Early Thursday morning, trouble found blues musician Eric 'Guitar' Davis, 41, who was discovered dead in a car on the 6700 block of South East End Avenue in Chicago. He had been shot several times.
Earlier that same morning, Willie Cooper, 74, a retired CTA driver and church deacon, was shot to death three blocks away, on the 7000 block of South East End Avenue.
Police are investigating whether the two deaths could be related, but had no details as of Friday morning.
Davis and his band, the Troublemakers, had played at Chicago's BluesFest, The Big Muddy Blues Festival in St. Louis and at blues clubs throughout the Midwest. The band had toured Europe three times. Guitarist Davis was the son of well-known blues drummer Bobby "Top Hat" Davis.
Davis was recently signed by Delmark Records, his first major label recording contract.
Davis' wife, Leslie Bell, said that Davis had been eagerly anticipating the recording sessions at Delmark. "That was huge for him. He was excited," she told the Chicago Tribune.
"His music was from the heart. He sung from his heart. And everything he wrote, he wrote from the heart," she said.
Friends said that Davis had been at Kingston Mines on Wednesday night before the shootings, a North Side blues club where he regularly performed.
Ironically, the news of these two deaths came on the same day the front page of the Chicago Tribune announced, "Homicides drop sharply after a violent 2012."
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