Flashback to 2014: Karamu Theatre opens its season with a raw, sweaty 'It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues'

On Sunday afternoon, clouds threatened and a stiff wind swept hats off heads in the Karamu House parking lot.

But inside the Jelliffe Theatre, "Mississippi" Charles Bevel's joyous revue radiated enough heat to mimic the sun. With the dynamism of a revival meeting and the wicked sensuality of a hazy, smoke-filled club on the South Side of Chicago, "It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues" isn't just a celebration of 400 years of blues history; it's a celebration of life, with all of its pleasure and pain.

But "Blues" in the end is mostly about joy, and no one embodies that ethos better than Harris (A. Harris Brown), a barrel-chested big man with a voice as smooth as top-shelf whiskey.

Tumblers of amber liquor, in fact, replace moonshine-in-Mason-jars when the gang moves out of the Mississippi Delta and hops the train to Chicago in Act 2.
Harris dispenses with his overalls and emerges, dressed to the nines, tens and elevens, in a suit with a four-alarm red vest, a cocky fedora and a glittering pinky ring.

Backed by the full band, Harris burns down the house with "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man," rocking his expansive girth, as one song goes, "with one steady roll" and eliciting squeals of delight from women who fan themselves with programs as he moves into the audience with a Big Man's deceptive grace. Read More...