Sheryl Youngblood Blues Band concerts

About Sheryl Youngblood Blues Band

Sheryl Youngblood Blues Band is a Chicago-based blues and R&B vehicle for vocalist, drummer, songwriter and bandleader Sheryl Youngblood. Her defining credential for a prospective listener comes through Delmark’s 70th-anniversary all-star concert: Youngblood’s live reading of Jimmy Johnson’s “Every Day of Your Life” became her Delmark digital single, placing her voice within a deep local blues lineage while retaining the gospel and soul grounding of her earlier work.

From Joliet’s church rooms to Chicago bandstands

Youngblood grew up in Joliet, where her mother, Gwendolyn Youngblood, led the Royal Harmonetts at Mt. Zion Baptist Church. Piano and church organ came first; her brother’s snare drum led her toward percussion. As a teenager, she formed the girl group Sisters, singing and playing organ, then traveled into Chicago for gigs with Roy Hytower, Otis Clay, Artie “Blues Boy” White and Bobby “Slim” James. A public formation year and founding roster for the present Blues Band remain unpublished in the reviewed sources. Her earliest documented solo session centers on a 2010–11 recording of “At Last.”

A compact recorded record, built around songs and sessions

Youngblood’s recorded profile is currently defined by singles, live documentation and the long runway toward a full-length project. The earliest session she discusses at length is her 2010–11 version of Etta James’s “At Last.” She describes shaping a new closing section for the standard around communication, compassion, compromise and cooperation. That recording reflects an established part of her live book: familiar soul material recast through a singer who also thinks like a rhythm player. Label and formal release details for that session remain unlisted in the sources reviewed.

A compact recorded record, built around songs and sessions

The key issued recording is “Every Day of Your Life (Live)” (2023, Delmark). Youngblood recorded Jimmy Johnson’s song with the Delmark All-Stars during the label’s 70th-anniversary event at SPACE in Evanston; the December 2023 single made a concise statement of intent, pairing an elder Chicago writer’s lyric with a performance captured in front of an audience. Youngblood told Blues Blast that the song’s emphasis on making each minute count matched her outlook. Her Delmark relationship also brought studio work with Mississippi Heat and production support from that group’s Pierre Lacocque for a planned full-length release.

A compact recorded record, built around songs and sessions

“Red Hot Women in Blues” followed in 2024. The song is an original Youngblood wrote as a dedication to blues women past and present, and a 2025 concert report places it beside “Stand By Me” and “Live Every Day of Your Life” in her working stage repertoire. The two singles suggest the most useful entry point into her recorded work: one live Delmark document anchored in Chicago blues history, one original designed to foreground Youngblood’s own identity as singer and bandleader. A full-length album title or release date has yet to appear in the opened discography and interview material.

Bands, collaborators and a Delmark chapter

Youngblood’s collaborators link gospel, Chicago blues and R&B. She sang with Rev. Milton R. Brunson and the Thompson Community Singers, earning a Grammy as part of that ensemble, and also spent time with the Spaniels. Encouraged by Spaniels bassist Billy Shelton, she formed the all-women groups Ultimately Blessed and SAYYES!, the latter a continuing funk-and-R&B show band. Her recent Blues Band lineup has included guitarist Giles Corey, drummer DuJuan Austin, bassist John Caldwell and keyboardist Dave Holloway; on the Chicago Summer Tour she joined Corey, Stephen Hull, Johnny Iguana and the Trio Experience. Delmark later became her recording home.

What the concert record shows

The documented live picture spans Chicago clubs, regional theaters and European festival bills. Blue Chicago lists Youngblood among its resident artists at 536 North Clark Street, and her official calendar has also named Rosa’s Lounge, Levings Park in Rockford and a Chicago park date. At the Al Larson Prairie Center for the Arts in Schaumburg, she appeared in the 2024 Leading Ladies of the Blues program and returned in 2025 as Southern Avenue’s opening guest. The 2025 report records a 30-minute opening set with Corey, Austin, Caldwell and Holloway, including an entrance through the theater audience, “Stand By Me” singalong and percussion on her mic stand. A venue-capacity figure remains absent from the opened venue and concert pages; the two Prairie Center appearances and recurring Chicago club bookings give the clearer scale markers.

Sources

1. Sheryl Youngblood Band — Bio — Sheryl Youngblood Band
2. Featured Interview — Sheryl Youngblood — Blues Blast Magazine
3. Sheryl Youngblood — Blue Chicago
4. Sheryl Youngblood Band — Shows — Sheryl Youngblood Band
5. Chicago Summer Tour — Corbera Blues Festival
6. Leading Ladies of the Blues — Prairie Center for the Arts, Schaumburg, IL, Oct. 19, 2024 — Chicago Blues Guide
7. Southern Avenue — Prairie Center, Schaumburg, October 18, 2025 — Chicago Blues Guide
8. Sheryl Youngblood — Spotify