Melody Angel at the Franke Center

MARSHALL – Melody Angel will bring her fresh style of Chicago blues to the Franke Center mainstage April 13th at 8pm.

Melody Angel (her real name) is a gifted guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, vocalist, arranger, and producer who the Chicago Reader newspaper called “The Future of the Blues.” The Southside Chicago artist is indeed navigating a forward-looking musical path while integrating the legacy of classic blues.

Her music encompasses many 20th century American genres, including Rhythm & Blues, Blues, Rock, Folk, and Funk, all layered on a strong bed of Chicago blues. Angel’s music is her own. She imbibes the blues but through the prism of her own creative forces, a trait she gets honestly as a relative of Chicago blues icon, Otis Rush. Rush, along with Magic Sam and Jimmy Dawkins, helped create the fabled “West Side Sound” in the later 1950s — a sound that heralded a new and innovative blues that embraced R&B and jazz and often incorporated horns.

When Angel started playing guitar at age 15, her mother Stephanie shared about cousin Otis. As a child her mother, who is a gifted singer in her own right, enjoyed sleepovers with the Rush children at their home and recalls Otis jamming in the living room with other blues icons like Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and Howlin’ Wolf. Angel was excited about learning of her famous relative.

“I wanted to see him then, but his health wasn’t good. My mom said we would go see him when he felt better, but it never happened.” She laments, “I looked him up on YouTube and could not believe the old man I knew growing up was the Otis Rush! I never got a chance to talk to him about it and tell him I was trying to play the blues too. I think he would have got a kick out of that.”

Angel counts several influential guitarists who have impacted her music. They include, in order of importance, Prince, Jimi Hendrix, Slash, Santana, Chuck Berry, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Along the way, Angel has even found time to launch a successful theater and film acting career and received international acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival.

The night will start at 7pm in the Franke Center’s Downstage Club with a preshow performance by Brian Brickley and the Martindales. Melody Angel will appear on the mainstage at 8pm. The show is presented as part of The Franke Center’s Blues Series. Tickets start at $24 and are available on The Franke Center’s website, TheFranke.org, or by calling their box office at 269-781-0001. The Franke Center for the Arts programming is supported in part by funding from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.