Freddie Tieken made SCENES

Bill Knight column for Mon., Tues., or Wed., Nov. 12, 13 or 14

Illinois entertainment icon Freddie Tieken proves that, with some people, a place can become a scene.

In pop culture, scenes have ranged from Memphis to Muscle Shoals, from Motown to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, from Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon to the concrete canyons of Manhattan. Such scenes rely on movers and shakers swooping in and making their marks. Without them, Nashville, the Rockies, etc. are just geography: addresses, maps, landmarks.

In Illinois, a sense of place became a real scene in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s in large part because of Tieken’s activity throughout the Midwest. Here, for decades, the dust from blowing topsoil mixed with dirt stirred up from 30-horsepower go-karts roaring around rural racetracks. Cicadas buzzing in the air or frogs croaking from creeks blended with crackling AM radios and scratchy phonographs. Prairie winds carried scents of sweet corn through open windows of cars pinging gravel heading to or from Tieken gigs.

Illinoisans were reminded of this at a recent fundraiser in Quincy for Mendon’s high school, where Freddie graduated as athlete, artist, race-car driver and musician. Tieken’s recounted his fascinating journey on his web site, http://freddietieken.com/.

Freddie looked ahead for his group and called his fans to the scene, where his altar of rock ’n’ roll and rhythm & blues was a mass celebration offering a communion with many of music’s saints: Junior Walker, and Ike and Tina Turner; Sam and Dave, and the Electric Flag; Led Zeppelin and even Kiss.

Through different flavors and styles, Freddie wasn’t so much a human chameleon as a constant, like gravity, electricity or some other force of Nature. However, he also was one of the people, in kin and kind, instinctively building on that rapport. Freddie related to everyday folks – working people and the unlucky, guys who rode buses or hitchhiked, grifters and gamblers, hard-shell bikers and soft-hearted hippies – all moving through quiet jobs or raucous nightspots.

Fans danced and partied, or sat and listened, spellbound and smiling. Once in a while – sometimes after a solo but more often during a bandmate’s showcase – fans could catch Freddie’s merry eyes and slight grin and share a magic moment.

Tieken’s travels by the black-green timber and the golden acreage of wheat and pastures were less like a laser slicing through space than a warm hand settling on a shoulder. Summers were golden days and purple nights; winters gray white during the day and at night so dark it seemed the stars made sound.

Freddie is a star. And what sounds!

Tieken took the industrial heartland and flatland cropland of his heritage and helped it rock – a fun, free-for-all time. That time and place had many roots and branches, but Freddie was as key to the area’s entertainment wonders as Chess Records or Cheap Trick, Sam Kinison or REO Speedwagon.

In high school he formed Freddie Tieken's Four Stars, which transformed into the Freddie Tieken Combo, playing venues as varied as Meyer Tavern in his tiny riverside hometown to the grand Terrace Room at Quincy’s Hotel Elkton. With long-time Peorian Byron "Wild Child" Gipson, he formed Freddie Tieken & the Rockers, one of the earliest integrated rock bands, and played at Quincy’s renowned Turner Hall and at Peoria’s notorious Harold’s club (where Richard Pryor tried out his stand-up comedy), once feted by guitar pioneer Leo Fender.

The band toured with Jackie Wilson, the Big Bopper, and Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars, then evolved into Freddie Tieken's American Music Band, performing at places such as Beaver’s, Chicago’s night club where the Allman Brothers and Buddy Miles played, then grew into Ilmo Smokehouse, which played what critic Cary Baker described as “a cross between Cream and James Brown” and released a legendary LP eventually picked up by a major label, Roulette.

Offstage, he built recording studios in Quincy and Chicago, and helped wife Gail’s booking agency, and become an acclaimed artist and designer at Creative Printers in Quincy, then Tieken Design in Phoenix, where he and Gail moved in the ’80s. After retiring and a 2010 health scare, Freddie started devoting more time to painting, and he’s had several successful gallery exhibits since.

“All my life I've been blessed,” says Tieken, now 77. “Whether I was involved in music, art and design, or racing, there was always someone there to encourage and mentor me. When I look back, I don't know how I had the energy. I guess I drew my energy from the people around me and from the excitement of my accomplishments.”

Actually, Freddie encouraged and mentored a lot of us. Like a hawk from the oaks, Freddie soared among us and helped make the Midwest – the times, even – a scene, a special place where we wanted to be.

Now, on his autobiographical web site, you can see the scene, too.

PHOTOS: Freddie Tieken in Quincy this month (top), and Gail and Fred.