Posted by Dandelion on June 01, 1999 at 10:11:52:
In Reply to: Blues Heaven posted by Fleabit Peanut Monkey on May 31, 1999 at 21:37:34:
::We went down into the basement and saw the room where Chuck Berry lived for several months when he was hard up for cash.
::
Actually, it seemed more like a cellar, pretty bizarre that he lived there. There were silhouette cut out sculptures of blues artists on tables down in the basement, waiting to be placed in the blues garden in the coming week. The garden will be in a vacant lot next to the building which is nice since the building itself is rather small and can be easily missed, and one now can only view the facade at times there is no tour. There were workmen laying dirt and mulch down when we visited.
In the room we viewed the video, the guide pointed out two cut outs in the walls. These revealed the original brick wall with hand painted chess piece tiles. It was very nice, I'm not sure why they covered it up instead of leaving it.
They had some nice things in their little gift section, t-shirts and sweat shirts of Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon, Chess, books, tapes, pins and other stuff. Everything, the tour and purchases, are tax deductible and go to a great cause. They don't seem to have the stuff up on the webpage yet, but I think they may have a catalogue or list if you email them. May as well ask if you are interested. http://www.bluesheaven.com/