the “Cross Cut Saw” spinning on the phonograph.

“That ain’t the way I played it,” the mechanic better known to blues aficionados as Albert King told him.

Weathersby served in the Army during Vietnam, worked as a prison guard in Louisiana and on a security detail at an Indiana Steel mill until it suddenly shut down before dedicating his life to Chicago blues.

He played with (and quit) King’s band three times while his children were young.

"Albert would stay on the road for five, six months at a time. I couldn't do that," Weathersby said. "But if you were a guitar player with a good work reputation with him, and I did, he'd always take you back."

Weathersby toured and recorded with Branch, Sons of the Blues and the late Buster Benton before launching a solo career in the mid-90s. He headlined shows at Kingston Mines twice a week, and released nine albums. In 2017, Weathersby was inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.

“I don’t use the word legend lightly. But when you talk about a modern blues legend, Carl Weathersby meets all the criteria,” Stokes said.

Weathersby might be best know the way he picks a guitar, a style often compared to King, his father's diesel mechanic buddy and blues legend who inspired him as a boy.

"The thing about Carl is he's an excellent lede guitar player. When he tells you a story about his life and career in the blues you just open your heart to him," Weathersby's friend, bluesman Lurrie Bell, said. "He's a hell of a guy, a real character who makes me laugh out loud. One of those special human beings."

In the 90s, Weathersby took no guff. Chicago bluesman Wayne Baker Brooks chuckled at the memory of seeing Weathersby “break his foot kicking a man in the ass for touching his guitar on stage.”

Back then, when Weathersby “liked his Jack Daniels,” the bluesman demanded an audience’s attention, his wife says.

“Carl has that old-school mentality. If the someone in the crowd was making too much noise he’d stop playing and ask, ‘What’s the address where you work so I can go there and f--- with your day,’” Davenport said.

In that way, Weathersby hasn’t changed much.

Just a couple months back, at B.L.U.E.S. on Halsted, Weathersby stopped mid-song to calmly offer to whip a mouthy millennial with a tree branch if he didn’t stop video-chatting during his set.

It worked.

Chicago to Texas

In 2016, Weathersby moved to Texas hill country outside Austin and continued to play shows at local clubs.

"People down here, they don't know nothing about the blues. So for a lot of 'em I'm their first taste of it that they get," Weatherby said. "And they want me to play 'Ring of Fire.' I tell 'em, 'Man, sh--. I don't know that song. I'm from Chicago. That ain't what I do. I play the blues. And I'm already in the hall of fame, so I'm not changing what I do."

Weathersby, in a phone interview from a Texas rehabilitation center, said he's concentrating on getting back on his, well, foot.

"I can play the guitar. So now I'm learning how to walk on on one leg," he said. "I can't lean to the right. Can't lean to the left. Just gotta distribute my weight evenly, and concentrate on being able to do stuff for myself when I get outta here."

In the meantime, his wife is on the hunt for a handicap-accessible house that's easier for him to get around.

“My dad’s place has stairs, it’s a doublewide and there’s no room for me and Carl do what he’s got to do to get back to work,” Davenport said. “Carl’s been through a lot but he’s determined to get back on stage. That’s the only place where he’s not in pain.”

Weathersby says he's already strong enough to get around with a walker.

"As soon as they let me out of here, I'll be on stage, no doubt about that," he said. "Unless I die tomorrow."

He won't be able to attend the Chicago benefit in his honor. But Weathersby says he plans on gathering with neighbors to and watch the livestream soak up all the love sent from sweet-home Chicago at Hudson's on Mercer in Dripping Springs, Texas to soak up all the love sent from sweet-home Chicago.

"I was always taught by older people to treat people right. And I tried to do that, pass on what I know to younger guys. And I knew had good friends, but I never knew that I was that respected for them do this. Not in a million years," Weathersby said.

"All this support is completely overwhelming. I'm so grateful."

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More information about the concert and streaming is available on the Rosa's Lounge Facebook page.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting and Emmy-nominated producer, was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN. He was a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

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