By ERIC SCHELKOPF
Wendy Morgan and Darryl Boggs believe you are never too young to learn about the blues.
Morgan and Boggs front the Chicago-based kindie duo Wendy and DB. Their fifth album, the aptly-named “Into the Little Blue House,” features an all-star cast of Chicago blues musician, including Grammy-winning drummer Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith, Ivy Ford, Anne Harris, Billy Branch. Mike Wheeler and Johnny Iguana.
“Into the Little Blue House” is set for release on Sept. 23. To celebrate the release of the CD, the duo will perform a children’s show on Oct. 23 at Evanston SPACE, 1245 Chicago Ave., Evanston.
I had the chance to talk to Wendy and Darryl about “Into the Little Blue House.”
Q – What was the idea behind the album?
Darryl – I wanted to find a way to get blues music to kids, but I wanted to do it in a way that they could understand it. If you come to them at their level, then you can spread the word.
Wendy – We had kids sing on the album. A couple of our blues musicians had younger kids that we were able to get in on the session, which was amazing.
Q – How did you line up all these blues musicians to play on the album?
Wendy – We have to give all the credit to our producer, Michael Freeman. He’s a Grammy winning blues producer.
We were trying to be as inclusive as we could. Ivy and I wrote a song together, "Women of the Blues.”
We were trying to include as many people as we could on this album. We had such a great time with it.
Morgan and Boggs front the Chicago-based kindie duo Wendy and DB. Their fifth album, the aptly-named “Into the Little Blue House,” features an all-star cast of Chicago blues musician, including Grammy-winning drummer Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith, Ivy Ford, Anne Harris, Billy Branch. Mike Wheeler and Johnny Iguana.
“Into the Little Blue House” is set for release on Sept. 23. To celebrate the release of the CD, the duo will perform a children’s show on Oct. 23 at Evanston SPACE, 1245 Chicago Ave., Evanston.
I had the chance to talk to Wendy and Darryl about “Into the Little Blue House.”
Q – What was the idea behind the album?
Darryl – I wanted to find a way to get blues music to kids, but I wanted to do it in a way that they could understand it. If you come to them at their level, then you can spread the word.
Wendy – We had kids sing on the album. A couple of our blues musicians had younger kids that we were able to get in on the session, which was amazing.
Q – How did you line up all these blues musicians to play on the album?
Wendy – We have to give all the credit to our producer, Michael Freeman. He’s a Grammy winning blues producer.
We were trying to be as inclusive as we could. Ivy and I wrote a song together, "Women of the Blues.”
We were trying to include as many people as we could on this album. We had such a great time with it.
Q – I’ve listened to that song a couple of times and it seems like you really collaborated well on that song.
Wendy – We really did. She’s lovely to work with.
Q – I’ve had the opportunity to see Anne Harris perform a couple of times and she is so energetic on stage.
Wendy – She’s amazing. Anne is a friend of mine and I wouldn’t think of anyone else but Anne to be on this album.
Q – Was it easy putting together an album like this?
Michael is great to work with. The title cut, “Little Blue House,” is really about a world that’s not fighting all the time. It’s like an ideal home. It could be the planet Earth. I was trying to use that as a metaphor.
Q – This is the fifth album that you have made together. Why do you think you work well together?
Daryl – One of the reasons is that we’ve known each other for a long time. Our musical friendship led to a personal friendship.
One day, almost about 10 years ago, Wendy came to me and asked, ‘Hey, you want to write some children’s music together?’ I was still teaching school at the time and we got together and started writing songs and next thing you know, we did our first CD.
Wendy – That was in 2013 when we did our first album. We’re good friends first and we also trust each other on stage.
Q – And I see that 10% of the proceeds from “Into the Little Blue House” will go to The Pinetop Perkins Foundation.
Wendy – That’s true. We’ve always given back.
This is a very important album to get out there right now. Billy Branch told us that he wished he had come up with this project. He was like, ‘Hey, you beat me to it.’
Wendy – We really did. She’s lovely to work with.
Q – I’ve had the opportunity to see Anne Harris perform a couple of times and she is so energetic on stage.
Wendy – She’s amazing. Anne is a friend of mine and I wouldn’t think of anyone else but Anne to be on this album.
Q – Was it easy putting together an album like this?
Michael is great to work with. The title cut, “Little Blue House,” is really about a world that’s not fighting all the time. It’s like an ideal home. It could be the planet Earth. I was trying to use that as a metaphor.
Q – This is the fifth album that you have made together. Why do you think you work well together?
Daryl – One of the reasons is that we’ve known each other for a long time. Our musical friendship led to a personal friendship.
One day, almost about 10 years ago, Wendy came to me and asked, ‘Hey, you want to write some children’s music together?’ I was still teaching school at the time and we got together and started writing songs and next thing you know, we did our first CD.
Wendy – That was in 2013 when we did our first album. We’re good friends first and we also trust each other on stage.
Q – And I see that 10% of the proceeds from “Into the Little Blue House” will go to The Pinetop Perkins Foundation.
Wendy – That’s true. We’ve always given back.
This is a very important album to get out there right now. Billy Branch told us that he wished he had come up with this project. He was like, ‘Hey, you beat me to it.’
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