I caught up with Corky Siegel the day after Christmas 2024 to talk about his recently released Symphonic Blues No. 6 (a concerto for blues harmonica and symphony orchestra). Along the way we talked about how it was he came to mix two music forms – blues and symphony – so successfully and make a career out of it. For close to 60 years now he has performed symphony blues, chamber blues, and more traditional blues to rave reviews.
When Corky tells you how the marriage of blues and symphony came about it is as if he is telling you about something that happened yesterday. “I’ve told this story a thousand times,” he says, “and I’m still not tired of telling it.”
It all began back in 1965 when Mark Paul “Corky” Siegel and Jim Schwall, music students at the University of Chicago, were listening to recordings by the blues masters Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and others and were inspired to learn enough blues tunes to play a set. They set out to find a place to perform and innocently wandered across to “the other side of the tracks” to a place called Pepper’s Lounge.
As Corky tells it, “We asked the owner if we could play there. We auditioned for the afternoon ladies crowd and were hired on the spot to play from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. every Thursday night.” Located on the South Side of Chicago, every important blues musician in the Toddling Town would stop by Pepper’s to play, listen, and sit in.
“We got to play with Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters and Little Walter because we were the house band.” Buddy Guy, Willie Dixon, Junior Wells and other blues icons also joined in. That was some pretty heady stuff for a couple of young musicians just starting out. It was the beginning for the Siegel-Schwall Band, a group that would leave its own mark in the blues lexicon.
In 1966, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band went on tour leaving an opening for a house band at Big John’s in Old Town. “It was the North Side ground zero for what was called the rock-blues revolution,” Corky told me. “All of us white kids sort of launched our careers from there.”
And it was there at Big John’s that symphonic blues got it roots. One night a fan came up to him after a performance and said, “Corky, I would like your band to jam with my band.” His band was the Chicago Symphony and the fan was Maestro Seijii Ozawa.
Corky could have dismissed the invitation as some kind of joke. After all, on the surface of it blues and classical symphony music would not appear to mix. Instead, Corky saw it as an opportunity.
“I had to remain completely open for everything,” Corky told me. “I didn’t have the experience, I didn’t have the knowledge, I didn’t have the skill of all my contemporaries. I was just coming out of listening to music in the blues tradition, learning to play a little bit of harmonica and a little bit of piano in the blues tradition. And I was not a quick learner.”
Blues was Corky’s doorway to his journey into music. It was not his final destination. So he got together with Ozawa and composer William Russo to begin the process of creating a blues symphony. Remember, a Japanese conductor of the Chicago Symphony was sitting in a blues bar in 1966 discussing how to bring the blues into classical music. It was unimaginable for the times. Yet, it happened.
“They asked me, ‘Corky, how are we going to do this?’ I said, ‘Well, first of all we have to find a way to come up with something for everyone to not like.’ And they went ‘Yes!’ They got that.”
They first performed Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra, by William Russo in 1968. The reception wasn’t always welcoming, at least not initially. The audience at the Lincoln Center in 1969 greeted Corky with hostility when he took the stage for the first performance. But Corky and Ozawa persevered. By the end of the performance the audience gave what at that time was the longest and most intense standing ovation the Center had ever experienced. In 1973, the Siegel-Schwall Band and Ozawa released a recording of this work performed with the San Francisco Symphony.
Fast forward nearly 60 years and audiences still enjoy symphonic blues and the related chamber blues performance by Corky Siegel. His Symphonic Blues No. 6 consists of three movements: “Filisko’s Dream,” “Slow Blues,” and “Allegro.” Additional tracks of “Coda for Tabla and Harmonica” (featuring Kaylan Pathak), a chamber blues piece entitled “Wrecking Ball Sonata,” and “Opus 11 for Solo Violin” are also included, as is an 18-minute reading of the liner notes by Corky himself.
For those of you who are uncertain about mixing blues and classical music, Corky offers a unique listening opportunity to experience symphonic blues. He has decided to make available most of his digital catalogue for listening on his website, including Symphonic Blues No.6. As he puts it, “The music industry has gotten really good at giving away the artist’s works and I figured I could do it just as well.”
“Having the music be free is sort of a nice thing,” he adds. “I sort of like that. Rather than sell it for 0.004 cents, I’ll just give it away.”
Making the music available for free also fits with Corky’s philosophy that music is to be enjoyed. “I don’t care how it is played or who plays it or what it is,” he says. “My job is to enjoy every bit of music there is.” And by making his music free for the listening through his website, he makes it easy for you to enjoy, too.
Little known facts about Corky:
- Corky Siegel and Jim Schwall produced Joni Mitchell’s last demo tape including “The Circle Game”
- Worked with Rado and Ragni for many months on a four-man musical that would turn out to be the predecessor to the hit musical Hair
- Toured with Bob Hope as a solo performer
- Toured extensively with George Carlin as a solo and was opening the show for him with Siegel-Schwall when he got arrested right on the Milwaukee Summerfest stage for saying “The Seven Words you can Never Say” in Milwaukee
