Along with Bernard Allison, Melvin Taylor and a handful of others, guitarist, singer and songwriter
Chico Banks is part of the new generation of Chicago blues players who are expanding the boundaries of this often maligned, misunderstood music. Like Allison and Taylor, and even older Southern musicians like Larry Garner and Sherman Robertson, Banks focuses on good-time, upbeat blues. Chico freely mixes in elements of soul, funk and rock – but when a musical form remains too static, as the late Luther Allison would say, it loses its vibrancy. He credits influences from a mixed bag of artists from the 1960s and '70s: "Magic Sam" Maghett, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Clay, George Benson and Tyrone Davi...
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