Chess Dies
Leonard Chess, with his brother Phil co-founder of Chess Records, died October 16. He was fifty two years old. Chess was a pioneer in the recording industry; under his and his brother’s guidance Chess produced some of the greatest blues and rhythm and blues artists of the 1950s.
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Chess Dies
Leonard Chess, with his brother Phil co-founder of Chess Records, died October 16. He was fifty two years old.
Chess was a pioneer in the recording industry; under his and his brother’s guidance Chess produced some of the greatest blues and rhythm and blues artists of the 1950s. Their initial recording effort was Gene Ammons “My Foolish Heart”; the 1948 record was an immediate success and led to national distribution of the label.
Besides being a leader in the blues field, Chess also initiated many rock and roll and rhythm and blues artists. They kicked off rock and roll by recording a song called “Ida Red” by an unknown St. Louis musician who had been turned down by Capitol and Mercury. They changed the song’s title to Maybelline and Chuck Berry had his first hit.
Besides Berry, the Chess/Checker/Cadet labels also cut groups such as the Flamingos, the Moonglows and the Cornets. Leonard and Phil were also studio innovators, using such effects as tape delay, distortion and echo as far back as the mid-1950’s.
In addition to the Chess/Checker/Cadet combine (which was actually bought out by GRT earlier this year, though the Chess brothers maintained control) the brothers also owned two radio stations, WVON, Chicago and WNOV, in Milwaukee.
Of late, however, Chess has been experiencing some trouble with their blues artists. In an attempt to “commercialize” old blues men Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf the two were forced to record wah-wah pedaled, “psychedelic” albums. Waters lp, while most found it atrocious musically, did not incur,too much resentment. But the Wolf record, which contained a picture of Chess forcing him into the studio, and the words “Howlin’ Wolf doesn’t like this album. He didn’t like his new electric guitar at first, either” was condemned by many as insulting to the artist and racist in character.
However it is only fitting that the last major Chess release was an album by Waters with many of the young white Chicago bluesmen as his sidemen.
Chess was also the first to record Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Willie Mabon, Bo Diddley, Arthur Crudup, Otis Spann and Jimmie Rodgers. Leondard Chess, while doing field recording in the South, discovered Howlin Wolf and Crudup himself.
Dave Marsh
