On one of those nights a call was placed to Bruce Iglauer, founder of Alligator Records, from a club where Seals was playing. After 28 years in Chicago, eight albums, and years of touring the U.S. and Europe, Seals influence has reached past the blues, and he wears the role of a statesman without an air of nobility. At the end of the show Seals learned these kids had heard Phish praising him. After a thank-you note was sent, Phish responded with an invitation to join them onstage. While the band plays through the break, Seals works his way cautiously down the narrow stairway to the basement.
Visitors begin filling the dressing room again.
Shemekia Copeland, who has been burning a path with her own blues, sits at Seals side and they talk quietly. She smiles brightly when Son Seals leans over and whispers something no one else can hear. Zak Mucha s first novel, The Beggars Shore , was published by Red 71 Press in 1999. His work has also appeared in F Magazine and the Chicago Reader . All Rights Reserved.