Chris Vallillo’s latest album, “Forgottonia,” is a 12-tune marvel that captures stories of people and places and transports listeners to vibrant bygone times.
Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.Chris Vallillo's latest album is “Forgottonia,” named after a real place, of sorts, in Western Illinois.
“I never remember a time when I wasn’t drawn to the guitar and, finally, when I was in sixth grade my parents gave in,” he says.He taught himself to play but never took it seriously until attending college. “I had roommates who were very good and I had to step it up,” he says. “I got good enough so that I could sorta-kinda play in bands, mostly rock ‘n’ roll then.”
Forgottonia is an “independent nation” created in the late 1960s by a group of creative and politically-savvy private citizens, business folks and others who lived in 16 Western Illinois counties . It was born out of frustration due to the lack of state and federal government support for regional transportation and infrastructure projects.
Astonishingly, it worked. Money and projects began to pour into the area. Vallillo came too. “I arrived in 1976 to do archaeological research,” he says. “It was like stepping back 40 years in time, visiting these small farming communities, talking to people in diners, and hearing their music. I began to realize that there is a story behind every song, stories of what the music meant to the people who created it.
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