In Mishawaka, Indiana in the mid-to-late 1980s, there was no better place to be if you were a blues fan (outside of nearby Chicago – only 90 miles to the west) than the Center Street Blues Café.  The club was started by the Parfitt brothers in an aging turn-of-the century brewery complex, giving the venue a certain funky ambience that seemed ideal for the music and the throngs of blues fans who flocked to the site.  Inside, Center Street was, by blues club standards, a sizeable operation with separate bar and performance spaces.  The club’s stage was very spacious, certainly wide enough to host even the largest bands with horn sections.  The sound system was top-tier, as was the lighting setup, all of which was controlled by a dedicated individual at the back of the venue with a direct stage view.  The show space was large and two-tiered, with both tables and chairs and booths spread across the main floor, one that also boasted an ample dance floor, plus an upstairs balcony with tables and chairs that overlooked the main floor from perhaps twenty feet up.

As said, being in such close proximity to Chicago, the site was an ideal place for the Chicago blues greats to perform, as the drive was minimal, and with the hour difference in time between Chicago and Mishawaka (Chicago is always one hour behind Mishawaka time-wise), the blues artists and their bands were able to make it home at a decent hour after the show, if they weren’t touring onward.  However, the club also hosted all the major national touring blues acts, along with regional and local favorites, along with weekly reggae shows.  Center Street was the place to be in the 1980s if you were a blues fan in the greater Mishawaka expanse.

Such was the excitement in 1987 when Chicago vocal great Valerie Wellington was scheduled to play Center Street.  On the heels of Wellington’s superb contribution to the Alligator Records release of the same year entitled The New Bluebloods – The Next Generation Of Chicago Blues, her aching “A Fool For You” was a muscular, deep, moving account of a woman whose passion was misplaced with a man who did not reciprocate.  Her soaring, piercing, and distressing account of love’s torment laid bare her sheer forceful style, one that built in intensity as the tune proceeded, leaving the listener startled, yet in complete awe, of her voluminous and fiery singing skills.  This was going to be a “must see” show.  More on this performance later.

As March is Women’s History Month, and as I have Valerie Wellington’s prodigious talents on my mind, it’s time for a brief overview of her and her contributions to the blues, which were bountiful.

Wellington was born in mid-November, 1959 as Valerie Eileen Hall in Chicago.  From the time she was a youngster, she was drawn to the performing arts, specifically enjoying and developing preferences for opera music and the drama of the theater.  As Wellington worked to hone her natural throaty and deep voice, she also became involved in theater, and it was as if she were a natural in that environment.  The combination of her God-given musical attributes and thrill for the theater were an agreeable destiny for her.  It all seems so inescapable in reflection.

Wellington had studied opera and earned her credentials as an opera singer from the American Conservatory Of Music, which at that time was located in Chicago.  The benefits from this course of study, combined with Wellington’s innate strident style, was obvious; her voice was so robust as to be able to pierce any room without the need for any amplification.  This was not merely some gimmick she would later employ in her live blues shows; rather, it allowed her a range of volume and modulation rarely seen in the blues, traits that rendered her very capable of presenting the nuances of a blues song in an idyllic manner with heightened excitement, to the thrill of her audience.

Wellington took her fully realized vocal and theatric flairs to plays (musicals), as she effortless portrayed certain of the classic women blues singers.  With Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith being two of her major classic women singer inspirations, she was cast in separate productions into roles depicting them in 1982 and 1984, a period that also found her, of all places, in a couple of television commercials for both the Chicago Tribune newspaper and the Chicago Transit Authority public transportation system, where she implored people to enjoy all the publication and system offered by way of using her tremendous voice as their guide.  The commercials were very popular, and also displayed Wellington’s affinity for performing.

But also in 1982, Wellington began her forays into the Chicago blues world.  She let loose upon the club scene her enthusiastic, exultant voice, one that immediately caused a major exhilaration among club goers.  The word was out; something new and exciting was happening, and it was Valerie Wellington.

Wellington’s Chicago blues scene backers were many, including guitarist and singer Carlos Johnson and soul and blues vocalist Lee “Shot” Williams, among many others, plus national women blues figures like famed swamp blues and boogie piano giant Katie Webster and fellow blues pianist and Texas-to-Louisiana artist Marcia Ball.  Those in-the-know recognized all the elation and visibility that Wellington was bringing to the blues.

