♦ Erwin Helfer's CD Release Party - "Erwin Helfer Way", Monday June 3rd - 8:30 - 12:00 PM, Katerina's, 1920 W. Irving Park Rd., $10 COVER
♦ Barrelhouse_Chuck's CD Release Party - "Driftin from Town to Town", Wednesday June 5th - 8:00 - 11:30 PM, The Barrelhouse Flat, 2624 N. Lincoln Ave., No COVER
Milestones - The Sirens Records
♦ 1975 - Steven Dolins, David Goldberg, and Barry Dolins founded the company and reissued the 1957 blues piano classic “Primitive Piano” with Speckled Red, Billie Pierce, Doug Suggs, and James Robinson.
♦ 1976 - Recorded “Heavy Timbre – Chicago Boogie Piano”, a studio house rent party with Sunnyland Slim, Blind John Davis, Willie Mabon, Jimmy Walker, and Erwin Helfer – a blues piano dream team!
♦ 2001 – Steven Dolins restarted The Sirens Records. Recorded Erwin Helfer’s “I’m Not Hungry But I Like To Eat – Blues!” which was nominated for a Handy Award and featured on NPR’s All Things Considered.
♦ 2002 – Recorded “8 Hands on 88 Keys – Chicago Blues Piano Masters” with Helfer, Barrelhouse Chuck, Detroit Junior, and Pinetop Perkins. Reissued Heavy Timbre and Primitive Piano on CD.
♦ 2003 – Nat Hentoff, esteemed writer and jazz critic, features The Sirens in the Wall Street Journal.details...
♦ 2003 – Gospel pianist Pastor Dwayne Mason made his debut and is dubbed the Reverend of Funk by the NY Times.
♦ 2003 – Heavy Timbre is named one of the 52 greatest blues recordings by the Year of the Blues
♦ 2004/2005 – Bebop pianist Earma Thompson made her debut and is invited by Marian McPartland to appear on NPR’s Piano Jazz.
♦ 2004 – Recorded “In the Right Hands – Chicago Gospel Keyboard Pioneers” with the gospel keyboard dream team, Jessy Dixon, Geraldine Gay, and Nash Shaffer. Geraldine Gay accompanied her brother Pastor Donald Gay on vocals.
♦ 2005 – Geraldine Gay received the Gospel Pioneer Award at the Chicago Gospel Festival.
♦ 2006 – Erwin Helfer’s “Careless Love” is featured on NPR’s Fresh Air.
♦ 2007 – Nat Hentoff writes another column in the Wall Street Journal about Barrelhouse Chuck and “Got My Eyes on You”. details...
This same band, featuring Kim Wilson, is used on the soundtrack for the movie “Cadillac Records”, the story of Chess Records.
Hentoff includes his article about Chuck in his book “At the Jazz Band Hall: 60 Years on the Jazz Scene” published by the University of California Press.
♦ 2008 – Earma Thompson receives the Jazz Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
♦ 2009 – Kimberly Gordon’s “Mr. Sandman” is used on a Fox TV show.
♦ 2009 – Peter Silvester’s 2nd edition of his classic "The Story of Boogie Woogie - A Left Hand Like God" discussed The Sirens Records and included the cover photo from Heavy Timbre.
♦ 2011 – Eddie Robinson, who accompanied Mahalia Jackson for 17 years, makes his debut recording “This is my story” the same year as Mahalia’s centennial birthday.
The Sirens Records will periodically post videos from Erwin Helfer, Barrelhouse Chuck, Reverend Mason, Pastor Gay, and others. Please stay tuned and let us know if you enjoy them. Email us at info@thesirensrecords.com
