CHICAGO -- Sweet home Chicago.

It's been a popular blues lyric for so long it's a cliche.

	Jim White, Post-Gazette photos Buddy Guy showed off tricks of the guitar trade during his concert at the Chicago Blues Festival. Click photo for larger image.

But it's also a classic, a reminder that Chicago looms large in musical history. It may not be the original house of blues, but it's one of the primary places where electrified blues spent a hell-raising adolescence.

The city even lends its name to an entire genre: the Chicago blues, characterized by fiery combos of guitars, drums, pianos, harmonicas and some occasional sax and violence. It was not always peaceful music.

It's the music that was honored last weekend at the 22nd Chicago Blues Festival, with the theme "Chicago Breakdown."

Gathered at the Grant Park event were some of the grand old masters of the Chicago blues plus a host of others carrying on the tradition. The four-day lineup often made it impossible to choose

between the five stages, which showcased more than 75 performers and bands.

But I wanted to see the old-timers, to get maybe one last glimpse of some of the people who have created this great American music, to hear them give it new life for a few hours. That's not to say I think any of them will be gone soon -- I hope they all play forever.

On the first show of the first day, on a tiny stage set up to look like a juke joint, Erwin Helfer, a Chicago boogie-woogie-style piano player -- one of my favorite styles -- put on a 30-minute seminar of blues piano, rich with history and rife with life. Helfer has been making these sounds for 40 years, but he isn't exactly a household word. That's a shame; this is great music.

John William Henderson got the nickname "Homesick James" from a track he cut for the Chicago label Chance. The guitarist, who put in an appearance at the Chicago Blues Festival, spent years playing with blues legend Elmore James. Click photo for larger image.

Of course, he's following a keyboard trail left by other greats still on the scene. Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins, 92 next month, showed up for one of the main evening concerts to play a still solid piano with guitarist Hubert Sumlin, 73, from Howlin' Wolf's great band; guitarist Bob Margolin, a virtual kid at 56, from the Muddy Waters band of the '70s; and drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, 69, another Waters veteran. If you weren't in Chicago in about 1955, it's not hard to imagine it sounding like this.

On a smaller stage earlier that day, Margolin and Sumlin jammed and reminisced about their music. Their memories were poignant; their blues painfully so.

Another piano great, Henry Gray, 81, put in an appearance with his bowler hat, sweet smile and lively fingers.

Guitarist David "Honeyboy" Edwards, 90, enchanted listeners with his personality as well as his guitar playing. It's amazing how many of these old musicians, who struggled through hard times, intermittent careers and the vagaries of the music business, seem to have survived with strength and grace.

Homesick James (John William Henderson), 95, showed up to represent one of the last of the generation that came from the Delta in the mid-'40s, who helped create electric Chicago blues.

Robert Lockwood Jr., 90, sometimes known and booked as Robert Jr. Lockwood, showed up with a full band, men in black, with Lockwood sporting a natty blue and gray suit. He continued his long-running gig to convince everyone that he is more than just Robert Johnson's running buddy. And he is. This band snapped and crackled with intensity and horns, not to mention Lockwood's still-sturdy vocals. But he's one of the few bluesmen left who can raise the hair on your neck with his stylings of Johnson's music.

One of the most well-known Chicago musicians, Buddy Guy, 68, closed Saturday's concerts with his first festival appearance in eight years. He's an exceptional guitarist, and his shows are crowd pleasers.

I hate to criticize a legend, which he truly is, but Guy's shows often take on a jamming, rambling quality, featuring tricks more than talent. I don't care if he can play the guitar over his head or behind his back or while he walks through the crowd; I'd like to hear him run through a set of songs he's made famous, with which he has helped define the music he plays.

And there were other Chicago veterans.

Harp player Carey Bell, 68, sat in with his son, Lurrie Bell, and his band; Detroit Jr., at 73 another fine piano player; Koko Taylor, 69, still Queen of the Blues with her powerhouse singing.

It was a fine tribute to Chicago blues and the number of younger performers provided reassured me that the music is a long way from dead.

A few memorable festival moments:

Groups of schoolchildren mentored by blues performers singing traditional Chicago blues.

Liz Mandville Greeson's raunchy good-time blues and stripper-like moves.

The red, white and blue outfit sported by guitarist Michael Powers.

A red-haired blues fiddler (whose name I forgot to get) who burned up the stage with her fiddling moves with guitarist Linsey Alexander.

The hamburger stand run by the bar that Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko made famous, the Billy Goat Tavern.

Johnnie Mae Dunson, 84, writer of 300 blues songs, played drums for Jimmy Reed, singing her still raw and gritty blues in a wheelchair that shook with her emotion, after receiving a tribute for her contribution to the Chicago blues scene.

A sign language interpreter for an evening concert, laughing with embarrassment as she tried to sign the lyrics to the Bessie Smith tune, "I need a little sugar in my bowl ..." with Katherine Davis doing the powerful, sexy vocals.

A T-shirt with the slogan "Heartbreak, loneliness, despair. And you can dance to it."

What more could a blues fan want?

Sweet home Chicago, indeed.