The Chicago Dawgs
Hi-Fi Pie Fest
Beecher Park, New Haven
July 27, 2026
Mark Zaretsky was onstage offering a smooth rendition of bluesman Willie Dixon’s “Who’s Been Talkin'” as a crowd gathered Monday night in the park behind Westville’s Mitchell Library.
My baby bought the ticket, long as her right arm
My baby bought the ticket, long as my right arm
She says she’s gonna ride long as I been from home …
I couldn’t look away. So as my friend approached, I shoved my dollars at her. “Get me a peach pie!”
I was locked into their Chicago blues. It was no joke.
I was also thinking about pie.
I wasn’t alone. You might think blues music and pies don’t have musch in common. Don’t tell that to the crowd that gathered Monday night the latest weekly installment of Westville’s summer Hi-Fi Pie Fest in Beecher Park. The stone fruit pies and stone-cold Chicago blues on display made a perfect pairing.
Along with a live performance by Zaretsky’s band, the Chicago Dawgs, the event featured the latest tasting and then judging of homemade pies. This week the theme was stone fruit.
The Chicago Dawgs have been playing together for years. Zaretsky and Dawgs guitarist/vocalist Tom Crivellone founded the group. They’re both Chicago natives who moved to Connecticut in the ’80s. They ran into each other in New Haven by chance but were fated to meet because Zaretsky’s brother was once a faithful attendee of a blues jam that Crivellone used to host in Chicago. They’ve been playing ever since; last year they won the Connecticut Blues Challenge, subsequently representing the state in the nationals held in Memphis.
In Westville Monday night they played their song “The Hunter” to exuberant effect. Zaretsky wailed the lyrics before coaxing plaintive chords from his harmonica.
Keep your hands in your pockets
You’re gunned down in the draw …
You just keep on walking
Don’t be stiff around here anymore
You might think you’re the hunter
Tonight you’re gonna prey …
That sweet doe you got your eyes on
She’s mine you’re going away …
But as much as we tried to do the call and response bit as requested by Zaretsky, we failed. Our mouths were too full of pie. My friend brought me back the Perfect Peach pie. It tasted like its description. I think my eyes may have watered a bit in joy when I tasted the combination of flaky crust and tangy, juicy peach bursting in my mouth.
When the songs came to a close, it was time to announce the winners of the pie competition. (I’m still thinking about the Perfect Peach pie that I devoured.) Mitchell Library security guard Anquille Wright and his brother Kim Baker were the judges and had the difficult honor of tasting all NINETEEN pies. Alka M. won amongst the adults for her Summer Mango pie. (Wright said it had the perfect taste and texture.) Evelyn Berner got first place for the kids for her Bullesye Chocolate Cherry Pie.
The connection between blues and stone fruit pie is not obvious, but I would say experiencing both was a sweet communal moment that paired perfectly with a summer night.
For more of The Chicago Dawgs, visit them on Facebook and Instagram. The next Hi-Fi Pie Fest show is Monday, Aug. 3.
