Lonie Walker

Lonie Walker Knows How to Climb

A Flawless, First Class Act

With its extensive collection of celebrity artist performances, the Park West stage has added yet another name to its archive; a star called Lonie Walker. With the stage backlit in cosmic blue, the synergistic dialogue between Lonie and her band was truly special. This magic can only transpire when the artist is “under the influence” of integrity and responsibility to his or her craft.

As a pianist, she melds R&B, jazz, rock and classical with command; she’s always on purpose with her hands. She delivers from the chakra; that place down deep in the spiritual realm of being. You could be moved at any moment by one phrase of floating fingers followed with a chord hit that could sink an aircraft carrier.

Vocally, Lonie’s tone and timbre are a blend of breathy reeds and soulful brass. She works her voice as a player works a horn, thus, merging naturally with the tapestry of a great band. This a voice that can make a grown man cry or kick him in the ass and get the party started.

Her miraculous journey is tinted and jaded and blessed and inspiring and awesome. Lonie Walker knows how to climb. The twist of beauty in her music as well as her life is that she packs as many people into the gondola as possible. Thanks for taking us up your mountain.
- Chad Willets

Arms raised at amazing Wonder Bar

By Rick Kogan

At certain late-night moments at a subterranean Walton Street saloon, you could wander in and think you had mistakenly walked into a convention of referees or a robbery, for most of the people in the joint would have their arms raised in that two-arms-above-the-head signal made when a football team scores or when an man with a gun say "Stick 'em up."

This arm raising happens when the woman behind the piano decides to celebrate. She shouts, "Wonder Bar." and most in the crowd respond accordingly, raising their arms and shouting "Wonder Bar."

The Underground Wonder Bar, a determinedly engaging and entertaining night spot serves food and drink but most of all it serves music in a markedly untrendy, intimate, colorful and lively setting.

The club occupies the last Walton Street home of the bygone Domino Lounge, which was once a must-stop for most reveling conventioneers and, when it finally closed a couple of years back, was one of the last vestiges of the Rush Street area's raucous raunchiness past. It featured the comic Frank Penning, a great practitioner of the vanishing art of blue humor.

We thought we recognized the bleary-eyed look of the conventioneer in a couple of people who wandered into the Wonder Bar the night we were there with our dark-haired wife and our tennis-playing, media-watching friend. It was a wonderfully mixed crowd.

The Underground Wonder Bar, 10 E Walton St. (312-266-7761), is the creation of Lonie Walker, a singer/pianist/personality who's been a fixture on the local club scene for the better part of two decades. She describes herself as "zany and unpredictable," and is exuberant in the pleasant extreme. She manages her nightclub as if she were the hostess at some ongoing party.

"Shut up!" she shouts while flashing a smile at a particularly noisy table.

Sitting behind the piano, surrounded by a trio, Walker offered several tunes and then brought to the bandstand a number of other singers. It seems most of the staff are singers of varying talent but similar enthusiasm. Local professional clubfolk often drop by, and they're sure to be in large numbers this Sunday during a Christmas Party for Musicians Only from 2 to 7 p.m. The public is welcome to that, and welcome every day from 11 a.m. to 4 a.m.

It is, of course, every singer's dream to have a club to call his or her own. The fact that Walker's dream has come true is amazing. That the reality is such a ...well, such a wonder, is astonishing.
- Chicago Tribune

All That I've Got I Gave to Music" was recorded live at the Underground Wonder Bar where Lonie has become a legend of the Chicago night, playing every night for the past seven years to a fiercely devoted audience. Her performances are emotional journeys- driven by a relationship of intense interaction with the audience, she pushes herself to the breaking point of agony and ecstasy. There are no lies when Lonie Walker takes the stage-a performer pure in her emotions whose traveled and driven heart paints smiles on the tortured and draws tears from the coldest of eyes. - Rich Webster

Ask the regulars why they come to the Underground Wonder Bar and they invariably respond with two words: Lonie Walker.
"Only your mother loves you more," says Walker, the spirited singer/pianist and owner of the Wonder Bar. It's easy to believe her.
A smart, determined woman with a quick wit and an easy laugh, Walker is more than proprietor and performer. She is the heart and soul of this intimate club located on a patch of Gold Coast that is bordered by State, Walton, Rush and Oak. An engaging performer with a husky voice,
"Real fun music" says the orange neon in the window, and the performers do their best to live up to the promise. Along with the pop-rock-soul-funk-jazz-blues combination, there is a solid dose of humor.
- Daily Herald

