1) Gabe Carter, 30, started going by “Mississippi Gabe” since he was 15, the year he decided to devote his life to playing the blues. The fact that he was born and raised in Chicago, he said, never made him reconsider the name.
2) Carter is a full-time musician. Between whatever gigs he can find, Carter spends as many days as he can playing in underground subway stations to support his pregnant wife at home. “Over the years I’ve done a lot of odd jobs to get by…moving, construction, workin’ in restaurants, you name it,” Carter said. “But mostly music. It always comes back to the music.”
3) A child can’t help but leave his family’s tabe at the Chicago House of Blues, where Carter is playing a gig on a Saturday night, and start dancing.
4) A local blues musician, impressed by Carter’s playing, introduces himself and takes his card. “Blues style just comes natural to me,” Carter says. “Only thing I’ve ever known.”
5) Carter started playing gospel music about a year ago, because it “gives me the opportunity to work for Jesus, which is all I can ask for.” After he’s done playing, two children from his church congregation, whose grandmother brought them to visit, join him at a table.
6) “I started playin’ out on the street about 10 years ago, subway maybe five,” Carter said. “I like it a lot, ‘cause I get to make good money, meet good people and deliver people through the music.”