WASHINGTON — If I can’t be in Chicago to hear the blues (“Sweet Home Chicago” is my walk-up song when I bat for my softball team), the blues came to me last week, in a celebration marking the music and the man, Bruce Iglauer — the founder of the Chicago-based independent blues record label Alligator Records — who for more than 50 years now, makes sure the genre endures.
“I’ve been trying to explain to Bruce all night that this night is about him” and his “tremendous accomplishment keeping Alligator going for over 50 years,” said blues great Shemekia Copeland, an Alligator recording artist for some 25 years.
