FitzGerald was a music fan who happened to be a house painter and taught himself how to run a club. Within months, he was booking acts like a then-unknown Stevie Ray Vaughan and Marcia Ball, and opened up a Chicago pipeline to Texas and other strongholds of roots music in the South, from New Orleans to Memphis, that he continued to cultivate for decades. From zydeco to the blues, soul to country, FitzGerald’s provided a home to revered artists such as Joe Ely, Johnny Paycheck, Irma Thomas, Jason Isbell, Clifton Chenier, Alejandro Escovedo and Dave Alvin, among countless others.