"Black and Blue" was Mike's song. He made that request to Buddy Charles many a time during the tough period after his first wife Carol passed. Mike wrote: "During my bleakest years, before I met and married the blond, I spent many a night listening to Buddy. He made them less bleak." ("If Only the Acorn Could Play It Again", August 28, 1990)
I requested that song a couple of months ago at Chambers restaurant when I saw Buddy Charles play. It was a small crowd and the deference that was paid to Buddy in the old days was gone. People talked, people drank, glasses and silverware clanked - "the rule" that Mike Royko wrote about was no longer followed, but Buddy simply played on... unfazed.
I returned to Chambers a few weeks ago with a couple of sound engineers. I introduced myself as being the crazy guy who is trying to resurrect some of Mike's columns and bring them to film - we asked to make a test recording of Buddy playing; we were primarily interested in recording the piano at this time because it is a tough instrument to record well. He smiled warmly, agreed to that and any future recordings and immediately remembered the song I had requested a month or so before.
Buddy Charles passed on a couple of days ago - Rick Kogan, among others, has penned a tribute.
A few videos of Buddy Charles playing at Chambers restaurant are available online at YouTube.
If anyone would like a digital version of "Black and Blue", as recorded live in October of 2008 at Chambers, please send an email to info@royko.tv and we'll make it happen.
"Cold empty bed/springs hard as lead/pains in my head/feel like ol' Ned/hey, what did I do to feel so black and blue."
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