“What’s this? This automobile? This silly automobile?” John Belushi’s Joliet Jake calls for, early in “The Blues Brothers,” having simply been picked up from jail in a beat-up outdated cop automobile by his brother Elwood. “The place’s the Cadillac? The Caddy. The place’s the Caddy? The Bluesmobile.”
“I traded it,” Elwood says tersely.
“You traded the Bluesmobile for this?” Jake says, aghast.
“No, for a microphone,” says Elwood.
“A microphone?” Jake replies, incredulous. Then he pauses, pondering. “OK,” he concludes. “I can see that.”
In fact he can. Microphones are vital. And funky. And Chicago. The nation’s preeminent microphone firm, Shure, has been based mostly right here for 99 years. Underneath the radar, since microphones are the unsung heroes of the digital age. Although each cellphone name you make, each be aware of each track you hear, each determined demand put to Alexa, is conveyed by a microphone. They matter.
Thus it made me wince to see one other vital, cool and really Chicago icon, city historian Shermann Dilla Thomas, do his TikTok movies holding this tiny little microphone between his thumb and forefinger, like a person about to pop a peanut into his mouth. Generally it was simply the wire from earbuds. Thomas is 6-foot-5. The microphone appeared dinky.
Regardless of utilizing a tiny microphone, historian Shermann Dilla Thomas grew to become an enormous deal on TikTok, with greater than 100,000 followers.
I stated nothing. For months. Shutting up is an artwork kind that requires apply. Folks don’t take criticism properly, irrespective of how properly couched. I’ll learn a colleague’s story and suppose, The lede is within the sixth graf. However say nothing. There’s no level. The story’s printed. They wouldn’t repair it; they’d simply hate me.
However Thomas’ work is ongoing. And he clearly cares about what he does. So how may I sit right here, silently judging him, with the answer at hand? I needed to make an effort. First I reached out to the Shure of us and acquainted them with the state of affairs. They nodded fortunately. Then I messaged Dilla. “I hope I’m not being presumptuous,” I started. “However currently, watching your movies, I had an odd thought, ‘He wants a greater microphone….’”
We met Tuesday at Shure’s Helmut Jahn-designed headquarters in Niles, and have been greeted by Michael Pettersen, who has labored on the firm since 1976. His enterprise card reads, “Director of Company Historical past” and “Sage.”
First, we toured the corporate’s small museum. An Emmy. A Grammy. The primary wi-fi microphone. A headset worn by Michael Jackson. “Michael Jackson’s DNA is on that,” stated Pettersen. I didn’t reply, “Ewww, gross.” Shutting up is an artwork kind …
I’ve taken the tour earlier than, and I nonetheless discovered new stuff. World Battle II supercharged Shure’s enterprise. In January 1942 it had about 100 staff. A yr later it had a thousand, constructing microphones and headsets for Navy ships and bomber pilots.
Throughout a tour of Shure’s personal museum at its world headquarters in Niles, director of company historical past Michael Pettersen (left) confirmed TikTok historian Shermann Dilla Thomas the enduring Shure mannequin 55 microphones, a design all-but-unchanged since 1939.
We toured their high quality assurance division, noticed each sort of testing — chambers that freeze microphones, bake them, spray them with synthetic perspiration. Units that twist headsets, that push buttons 1000’s of instances. You’ve heard of a mic drop — right here they drop mics.
A part of me anxious that we’d get this detailed dog-and-pony present after which be ushered into the car parking zone, the place we’d stand, empty-handed, taking a look at one another. I have a tendency to not belief folks, and within the previous days, I had so wished to say, “You’re going to offer him a mic, proper?”
However simply as shutting up requires apply, so does belief, and an organization that has a memorial backyard with plaques of departed staff is just not going to drop the ball.
We ended the tour in a room with a desk that appeared like Christmas with out the tree. Bins of microphones, cables, earbuds.
“That’s loopy,” stated Thomas, listening to himself. “It seems like a radio station. That is going to make the remainder of my movies sound horrible. I didn’t know what I used to be doing earlier than this.”
Neither did I. Microphones, as I stated, are underappreciated, and I by no means thought-about that the Shure microphones would additionally sound much better. I simply wished one thing that may look spectacular. The mannequin 55 — issued in 1939, barely modified since — was the one microphone left untouched. I picked it up, held it in my hand, admiring its heft. Then sighed and gave it to Dilla. “You’ll need this one too,” I stated.
A snowstorm had began whereas we have been there. My work executed, I headed out into it.
TikTok historian Shermann Dilla Thomas makes use of a cooler — and much better-sounding — MV7 Shure microphone at Shure’s firm headquarters in Niles.