Roar! This woman sounds as though she gurgles with gravel in the mornings. Janis Joplin did not sound any rougher than this, as her “Mercedes Benz” is presented on this CD. If you believe the press release that accompanies the liver disc, this lady sings the same way in Chicago’s Underground Wonder Bar, where she has attained cult status. Whoever plays this CD and hears the other ten songs including classics like “Fever,” Jobin’s “Meditation” or “Both Sides Now” from Joni Mitchell will believe it immediately. Not always does Lonie Walker go full power. She interprets Don McLean’s “Vincent” as a delicate ballad where she delivers a saddened emotion accompanied by piano. Walker’s music unites elements of rock, soul, funk, and jazz as one. No wonder that the club audience at the Underground voices its approval with great enthusiasm. This production transports not only exciting music but that experience of the live atmoshpere as well. Matthias Bode - Stereo Magazine

Lonie Walker’s CD “All That I’ve Got I Gave To Music,” on Underground
Wonder Music Records is a rolling celebration of joy and survival. From Willie
Dixon’s “I Love The Life I Live,” to Joni Mitchell’s “Both SIdes Now,” she takes the beloved songs ofour past and combines them with her contemporary arrangements. On the sensual but playful “Fever,” Lonie becomes the mistress, sliding in and out of madness, while on the beautifully tortured “Vincent,” she drops her voice to a soft lullaby and paintes a sad comfortable landscape on the piano. But it is her roaring masterpiece, “Me and Bobby McGee,” where all the best in Lonie shines, the piano rumbles as she sings trough a wicked smile that can be heard over the glorious musical riot. Lonie Walker is the voice and lifeline to a time when piano bars reigned and the audience considered the performer a friend. “All That I’ve Got I Gave To Music” was recorded live at the Underground Wonder Bar where Lonie has become a legend of the Chicago night, playing every night for the past seven years to a fiercely devoted audience. - Bar Fly Magazine

"Stereo" Magazine German Audiophile Highlights CD Review

PAY ATTENTION!!!

This artist's CD is offering exactly what 90 percent of Hi-Fi fans are looking for: a strikingly distinctive female voice, catchy compositions, and top class sound quality.

We are talking about Lonie Walker, whose impressive live album "All That I've got I Gave to Music" was reviewed in our December issue.

On that album Ms. Walker, star of Chicago's Underground Wonder Bar, performs cover versions of famous artists. On this recording, however, she wrote most of the 12 titles herself and they are AWESOME!

Starting from the beginning with the relaxed, jazz influenced "Living," moving to the bluesy, irresistible, mind and soul entering "I'll Drop my Pride," to the tender miniatures and explosive trips to the rock mŽtier, Lonie Walker rules the music. And she knows well which buttons to push for the maximum reaction. "Change is Good" highlights the wide appeal style of the band and astonishing arrangements and inventiveness of the pieces and makes for a driving listening adventure. This should be enjoyed at full volume because only then can the full dynamic powerful sound of the studio production with its energy, splendor, and colorfulness be fully appreciated.

The sound technique, with equipment noted in the booklet, can be classified natural and drive. That's good because we have enough iron heavy techniques everywhere else.

Above it all reigns Lonie Walker and her smoky voice, enriching her audience for the voice and music worshipped in audiophile circles. - Stereo Magazine

Chicago Jazz Magazine
January/February 2005
Vol. 4 No. 1

Walking around the neighborhood of the Underground Wonder Bar is a surreal experience. The streets are dotted with boutiques, restaurants, hotels and apartment buildings. Talk to the people that used to roam these streets in their heyday, however, and they tell a different story of great bars, little shops, jazz clubs and more. It was Chicago's red light district. But these days only one club on the Gold Coast gives you the sense that this used to be party central in Chicago: the Underground Wonder Bar.

True to its name, it's a basement level club located just east of State Street on Walton. It's no bigger than the average one bedroom apartment, but no apartment (okay, most apartments) ever had this much fun happen inside its walls. The list of players to grace its tiny stage reads like a Who's Who of Chicago music. And just like Chicago's vast music scene, the lineup of acts is as diverse as the day is long. In short, the Underground Wonder Bar is a singular experience. When I was given the opportunity to talk to its chief musician and owner, Lonie Walker, I jumped at the chance.

Lonie Walker is not what you'd expect. See her live, and you get a ball of energy, jumping from tune to tune, covering ground that ranges from originals to Beatles covers to blues to jazz. Talk to her about her art, and she's ever the musician, but talk to her about her club and she's as down to earth as it gets. In all of my time doing interviews with musicians, label execs and club owners, Lonie was one of my most interesting interviews. I only wish it could have been longer.

