“It felt like I just stepped into a rodeo, and they shut the gate behind me.” That’s how Grant Achatz describes his first day of working in the kitchen of Charlie Trotter’s, then considered one of the world’s finest restaurants. The future 3-Michelin-star Alinea chef was just 21 in the summer of...

Susan Cowsill was the kid sister of the family band the Cowsills, and she made an indelible impression singing “and spaghetti’d!” on the Cowsills’ 1968 hit version of “Hair.” Jump to the 1990s, and she was singing and, for the first time, writing songs in the indie supergroup the Continental...

Sima Cunningham has had two albums released this year: Not God from Finom, her band with fellow Chicago singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Macie Stewart; and a long-gestating solo project, High Roller. With Finom kicking off a tour this weekend and a solo album launch and a Roches-themed...