The first time I saw Elton John perform live was in 1976 at the Chicago Amphitheater. It was my first concert.

We had secured tickets from a young fellow named George Jasinski, a Chicago native and a student at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, who was the teaching assistant for the first journalism class I took in high school. He would become a big influence on me becoming a journalist, despite the fact that he abandoned journalism altogether and decided to go to law school to become a lawyer, which he is to this day.

We called him “Mr. J.” and he was Chicago cool. One day after class he taught Mikki Milam and I how to do “The Hustle” dance. Her father, Jerry Milam, owned Golden Voice Recording Co. in South Pekin, Illinois, where the Head East album “Flat as a Pancake” was recorded in 1975. The making of … Read more