We started off at the most logical place the beginning. Knowing that jazz clubs tend to be losing propositions, especially in the late eighties when quite a few clubs were shutting down, I asked her why she got into the business in the first place. For Lonie, it was simply a matter of something she had to do. "I think in 1989 I was very young, and I had a vision that was imperative for me to do. Like a do or die kind of thing." "I had built up a lot of capital in real estate, so every month that was negative $10,000 or negative $17,000; I kept drawing off of my capitol. (After) seventeen months - my draw was gone. It was sink or float; and it floated.

"Of course, being young and idealistic; and having the dream!it was real interesting when it became bigger than me. In the beginning I worked (and) I played, because I played for a living six nights a week. Then I gave up one of those nights. A lot of people came in and played for free; Bobby Broom played for free, Sammy Scott played for free, they believed in it and wanted it to work, and played benefits. I think it's so hard to compare (now with the), except now we spend a fair amount of money on advertising. Our clientele comes here every single year from all over the world, and that's also one of the things that drove me; my three kids were really small at the time, and I said, "well, if I can't travel the world, the world will come to me.' It's been amazing. Amazing, amazing. It was just through affirmations, the world started showing up."

But simply showing up won't get a club owner anywhere. As Lonie has realized, it helps to get a loyal clientele following you or your band. As the owner of the club where she plays, Lonie is in a unique position to build not only a loyal following for her club, but also for her band. Her eyes lit up when I asked her if the story of the Underground Wonder Bar and the story of Lonie Walker might just be interchangeable.

"Well, yeah. You know what I tell people? I play solo on Tuesdays'I call it "Alone at Last" - and with my band on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. And this is how we can tell if people have been there before. And we didn't plan it this way, it just kind of happened. It's a wonderful fluke that it happened. When we say Underground Wonder Bar, everyone puts their arms up in the international "wonder pose." I know on any given Wednesday, Friday or Saturday if they've been there before. If I have an audience that's never been there, I know I have to work that much harder at getting them - you know, endearing them to me: they don't know who I am; they just paid $12 to get in the door, so they're a little tougher audience than on a Tuesday when you're just sitting around, and you happen on something. When you're sitting there with five or six people, the investment is much more so, that I have to entertain. Then I know that they haven't been there before and it's a completely cold audience. And, at some point, it came to me a couple of years ago, but it's so true! I think somewhere around the tenth anniversary, or the eleventh. I get really sappy sentimental around anniversaries. So I look at the audiences and I say, "You know, people, fifteen years ago, this was my dream - and think about it - you're all in it.' They get it. That's my dream, and it continues. I have my dream band: my sons; Jordan does spoken word, my son Elliot plays bass. So the dream just gets bigger and bigger."

Strangely, location doesn't play nearly as big of a role as one would figure. Located only a half a mile away from Rush Street, the former home of Mr. Kelly's, The London House and a long list of other legendary jazz clubs in Chicago, I reasoned that the Underground Wonder Bar might be benefiting from being the only jazz club in that vicinity. Not so, according to Lonie. "I think that if the weather were warm enough that we could have a flyers person on the street 365 days a year that we could connect to Rush Street. But, all of these people that go up and down Rush Street don't know about Walton, and all of these people that go down State Street don't know about Walton. So without a flyers person, we still don't get them. So, that "legendary' thing - it's a half a block... When the weather turns, it's a very different animal. That's why I say it's word of mouth. And that's one way that location does help us is that we're right next to all of the service industry, and that's where word of mouth works best, for meeting and connecting with people. They like that it's not a $15 cab ride."

Luckily, the convention crowds and tourists make their way into the doors of the Wonder Bar frequently. "It's who we want. When people make those comments about conventioneers, we just look at them like they're crazy, because we have people who we love all over the world. So it's more like that. We have the clientele that we want and it's mixed, it's from all over the city."

Not only is the clientele mixed and from all over the place, but so is the music. Being that the Underground Wonder Bar started off as a stage for Lonie, I wondered what her idea was for the club once she started adding more acts. She noted that it started off as a jazz club and then ventured from there: "I originally had on the really great marquee outside that's shaped like a piano, "Jazz till 4 a.m." I consider myself jazz; I was jazz for years, and now I'm about as eclectic as they get. So, we thought, what do we do when people are coming in on a Monday night and it's not jazz and they say, "we're looking for jazz," so, we kinda just peeled the "jazz' off so it says, "till 4 a.m." And the first person we had there wasn't jazz. And then we had Bobby Broom, and of course he's jazz. And then I had piano bar trio, and they were jazz, but we started getting into some wild (laughs) we called them "weird, wild, wacky, women" on Wednesday, wild cabaret styles, and that changed things a lot. It got me out of my idea of myself and broadened my ideal. I had done some zany reviews before, but I never did them inside the club before. I think the madness started then. As I started hiring more musicians about eight years ago, it took me in another direction. It was a natural evolution for us. I love being inclusive of everybody. To me, it's all jazz. It's all jazz. The hardest marketing aspect for me is that I don't fit any genre at all. I don't fit all genres, but I fit bunches of them, and I wouldn't change that for anything. I feel the same way about musicians. They're free to explore all of their different styles by having an open room."

