Found a couple of things for you:

Coal Kitchen

Earlier this week I experienced one of those stressful senior moments. I could not, for the life of me, recall the name of one of my favorite bands thriving on the Bloomington music scene during the late 1970s.

I was darn near certain the title began with a C, but the memory banks refused to spit out an answer. So, I asked my friends on social networking for assistance. During that process, they mentioned some memorable acts — First Impressions, Dr. Bop and the Headliners, Blue Hue and the Color Tones, Dee and the Redhots, Voyage, Kilo, Pure Funk, Rods & Cones and Duke Tumatoe and the All-Star Frogs.

Suddenly, the light bulb within the cranium illuminated. It was Coal Kitchen, a funky ensemble from Carbondale featuring the irrepressible Carla Peyton.

Coal Kitchen 1972 part 2

In part two of this 1972 Coal Kitchen studio session, the band — Carla Peyton, vocals; Kevin Cox, flute and congas; Harry Washburn, guitar; Bob Pina, keyboards; Andre Mossotti, bass; and Billy McMullin, drums — does a haunting rendition of “I Walk on Gilded Splinters” by Dr. John, then ups the tempo with “Batuka” by Santana.

https://www.facebook.com/FaceCAD/videos/coal-kitchen-1972-part-2/476284055715734/

Thank you for introducing me to Coal Kitchen and Carla Peyton, phatkhat. I love Carla’s voice!

Sounds like this is how the band’s name came about, this article is about a band called Devil’s Kitchen, found this nugget:

For several months, Robbie and Brett continued to play as Devil’s Kitchen in and around Carbondale as a trio with Robbie on guitar, Brett on bass and Randy on drums. We also started jamming with some old friends who had a group called Coal Dust (Carla Peyton and Bob Pina). Eventually, the two groups merged to become “Coal Kitchen”.

https://www.devilskitchenband.com/About.htm

I’ve kept digging (sure sounds like it was an amazing music scene you had!

That venue, the Red Lion, seems to have had a LOT of interesting-sounding musicians/bands play there!

From this website I found this:

Champaign–Part Two

The Champaign section of this site is gaining lots of attention. There were so many great bands in those days.Our old Red Lion was the “Whisky of the Midwest.”

Thanks for putting up the site. I look forward to seeing other entries.
Michael Walkup, Crystal Lake, IL mjwalkup@ameritech.net
Do you know of anyone that has the album Thirsty or Not Choose Your Flavor by Coal Kitchen burned on a CD I could purchase. Thanks, Bill Hart
riden69@charter.net

I wonder if you emailed Bill Hart at the above email address if he might know more. He’s apparently quite a fan to pursue that recording as he did.

Coal Kitchen
Carla Peyton (center) died August 18. Larry Wigand sent
along her obituary that appeared in Carbondale’s Nightlife publication.

The pic I’ve attached is the pic just over the tidbit above. As the web site seems to be from 2006 perhaps that’s the year Carla died?

Hello,
My name is Larry Wigand currently with The Dave Chastain Band, living in Peoria, Illinois. I really enjoyed you information about Champaign Bands, I was in one of the pictures, (The Bullets)
I first moved to Champaign with a band called Coal Kitchen, we lived in Carbondale first. Mark Lundquist and I left the band to work with Bruce Hall, currently (of REO Speedwagon) and Mike Murphy who was in the One Eyed Jacks. We called ourselves Silver Bullet.

I’m pretty sure that you might really enjoy that web site, phatkhat. Loads of musicians reminisce about bands they were in that played at the Red Lion. Tons of information.

http://www.hollywoodhangover.com/htm_files/champaign_part_two.htm