Bluebird Blues

As he doesn't sing, bandleader Specter had to recruit a vocalist for the Bluebirds. "I was looking for a good singer to front the band," he says, "and I came across Barkin' Bill, Barkin' Bill Smith, who was from the west side of Chicago. He had a big baritone voice, kind of like Joe William, the jazz singer. I asked him to front the band as my first singer."

Specter's band quickly made a name for itself on the competitive Chicago blues scene, leading to a recording contract with Bob Koester's legendary Delmark Records label.

"A few years back, I had worked at The Jazz Record Mart, which is owned by Delmark Records," says Specter, "and I also worked as a shipping clerk for Delmark, so I became friends with the people at Delmark. I invited them out to hear the band with Barkin' Bill. Bob Koester had actually known about Bill for quite a while, so he signed us pretty quickly to do a record in 1990." Specter's debut album, Bluebird Blues, was released by Delmark in 1991.

Acclaimed guitarist Ronnie Earl was enlisted to perform on Bluebird Blues. "I had met Ronnie Earl, and we had become friends in the late-1980s when I was playing with Son Seals," says Specter. "Son would often tour on the east coast; I had met Ronnie in Chicago, and then we did a double bill at the Lone Star in New York. We had become friends and he told me 'if you ever do a record, I'd love to be a part of it, help you out.' He was a huge fan of Delmark, and we so brought Ronnie to Chicago and he played on the record as well."

Dave Specter Live In Chicago

The recently-released Live In Chicago CD and DVD is Specter's eighth album under his own name, but it's actually his third live album.

"I did one that's under my name, with Tad Robinson in Germany in 1994, that's Live In Europe," he says, "then I did one with Floyd McDaniel, which was actually at that same festival in Germany, and that's under his name, Floyd McDaniel's West Side Baby."

Live In Chicago is unique, even among blues albums, featuring the talents of three very different but talented singers - Tad Robinson, Jimmy Johnson and Sharon Lewis. "I had the concept for quite a while, to do a record with a number of different singers," says Specter. "I've worked with a lot of different singers, in Chicago and when I travel. It was kind of a 'blues revue' concept, and it's something that I've been thinking about for quite a while. I wanted to combine a few different singers, and record some live versions of a few of my instrumentals."

Specter considers himself lucky that he managed to enlist all three of these great singers for the album. "I'm very happy with all of them," he says. "I'd be happy with one of them, and I got three!"

Specter reunites with old friend and former band member Tad Robinson for Live In Chicago. "Tad and I were in a band together, with my band featuring Tad back in 1993 or '94," says Specter. "We recorded two albums together for Delmark - Live In Europe, and a studio album, Blueplicity. Tad has been living in Chicago since the mid-1980s. He had a band called the Hesitation Blues Band, and that's where I first heard him. After he recorded with me, he did a couple of solo albums for Delmark, and now he's recording for a label called Severn, on the east coast."

Live In Chicago was recorded and filmed at two different area clubs. "I wanted to have two nights of material to choose from. Buddy Guy's was my first choice, that's my favorite club to play in Chicago. I've been playing there pretty much since it opened, 15 years ago. Buddy's generally won't book two nights with the same band, so we went to Rosa's, where Delmark has had a lot of experience with their DVD video shoots. Rosa's is probably one of the first clubs where I heard first heard Tad back in the early-90s. I like Rosa's, it has a down home, down-to-earth vibe."

Branching Out Beyond The Blues

Specter has been branching out beyond the blues into other areas. "I'm actually a partner in brand new club that's opened up outside of Chicago, in Evanston, Illinois," he says. "It's something that I've always wanted to do. We're getting pretty busy with programming and booking. We also have a recording studio behind the club. The club is called S.P.A.C.E., which stands for the 'Society for the Preservation of Arts and Culture in Evanston.'"

"We're not just going to be a blues club, we're not really going to be a nightclub," says Specter. "It's more like a performance venue, more like an arts center. We'll be featuring all different kinds of root music and jazz, blues, everything in between."

When he's not on tour, Specter can often be found teaching the next generation of blues guitarists. "I do a lot of teaching," he says, "there's a great school here, a famous music school, called the Old Town School of Folk Music, that's been in Chicago for 50 years now. I've been teaching there, on and off, since the early-1990s."

Specter tries to teach his students the fundamentals. "I started out being a rhythm guitarist," he says, "which is something that I always advise up-and-coming guitarists to do. Start out becoming a good rhythm guitar player as your foundation. I try to stress the importance of a good chord vocabulary, and also being able to play solid rhythm, keeping time."

A number of Specter's students are aspiring blues musicians, and he tries to instill a sense of the music's history along with lessons on achieving the blues music sound. "I get a lot of students that come in with Stevie Ray Vaughan records, and that's cool," he says, "but I tell them 'let's go back and listen to who Stevie listened to,' let's go back and listen to Buddy Guy and Albert King, get them to realize the roots of the music."

What's in the future for Dave Specter? "I still want to continue touring," he says. "I still play international festivals a couple times a year." As for what we can expect to hear on record from the talented guitarist, he says "I did an all-instrumental recording back in 2000 called Speculatin', and I'd like to do another all-instrumental record somewhere down the line." Regardless of where his music takes Specter, you can expect it to include some shade of the blues.