Traveling 300 miles down the Mother Road from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, a traveler reaches both St. Louis cities and their rich musical histories. Both? Separated by the Mississippi River, the metropolitan version in Missouri (St. Louis) and the much smaller city in Illinois (East St. Louis) are toss-ups in developing national-class musicians and venues in the 1930s and onward.

St. Louis was home to famous radio stations, recording studios, and record labels. East St. Louis provided an outsized Black club circuit – Club Manhattan, Riviera, Cosmopolitan, Ruby’s, Holman’s Hole, Hornbergers, Mildred’s, the Paramount, the Blue Note, and Ned’s Love Club: incubators of top-tier jazz and high-energy R&B revues like Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm. Together, the twin cities burst with the sound of Black music.

Yet, as a musical metropolitan ecosystem, they are one with artists easily working both sides, some on the same night. And they are similar in their claims of historic heroes in blues, jazz, rock and roll, gospel, and R&B. A tip of the hat goes to St. Louis for the number of hallmark talents; think Chuck Berry, Tina Turner, Albert King, and Miles Davis.

Published in the May 2026 issue of the Route 66 Sentinel, page 18.