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Cannon shares his high seat

Years of driving a bus helped craft songs about life

By Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune
Published: January 28, 2017, 5:38am

In between gigs at blues clubs and festivals around the world, Toronzo Cannon drives a Chicago Transit Authority bus for a living. Cannon gets props for bringing colorful, real-life detail to his lyrics, and he credits his day job with inspiring many of the stories behind the songs.

“That whole CD was written on the bus,” Cannon says of his acclaimed 2016 album, “The Chicago Way,” on Chicago-based Alligator Records. “I get lots of ideas when I’m driving. I have a pencil and paper in my pocket and a box of lyrics back home. A phrase comes to me or I’ll see something, and when I get a chance I’ll write something down. When I get home I’ll figure out some chords to go with it and try to develop it into a song.”

Cannon’s had a front-row seat above city traffic for 24 years on routes, and he’s seen a lot of street life from that elevated vantage.

“When you’re at a red light, you look to your left and see certain activities going on in a car, things that should be done at nighttime or behind closed doors,” he says with a laugh. “I’m at Pulaski and Augusta, and I see a guy with a needle hanging out of his arm, shooting up at a red light. At Diversey and Halsted, I saw a guy doing cocaine on a CD cover. I’ve seen grandmothers fighting over a seat on my bus, I’ve seen shootings through a fence.”

His gregarious nature enables him to take things a step further inside the bus. “I’m a people guy — a lot of people are just amazed to hear a bus driver talk,” he says. “A lot of us don’t say anything to the public unless there’s a dispute. I’ve seen a couple knives on the bus that were confiscated and one guy left a knife on a seat. But I’ve never had things get out of control. If someone is angry or talking out loud, I’ll engage in a conversation with that person and defuse it.”

These experiences underline vivid street tales such as “The Pain Around Me” and the personal reckoning of “Strength to Survive.” As a 48-year-old with a wife and 14-year old daughter, he writes from a decidedly adult perspective.

“A song like ‘Fine Seasoned Woman,’ that’s a direct hit of what I see in my audience,” he says. “You hear about the 19-year-old women (in many pop songs), but at my shows you see women in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and I do like that. The 19-year-old doesn’t know who Aretha Franklin was (laughs). I wrote songs like ‘Midlife Crisis,’ ‘Jealous Love’ and ‘Bad Contract’ with them in mind. I haven’t personally gone through a midlife crisis or a divorce, but I know there are people in my audience who have.”

And there’s a new story to be found every day behind the wheel of his bus.

“I’d love to do this (play the blues) full-time, but as Denzel Washington says, ‘Do what you gotta do to do what you wanna do.’ I’ve got a family I’ve got to think about and mouths to feed. I started late in life playing music, and nothing is guaranteed. This could last another two or three years, and then what? But this bus will always be there. It pays the expenses. Man, the expense of the hair-care products alone for my daughter … that’s a blues song right there.”

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