![]() ![]() Dixon not only wrote songs, he also performed, arranged music, scouted talent and experimented with the traditional 12-bar blues form.ĭixon wrote 6000 songs in his lifetime (600 for Chess) and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015, according to Janine Judge, coordinator of Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation at the former Chess building at 2120 S. Although the brothers were unfamiliar with blues, their nightclub experience led them to encourage artists to retain their intensity and emotional spontaneity, unlike other labels.īlues artists’ intensity also increased thanks to urban influences such as electrified instruments and a pronounced drumbeat, often referred to as “the Chicago Blues” sound.Ĭhicago Landmarks credits Willie Dixon, the composer, bassist and producer who came to Chess in 1952, with major creative impact. Leonard handled distribution: to variety stores, barber shops, beauty salons and other businesses in the black community.īy 1950, Aron left the company, Phil Chess joined his brother full-time and they became Chess Records. Michigan Ave., (the Chess Records offices and studio from 1957-67), Leonard decided to record some artists after he saw a Hollywood talent scout talking to the Macomba’s lead band singer.īeginning in 1947, the Chess brothers and partner Evelyn Aron recorded local jazz, blues, dance and polka musicians at other studios and promoted them on their Aristocrat label. According to the Chicago Landmarks Commission essay on 2120 S. The Chess story began in the late 1940s with their two South Side nightclubs: the 708 and the Macomba Lounge at 39th and Cottage Grove. She shares the Polish-Jewish brothers’ real odyssey of building Chess Records “by taking the music of the Mississippi Delta and electrifying it.”Īlong the way, as McKinley Morganfield, aka Muddy Waters, notes in the book’s frontispiece, “the blues had a baby and they named it rock ‘n’ roll.” The fictional Groski is the “girl next door” to Leonard and Phil Chess. While bringing his electric guitar cord into a Maxwell Street store – and paying 25 cents for the electricity – Dupree falls for Leeba Groski in “Windy City Blues,” which was the One Book/One Community 2017 selection for Jewish Book Month. “Ain’t nobody going to hear you without an amp.” “This here’s Chicago,” says “Little Walter,” aka Walter Jacobs. And all the while, white men lined the sidewalks, calling out to folks, trying to sell them socks and umbrellas, nuts and bolts and fishing gear.”Īfter grabbing a Maxwell Street Polish sausage from a man grilling them over hot coals in a 55-gallon drum, Dupree gets some advice from the harmonica player. ![]() People were clapping and singing along and tossing money into a bucket near the banjo player’s worn-down boots. Red saw a man sitting on a wooden milk crate with a banjo, blowing on a jug like it was a bass. “There was a young man playing harmonica who couldn’t have been more than 16 or 17. The fictional Dupree then walked a mile west, where he saw a scene that reminded him of home. ![]() Like so many people during the Great Migration, Dupree took the Illinois Central Railroad to its Roosevelt Road and Michigan Avenue terminal. In the historical novel, “Windy City Blues” by Renee Rosen, guitarist Red Dupree comes up to Chicago in the late 1940s, having distinguished himself among blues musicians in the Mississippi Delta. ![]()
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