That eclecticism doesn't just stay local either. Lonie's had such diverse artists as Jimmy Buffet, Keanu Reeves and Vince Vaughan grace the stage of the Underground Wonder Bar while they've been in town. And she beamed when she mentioned that Betty Carter once came into her club. But, strangely, when asked about her own band, Lonie was fairly reserved. She talked about her piano, some of the singers that have joined her. She took the time to mention her sidemen, and even former WDCB D.J., Dave Freeman, because he was the first person to have played her CD. But she barely said a word about herself. One would tend to think that such humility is a rare trait found in musicians, especially ones that play to loving crowds four nights a week. Finally, I asked Lonie what she liked best about being a club owner, and she started off with a sly giggle, and a one word answer: "Adora-tion."

At first, it seemed like a strange answer until you realize that the best clubs are all connected to their owners. Nobody thinks about the Jazz Showcase without thinking about Joe Segal. Very rarely would anyone think about the Green Mill without mentioning Dave Jemilo. While we don't think about it often, and certainly one wonders if they think about it, this city's club owners are heroes. By bringing some of Chicago's great talent to the fore, they are doing us all a great service. And Lonie underscored that by making it a point to mention that she considers it a huge deal to nurture new talent. "It's always been in me. I'm a mother of four kids, and lots of adopted ones, and they're still with me. I say "adoration' as a joke, but I really (like) the part about being a mom, because I get to nurture in that sense. Nurturing talent is by far the greatest gift that I have experienced from the club sense, and watching that talent grow. It's great to watch talent that's just on the edge. And I know talent, and so does my partner (John Collins); and that's the true test of the success of a club, knowing who's got it."

The question that I forgot to ask Lonie should have been foremost on my mind: "where do you see this club going in the next fifteen years?" But, I think the answer might have been superfluous. Her ever-changing vision of what the Underground Wonder Bar could or should be has made it one of the more popular clubs in Chicago for quite some time now. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the Wonder Bar has great drink specials, and is tuned into the community enough to do a "charity-of-the-month." But what really makes it special is the sense of hominess the club has. Whenever someone wraps up their set with the words, "if this is your first time here, welcome home," you know you've found a place worthy to be called just that.

Paul Abella is the Music Director at 90.9FM WDCB Public Radio. He may be contacted at: wdcb.org. - Chicago Jazz Magazine

HOLDING A NOTE
Chicago magazine
by Marcia Froelke Coburn

Lonie Walker has ended up where she planned to be long ago--singing and playing the piano at her own unpretentious joint. The neon sign sums it up: REAL FUN MUSIC

IT'S 11 P.M., NOT QUITE THE WITCHING HOUR, yet something magical happens when Lonie Walker struts into the Underground Wonder Bar, at 10 East Walton Street. This is her place, her home-away-from-home base, and she performs here every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night. Most of the customers know her--they have, in fact, been awaiting her arrival, and now that she is striding onto the small down-front stage, the place begins to buzz.

Walker is a striking woman, 47, with a whiskey-stained voice and a long silver mane that she tosses freely as she plays the piano. Surrounded by her six-piece Big Bad Ass Band, she commands the rest of the evening with her original jazz and blues compositions and Janis Joplin covers until 4 a.m. The neon sign in the window sums up the critical response of her faithful audience: REAL FUN MUSIC.

"It's totally unpretentious place, " says Robin Kay, who has also been singing at the bar for the past 12 years, ever since Walker brought the former blue humor club and turned it into a late-night hangout. "Snobs go somewhere else."

The next afternoon, Walker is back at the Underground Wonder Bar, swigging Evian from a bottle and explaining how she developed into an entrepreneur. "I always had a plan," she says. "A master plan, 1 15-year plan that by the time I was 20 I'd either be a millionaire or the equivalent in my career. OK, I had to add a few years because I took some time off when I had my kids, but in the end I made it. I worked hard, I never lost sight of my plan, and I ended up buying this place when I was 34." She acknowledges the accomplishment wit a laugh. "Hey, the 'Wonder' in the bar's name comes from me being Wonder Woman."
SHE GREW UP IN GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN, one of nine children. Her father's mother played the piano; her mother gave classical piano concerts. Walker started playing when she was four. "Everyone was very musical, and there was a lot of singing," she says. "We were like the von Trapp family." She left home when she was 16, after falling in with some hitchhiking hippies who were traveling to Chicago. By then she had her plan in place.