In 1984, Wellington had her initial opportunity to release her own set of recordings, and the results remain truly spectacular.  With blues super fan and specialist, writer (and co-founder of the highly respected magazine Living Blues), and record label owner and producer Jim O’Neal leading the effort, this ten-selection outing entitled Million Dollar Secret on the Rooster Blues Records label is a sterling, full representation of Wellington’s vast array of vocal dexterities across a variety of blues styles that further cemented her high capability to tackle any emotion in a gripping fashion that a song commands.

Assisting Wellington on this terrific release are a “who’s-who” of Chicago blues titans, including Magic Slim (vocals), Nick Holt (bass), and John Primer (lead guitar) from Slim’s band, The Teardrops, drummer Casey Jones, piano patriarch Sunnyland Slim, outstanding bassist Aron Burton, and slide guitar superman Johnny Littlejohn.  Again, the results are startling in their diversity and lofty quality, with standouts being Wellington’s readings of “Down In The Dumps,” “Million Dollar Secret,” and “Cold Cold Feeling,” though all the tracks wholly satisfy.  This document of both vocal muscle paired with tremendous control and intricacies is not usually found in someone with such vocal sway.

Both O’Neal and Chicago blues legend “The Queen Of The Blues” Koko Taylor supply liner notes to Million Dollar Secret.  It is no surprise at the time that blues fans drew a sharp parallel between Taylor and Wellington; Chicago was chock-full of female blues singing talent and fans were highly appreciative and excited.

Wellington regularly worked the Chicago club circuit.  This writer remembers an awe-inspiring night when both Wellington and Taylor co-headlined a show at the original location of Blue Chicago.  Wellington also toured, and in 1984 she experienced the sensational occasion to appear with both Katie Webster and Marcia Ball at Tom Mazzolini’s renowned San Francisco Blues Festival.

In her highly engaging live performances, Wellington was a very classy act.  A very stunning woman with large, charming dark eyes, high cheek bones, always tastefully made-up, and consistently-perfectly-coiffed thick dark hair, she always dressed upscale, oftentimes appearing in magnificent sequined dresses.  In her shows, while she expertly presented the urban blues of the period, she also continually paid tribute to the classic 1920s women blues singers she so highly admired.  Such was the way she paid homage to these early greats.

Wellington continued to perform on the blues circuit, yet in 1989 she was featured in the film Great Balls Of Fire!, a production that starred Dennis Quaid.  In the production, Wellington played the classic woman blues singer Big Maybelle.

In 1989, she also toured with Carlos Johnson.

In 1992, a Wellington collection on the GBW label was released entitled Life In The Big City.   This 11-song blues excursion saw her paired with Chicago guitarists Carlos Johnson and Rico McFarland, Chicago bass player Nick Charles, saxophonist Michael Peavy, harmonicist Chicago Beau, drummer Brady Williams, keyboard player John Christy, and trombone and trumpet players Johnny Cotton and Boney Fields, respectively. 

There was one Wellington original on the Life In The Big City release, and covers by the likes of classic blues women Sara Martin and Bessie Smith, “Jazz Me Blues” author Thomas Delaney, Jimmy Reed, and soul and blues singer Jimmy Hughes, plus a reinterpretation of “Fool For You.”  The CD cover photo of Wellington shows her as I tried to depict her earlier, in all her personal splendor.

Things were still on the upswing for Wellington.  She had the new release out, she was an in-demand live performer, and the excitement of her performances was gaining additional highly deserved traction.  However, before a NYE show leading into 1993, after having complained of a headache, Wellington was taken to a south side Chicago hospital before being transferred to one in nearby Maywood.  On January 2, 1993, Wellington passed away from the ravages of a brain aneurysm at the young age of 33.

The blues realm lost a truly promising one-of-a-kind talent.

When Wellington and her band played the Center Street Blues Café in 1987, Wellington eclipsed all the hype that surrounded her.  She was regal, plying her vast blues vocal talents to an eager and charged audience, presenting that broad, infectious smile, justly playing the role of the blues diva she was.

Afterwards, after the band packed up and readied itself for the drive back to Chicago, they and Wellington spent some time speaking with a number of us at the rear of the club while the wait staff cleared the tables, and the bartender shut things down.  She was gracious, cheerful, upbeat, and genuinely delightful.  She and her band had come as strangers to the club and were leaving having made believers out of everyone who witnessed her show that she was a blues force to be admired and be wound up about.

What an evening, indeed.