Beloved historic live music venue FitzGerald’s will host its 40th annual American Music Festival beginning Friday, a four-day festival featuring 60 bands on three stages, including headliners Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle.
Like the Berwyn venue itself, the American Music Festival has come a long way in the past 40 years.
Former owner and founder Bill FitzGerald said the precursor to the festival was a two-day event to celebrate Independence Day in 1981 that featured an unsigned act consisting of a guitar slinger named Stevie Ray Vaughan and his band Double Trouble.
Then, after being inspired by a trip to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, FitzGerald recruited legendary zydeco musician Clifton Chenier to play what would be the first American Music Festival on July 4, 1982. That event would feature four acts: Chenier and his Red Hot Louisiana Band, John Prine’s touring band The Famous Potatoes, the Jazz Members Big Band, and Salty Dogs, which has played all 39 festivals and will kick off this year’s event.
Through the years the festival has featured a variety of acts including blues legend Koko Taylor; Son Seals; Junior Brown; singer Marcia Ball; New Orleans roots rock band The Iguanas; swing band Mighty Blue Kings; folk rockers Robbie Fulks, the Waco Brothers and Alejandro Escovedo, and singer Mavis Staples & The Staple Singers, among others.
For current owners Will Duncan, an 20-year industry veteran, and his wife Jessica King, a former assistant high school principal, the festival has special meaning beyond the four-decade milestone.
Duncan said one of his biggest responsibilities is keeping the integrity of both the club and the festival intact while keeping the club alive financially, something that looked bleak shortly after they took over. That’s because the couple closed on the club and its two adjacent buildings in March 2020, right before the COVID-19 shutdown. In fact, just eight days later, Duncan would voluntarily call off the club’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Festival about a week before the state-mandated shutdowns that would extend for months.
Bill FitzGerald, who opened his eponymous music club along with his wife Kate in 1980, said that instead of panicking, Duncan almost welcomed the hurdles.
“I said to him, ‘Once you get through this, you’re going to have a story to tell because what a way to start, what a challenge.’ ”
King soon came up with the idea of hosting truck concerts to bring in revenue during the shutdown — having a musician play block parties from the bed of a pickup truck. The events helped, but it was the decision to convert the front parking lot between the three buildings FitzGerald’s operates into a patio performance area with a wooden stage that was key to surviving the pandemic, Duncan said.
Other changes included removing a wall inside the adjacent Sidebar to open up that room and opening Babygold Barbecue inside the restaurant space that was formerly rented to an outside restaurant and integrating it into the FitzGerald’s operation.
The changes seem to have worked — the venue now has music six days a week on three stages, and with Babygold, employs 75 people.
As for whether the ethos of the venue and the festival remain intact, Duncan said “I don’t want to be the decider of that myself. I rely on the regular customers that have been hanging out here for years.”
One of the regulars is Oak Park resident Lori Portnoy, who met her husband, Patrick Tinken, at FitzGerald’s during the 2007 American Music Festival.
“Will’s made it more family-friendly with the outdoor patio shows, and look at the difference in the Sidebar,” Portnoy said.
Jerome Hughes, who has been going to FitzGerald’s since it opened in 1980, said Duncan’s changes have been mainly business/operations decisions.
“He’s kept the place as it was and enhanced it,” he said.
As for the festival, Hughes said he looks forward to seeing Dave Alvin & The Guilty Ones on Monday, as well as some of the first-time acts like Amythst Kiah and Jamie Wyatt.
Other patrons, too, seem to approve of this year’s eclectic lineup — featuring newcomers as well as old favorites. For the first time in the history of the festival, tickets sold out in advance, although a limited amount will be released for walk-up purchase on Saturday and Sunday only.
FitzGerald’s American Music Fest, June 30-July 3 at FitzGerald’s, 6615 W. Roosevelt Road, Berwyn. Visit fitzgeraldsnightclub.com for the complete lineup and information.
