Walking into the Chicago History Museum’s new exhibit “Amplified: Chicago Blues” is like walking the streets of 1960s Chicago—when the music dominated clubs and living rooms across the city.
The museum created the exhibit after purchasing 45,000 artifacts—including 40,000 photos—from the estate of Raeburn Flerlage, a music promoter, salesman, and radio host. Flerlage also worked as a freelance photographer for publications including the Chicago Daily News and DownBeat from 1959 to 1970.
But the exhibit is more than a gallery of stuff to look at. What might have an even more lasting impact on the 60,000 school kids that visit the museum every year is the chance to try their hats as blues musicians. You can pick up one of two guitars (these are real, not the fake Guitar Hero variety) perched opposite video screens that literally show you how to strum along to a typical series of blues chords. Within no time, you can feel like you, too, could become a master if you keep at it.
