Raceway Park Closing
In other closings, Raceway Park at 130th and Ashland has closed after 63 years of stock-car racing. The neighborhood track was a place where amateurs could live out their racing dreams. In its heyday the track drew 8,000 spectators four nights a week. At the end, several hundred fans satisfied their need for speed on Saturdays and Sundays only. The 27-acre property will be re-developed in part as a grocery store.

Chicago Tribune New Look
Hats off to the Chicago Tribune for its new look, the first re-design in twenty years. Disallowing the color photography, the paper now has a faint whiff of the 1930's especially its individual section banners. Throw in a couple of stories about the construction of Hoover Dam and the image is complete.

Patty Carroll Exhibit
If you're visiting the Water Tower in downtown Chicago in the near future, check out Patty Carroll's photo exhibit "No Ketchup." It is more than thirty images of Chicago's venerable independent hot dog stands. Of course it features a great shot of the jungle clad hot dogs at Superdawg.

Gerri's Palm Tavern
It's not every night that a fella gets to take in a sizable portion of Chicago's live entertainment history---along with a sizable portion of Old Grand-Dad. But this was the case on Friday April 6 when Jim Byron's Band took the stage at the very legendary Gerri's Palm Tavern on 47th Street in the very heart of Bronzeville.

Until I stepped through the door my knowledge of the Palm Tavern was sketchy at best. I had seen a documentary on public television called........ "Remembering Chicago in the Forties" in which more than one person spoke with great affection of clubhopping on 47th more than fifty years ago and how the Palm Tavern was the place to see and be seen. The club had floor shows and big bands and dancing and celebrities. No matter how you sliced it the Palm Tavern was the big league of nightlife in that community.

Ms. Gerri Oliver assumed ownership of the club in 1956 and continued the tradition of good times and high living. To this very day she keeps a bulging photo album that contains picture after picture of happy patrons at the Palm Tavern. The men are all in razorsharp suits and porkpie hats. The women are elegant. The booths are full. And you can almost hear the sweet jazz coming off the bandstand.

Decades have rolled over the little nightclub. It has still had recent moments of glory. Mayor Harold Washington held his victory party here. Time has taken its toll on the premises. Plaster has cracked. The plush leather booths are worn. But the spirit is still very strong. The faded portraits of a young Della Reese and Dizzy Gillespie still smile. The sign on the wall saluting Palm Tavern friends and regulars still bears the names Roscoe "Stuff" Strange, Flip Wilson and James Brown. And Ms. Oliver herself is still there, tidying tables and welcoming visitors.

When Byron's boys took the stage the joint was jumping in an easygoing fashion that has probably always been the way at the Palm Tavern. This is not the Rosemont Horizon. It's a small room with a big heart(and a ton of history). When the band was playing, I was drinking and dancing. When they took a break, I paced the club from end to end just taking in the sights and sounds. I was even invited into the ladies' room to experience the ambience.

My hat is off to Mike Medina, drummer for Jim Byron and the Brunswicks. As far as I know, Mike was the first person from Chicago's rockabilly crowd to saunter into the Palm Tavern and make the acquaintance of Ms. Oliver. Since then he has taken a strong interest in preserving the club and its stories.

At the present time, the city of Chicago wants to convert the area of 47th and Vincennes into "Tobacco Road," a tourist destination that celebrates the neighborhood's blues music heritage---a heritage that it does not have.

This was Bronzeville's answer to New York's Broadway and the Palm Tavern was its Stork Club. Whether this means that Gerri's Palm Tavern will be shuttered, remodeled or re-opened as a wholly different club is unclear at this time. Ms. Oliver seems to expect the city to close her business and she is resigned to that fate. These may be the waning days of a great part of Chicago's music history. If it is, hold it tight and dance until it falls.

Johnny Reno
Congratulations to former Sax Maniac Johnny Reno on a stellar appearance on Showtime's "Chris Isaak Show" April 9. He really chewed up the scenery as Chris' hillbilly cousin Ordell who fronts a Chris Isaak tribute band. Chicago old-timers will recall Reno's sax-honkin', bar-walkin' days in the late eighties when he wore nothing but baggy sharkskin and fronted the hottest band out of Texas. Willowbrook Ballroom Eighty years of hardwood dance floor has been pounded at the Willowbrook Ballroom and it looks like there's no end in sight. The lovely little bit of heaven in the western suburbs celebrated eight decades of service over the week-end of April 8. About four hundred dancers attended Sunday's festivities. The ballroom opened in 1921 as an outdoor pavilion called Oh Henry Park.

Sad Passings in April
Paul Peek, guitar player in Gene Vincent's Blue Caps, who had been scheduled to appear at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville for the Rockabilly Hall of Fame at the time of his death.

Ted McCarty, who died at the age of 91, was president of the Gibson Guitar Company during the fifties when the company first released its legendary Les Paul, 335 and Explorer guitars. He was also the president of the Bigsby Company until 1999.

Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, the single most recognizable name in hot rod culture, passed away April 4 at the age of 69.