Hour 4 takes Blues Before Sunrise to the Chicago Blues Fest, making the program’s festival setting the defining element of this special segment. The supplied notes identify a focused group of performers and appearances: Smokey Smothers & The Ice Cream Men, Floyd Jones in his last public performance, John Brim with Scott Bradbury, and Little Willie Littlefield. Together, those names give the hour a clear purpose within the larger five-hour broadcast: this is a dedicated presentation of festival material rather than another mixed studio-playlist sequence.

Smokey Smothers & The Ice Cream Men are named as one of the featured sets. Their presence establishes the hour as a place for performers and groups to be heard in a festival context. In the surrounding program, the first three hours move briskly among many artists and titles. This hour instead centers on a smaller collection of featured appearances, allowing the Chicago Blues Fest setting to become the organizing idea.

Floyd Jones receives especially significant attention in the notes, which identify the appearance as his last public performance. That explicit designation gives his set a distinct place in the hour. Blues Before Sunrise presents the performance as part of its festival coverage, preserving the importance assigned to it by the source material without adding details that the notes do not establish. The result is a segment shaped by the event itself as well as by the artists included in it.

John Brim appears with Scott Bradbury in a section described as postwar Chicago blues. This is the clearest stylistic designation supplied for the hour, and it provides an important point of focus. The program’s Chicago Blues Fest material is therefore not presented as a generic festival overview; it includes a specifically identified postwar Chicago blues connection through Brim and Bradbury. Their appearance also strengthens the hour’s link to the city named in the festival title, while remaining grounded in the program notes rather than expanding into unverified biography or recording history.

Little Willie Littlefield supplies what the notes call “a little help from Houston.” That description broadens the special beyond a single city-centered frame. Even within a Chicago Blues Fest hour, the programming acknowledges another regional connection through Littlefield’s inclusion. The effect is a compact but varied festival portrait: Chicago blues remains central, while the hour also leaves room for an artist introduced through a Houston reference.

The short note attached to the hour has its own personality as well, ending with an inside-reference aside: “Let them try to do that with a cola nut. (Sorry, you had to be there…)” The line does not provide a musical fact to be interpreted, but it does preserve the conversational character of the show notes. In the broadcast’s broader context, that kind of remark reinforces the sense that Blues Before Sunrise is not simply presenting disconnected recordings. It is curating a listening experience shaped by knowledgeable programming, special events, and the host’s distinctive voice.

Because the supplied Hour 4 material identifies featured sets and artists but does not include individual song titles, the festival segment should be understood as a special-programming hour rather than a fully documented track-by-track playlist. What is clear is its role in the week’s design. After three hours of expansive blues, rhythm-and-blues, gospel, jazz, and vocal programming, the Chicago Blues Fest feature provides a concentrated event-based centerpiece. It then leads naturally into an Hour 5 that resumes the program’s broader stylistic movement.

Hour 4 Playlist

Individual song titles were not supplied in the Hour 4 source material.

Featured set — Smokey Smothers & The Ice Cream Men

Last public performance — Floyd Jones

Postwar Chicago Blues — John Brim with Scott Bradbury

Festival appearance — Little Willie Littlefield