Chicago Pete

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Born in 1931 in rural Tennesee, Alford Harrell (better known as Chicago Pete) has the history of the archetypal bluesman right up to the point of actually having learned to sing on the cotton field and in the church.

After serving in the Korean War, Pete found himself in Detroit. From '54 until he moved to Chicago in'59 he performed in gospel vocal groups The Songs of Zion and The Golden Harmoneers. That same year he took up guitar briefly before settling on the bass, under the tutelage of a musician named Robert Bester.

Pete moved back up to Detroit in the early seventies and soon fell in love with the scene there which included people like Little Mack Collins, Alberta Adams, Little Sonny, and Mr. Bo. On a friend's advice that since he spent all those years in Chicago, he should start calling himself CHICAGO PETE, and his new band "The Detroiters," Pete picked up a new handle and a hot new band.

The Detroiters were an eight-piece band (or more) outfit with a four-piece horn section, and the big band for nearly the next twenty years was what you could expect to see when you heard the name Chicago Pete. He always had heavy players in the section, and the Detroiters could swing hard.