A South Side blues musician about to record on a major label and a 74-year-old church deacon known for his work with youth were shot to death blocks from each other within 30 minutes, authorities said.



Police are looking into whether the deaths of Eric "Guitar" Davis, 43, and Willie Cooper could be connected, but had no details this morning. No one was reported in custody for either shooting.



Cooper, a retired CTA driver, was shot to death around 4:45 a.m. Thursday as he pulled up in the 7000 block of South East End Avenue. Police said he was ambushed by gunmen who opened fire on his Chevy sedan.



About half an hour later, Davis was found dead in a car about three blocks north, in the 6700 block of South East End Avenue, police said. He had also been shot several times.



The fatal shootings were among at least five in Chicago this week as the number of homicides for the year so far reached 400, a symbolic mark but still a far cry from the more than 500 recorded in all of last year.



Davis was the son of well-known blues drummer Bobby "Top Hat" Davis. He and his band, the Troublemakers, had played BluesFest, had toured Europe and appeared regularly throughout the city, his family and friends said. He was about to record with Delmark Records.



"Loved to joked around. Played his music. Loved his children. Loved to travel," his wife Leslie Bell said.



Davis had been looking forward to recording for Delmark. "That was huge for him. He was excited," she said.



"His music was from the heart. He sung from his heart. And everything he wrote, he wrote from the heart," Bell added.



Friends said Davis had been at Kingston Mines, where he regularly performed, hours before he was shot in the South Shore neighborhood.



Cooper was a retired CTA worker and charter bus driver who served as deacon at St. Philip Neri Catholic Church for nearly 20 years.



"The deacon said, you know, you don't know when the Lord will call you," said the Rev. Thomas Belanger, pastor of the church. "I don't think this was the way he imagined."



Belanger said Cooper would preach every Sunday. "He would deliver words of optimism but also of challenge. He like to challenge our young men to really extend themselves, to go after their dreams.



"He felt this life is too short. . .We need to live each day to the fullest, for the better of someone else in need," Belanger said.