My wife and I spent the weekend in Chicago visiting our daughter and doing some sightseeing.
One of our stops was the Chess Records museum located in the label’s original building on Michigan Avenue, where it’s run by the late Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation. A bass player and vocalist, Willie was one of the originators of the blues, writing or co-writing over 500 songs, including “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” “Little Red Rooster,” “I Ain’t Superstitious,” and “I Can’t Quit You Baby.” If you ever audition to be in a blues band and you don’t know those songs, you may not even get in the door.
Chess was the label that released many of the biggest blues records of the 1950s and 1960s by Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Koko Taylor, and Bo Diddley, along with rock classics like Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and Etta James’ “At Last.” After all, as Muddy said, “The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll!”
We took a tour of the museum led by Janine Judge, the foundation’s executive director and historian, who entertained us with lots of stories about the people who played and worked there. She told us about the legends who walked through the same entrance we had, adding, “Think of the hands that opened that door, and the doors those hands opened.”
One of those was receptionist Minnie Riperton, who was often called upstairs to the studio to do backup vocals for various performers. In 1975, she went on to have a massive hit of her own, “Lovin’ You,” hitting high notes that awed everyone who heard them (even if you remember the song, watch this video of her performing it on “The Midnight Special” to be amazed again). She was also Maya Rudolph’s mom.
The Chess Museum has lots of memorabilia, of course, including photos of the Rolling Stones’ sessions in 1964, during which they recorded an instrumental named after the building’s address, “2120 South Michigan Avenue.” According to Janine, Mick and Keith had written lyrics for the song, but were too nervous to remember them that day because their idols — Dixon, Waters, and Buddy Guy — were watching from the control room.
Chess Records and its subsidiaries were as important to the popularity of the blues as Sun Records was to country and Stax Records was to soul. Having toured the facilities of the latter two in Memphis, we felt the same connection to the history of American music walking around and listening to Janine.
Next time you’re in Chicago, make some time to visit Blues Heaven. If you can’t get there, check out Darnell Martin’s 2008 movie, “Cadillac Records,” which starred Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, Cedric The Entertainer as Willie Dixon, Beyoncé as Etta James, and Eric Bogosian as Alan Freed. It’s currently streaming on Hulu.