On May 24, 1996, The Professors produce their first studio recordings at
Dress Rehearsals Studio, West Hubbard
Street, Chicago; the site of recordings made by Stevie
Ray Vaughn. The session was intended as a dress rehearsal for the gig at the annual conference of the International Communication Association the
following day. The engineer, Don, suggested recording the session, and so the first Professors studio recordings were made. All tracks are "live" (no overdubs,
no punch-ins to fix mistakes). For example, on The Bottle, you can hear T-ski shouting, "I've broken my string! I've broken my string!" and Gary telling him to
"keep playing!"Click on the song titles below to listen to other recordings made that day.
This video consists of a series of photographs taken at the session by Craig Brown. The accompanying music is "Five Long Years" by Eddie Boyd and most famously performed by
Buddy Guy, the famous Chicago native, and Eric Clapton. This version was performed by The Professors at the Dress Rehearsals session. J's wonderful performance on
vocals, T-ski's soulful lead guitar, and Stephen Cooper's exemplary bass, made this the perfect choice to represent our Chicago experience.