"First, I lied about my age so I could get jobs," she said. She did a little modeling and waitressing and gave piano lessons. By the time she was 17, she was passing for 21 and tending bar at night. She also started studying jazz theory at DePaul University with Alan Swain, who has his own music studio in Evanston. Through him, she heard Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Scot Joplin. "He changed everything for me," Walker says.

"I couldn't do the girlie thing." Walker says, "but I learned how to work the comedy-cabaret thing."

"When Lonie first came to me, she was a near beginner in terms of harmonizing and improvising creatively," Swain says. "We concentrated on building a foundation. Once she had that, she turned from one kind of performer--someone very set in her ways--to and experimental musician. She just took off. It was like placing Michael Jordan on a basketball court--it was where she was meant to be."

When she was 18, Walker was playing at the piano bar at Ratso's, a jazz club on Lincoln Avenue. The next year, she moved on to the legendary Gaslight Clubs at the O'Hare Hilton and the Palmer House, boudoir-style establishments popular with businessmen and conventioneers. "The glamorized me, so I had this very done-to-the-hilt look," she says. "And I worked in the Roaring '20s speakeasy and then The Library room. Every waitress sang and we didn't use microphones, so it was good training for the projection of your voice. But I couldn't do the girlie thing. I was too shy to do the pat-on-the-head and sit-on-the-lap thing, but I learned how to work the comedy-cabaret thing."
The money was lavish at the Gaslight Clubs ("Some nights I'd take home $700 in tips," she says), so Walker felt financially stable. When she turned 24, her emotional life picked up as well. She met a tradesman-rehabber and was ready to start a family, but the idea of "the paperwork of marriage" held little appeal. "I added two years to my career plan for my first child," she says. Two years later, she had a second son, so that added four years total. During that time, she and her partner worked at buying and renovating buildings in Old Town.

When she was 28, she went back to the Gaslight Clubs with a cabaret act of her own. "It was me with five sleazy kick-turn girls behind me," she says. "For the Gaslight crowd, that was showtime!" Soon after, Walker began to look around for her own place. She married her longtime partner,k had a third child, and scouted real-estate possibilities. When the Domino Lounge, a blue humor and insult club at Walton and State, went on the market, Walker bought it. "We opened in 1989, when I was 34" she says.

"So I was on target for my plan. I painted the walls black, moved the stage around, and tried to create a smaller version of Gaslight. I used an all-female, very glamourous wait staff; everyone had to sing, and we had props and music revues and all the shtick." The conventioneers stayed away in droves.

"The clientele I thought I could bring over didn't come." For one thing, the location of Walker's club wasn't very appealing. On East Walton at that time, ladies of the night strolled the sidewalks. "Other than the women using the cars out in front, there was ample parking around here then," she remembers with a laugh.

Walker changed her concept. She went from a glamour lounge to a clubhouse atmosphere. Out went the singing waitresses, and in came a small stage with musical acts. It took several months, but the Underground Wonder Bar found its clientele. Then, almost one year to the day after the club opened, Walker was served onstage with divorce papers.
"That was a hard time," she says, "a time when I really had to reassess what I was doing personally and professionally." One immediate problem: The kitchen at the bar was failing (back then, it served dinner), in large part because Walker insisted on trying to serve too many kinds of cuisine simultaneously. The neon sign in the window then read INTERNATIONAL NEW AGE CUISINE. "I was ahead of my time," she says now. When the latest chef, John Collins, came to the bar, he laughed at the sign. "Where's Chef Yanni?" he asked>

The two were romantically involved, and Collins earned Walker's trust with his shrewd business decisions. "He is the love of my life," says Walker. "Eventually we decided to have our wonder baby." Emma, their daughter, is eight years old. Walker's sons are now 16, 21, and 22.

With Collins helping with the business, Walker was able to turn more of her energies back to her music. Last November, she launched her third CD, Change Is Good, on her own Underground Wonder Bar label. It is her first CD of all original music. (Her first album, All That I've Got I Gave to Music, was Janis Joplin covers; her second, Live in Paris, was a recorded concert.)

"It took me a long time to reach this point," says Walker. "Some of the songs in recent CD I started back in 1986. But I never lost sight of my goal."

Volume 51, Issue 3
March 2002 - Chicago Magazine