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 famnous 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.

The Band

Stephen Cooper - Bass Guitar
T-ski - Lead Guitar
Robert Kubey - Drums
J - Lead Vocals
Gary Radford - Guitar

The Set

1. T-Bone Shuffle (Albert Collins)
2. Five Long Years (Eddie Boyd - Eric Clapton)
3. Fast Blues with Mean Progression (T-ski)
4. You Haven't Hurt Me (Joe Kubek - arr. T-ski/Jennifer Lehr)
5. Crippled Inside (John Lennon/Luthor Allison)
6. Crossroads (Robert Johnson)
7. Damn Right I've Got the Blues (Buddy Guy)
8. The Bottle (Gary Radford/Ian Marshall)
9. Comfortably Numb (Roger Waters/David Glilmour - Pink Floyd)
10. Unabomber (T-ski)
11. One Way Out (M. Sehorn/W. Williamson/ J. W. James- The Allman Brothers)
12. Retro (T-ski/Gary Radford/Robert Kubey)