Jim Schwall
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Jim Schwall (November 12, 1942 – June 19, 2022) was an American musician, singer-songwriter, and photographer. He was best known as a co-founder and member of the Siegel-Schwall Band.


Musical career

Jim Schwall was born in
Evanston, Illinois Evanston is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States, situated on the North Shore (Chicago), North Shore along Lake Michigan. A suburb of Chicago, Evanston is north of Chicago Loop, downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skok ...
. A singer-songwriter, he played guitar, as well as
mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...
, bass guitar, accordion, and other instruments. He studied music at
Roosevelt University Roosevelt University is a private university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1945, the university was named in honor of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university enrolls arou ...
. There he met
Corky Siegel Mark Paul "Corky" Siegel (born October 24, 1943) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and composer. He plays harmonica and piano. He plays and writes blues and blues-rock music, and has also worked extensively on combining blues and cla ...
, and became interested in
electric blues Electric blues is blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Ho ...
music. Schwall and Siegel formed a blues duo in 1964, playing at Chicago bars and clubs. They performed regularly at Pepper's Lounge and at Big John's, where well known, established blues musicians such as
Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of moder ...
,
Howlin' Wolf Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910January 10, 1976), better known by his stage name Howlin' Wolf, was an American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player. He was at the forefront of transforming acoustic Delta blues into electric Chica ...
, and
Willie Dixon William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he ...
would often sit in. The duo expanded to a quartet and became the Siegel-Schwall Band. Schwall's amplified Gibson B-25
acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...
was a distinctive component of the band's sound. The Siegel-Schwall Band became quite popular, and by 1967 were touring nationally, performing at large venues like the Fillmore West and sharing the bill with well-known rock bands. Between 1966 and 1974, they released at least ten albums. They were also noted for their collaborations with Seiji Ozawa, combining blues with classical music. After 1974, they disbanded, but the band re-formed in 1987. They played occasional live dates and released two albums of new material over the following decade. Schwall was also the leader of his own blues-rock band, the Jim Schwall Band. This band formed in the mid-1970s, and versions continued playing live on an intermittent basis into the 2000's. Schwall was also involved in numerous other musical projects. He played guitar and accordion in the band So Dang Yang, and was the bassist for the Cajun Strangers. He earned a Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) degree in Music Composition from the
University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...
School of Music in 1994, submitting his composition Triptych: Dance Music in Three Acts for Eleven Players in partial fulfillment for the requirements for the degree. He taught music at the college level. As a composer, he specialized in ballet, opera, and other music for the stage.


Photography

Schwall was also a professional photographer, and did different types of photography. In his later years he worked at creating art prints that combined human figures and natural landscapes. He sometimes used 19th-century photographic techniques such as kallitype,
cyanotype The cyanotype (from , and , ) is a slow-reacting, photographic printing formulation sensitive to a limited near-ultraviolet and blue light spectrum, the range 300 nm to 400 nm known as UVA radiation. It produces a monochrome, blu ...
, and gum printing, non-silver techniques that predate the
gelatin silver process The gelatin silver print is the most commonly used chemical process in black-and-white photography, and is the fundamental chemical process for modern analog color photography. As such, films and printing papers available for analog photography r ...
.


Political activism

Schwall was active in progressive political causes. In 2002 he ran for mayor of Madison, Wisconsin.


Writing

After retiring and settling in Tucson, Schwall took to writing. At the urging of friends, he wrote a memoir titled "My So-called Career(s)" still unpublished, and was working on a novel tentatively titled "Organ Pipe Incident."


Discography

For Schwall's recordings with the Siegel-Schwall Band, see Siegel-Schwall Band.


Albums

*''A Wedding Present from Jim and Cherie Schwall'' – Jim and Cherie Schwall (private pressing, 1973) *''Spring Vacation'' – The Jim Schwall Band *''Growing Old'' – Jim Schwall *''Piñata'' – So Dang Yang P*''Cajun Country Ramble'' – The Cajun Strangers *''Short Stories'' – Jim Schwall (Waterbug Records, 2010) *''Bar Time Lovers'' – Jim Schwall (Conundrum InterArts, 2014)


Singles

*"Mr. Monster" / "Don't Drive When You've Been Drinking" – The Jim Schwall Band (Dynamic Voice, 1976)


References


External links


jimschwall.com
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Schwall, Jim 1942 births 2022 deaths Musicians from Evanston, Illinois American blues guitarists American male guitarists American blues mandolinists American people of German descent Roosevelt University alumni Guitarists from Chicago 20th-century American guitarists 20th-century American male musicians Waterbug Records artists Writers from Chicago