After visiting Muddy’s grave on Thursday morning, Dan and I spent some time at the last resting place of Chess Records, on 2120 South Michican Avenue in Chicago.
I’d always been keen to visit Chess on this trip. Only Motown (Hitsville USA) in Detroit and maybe Sun Records in Memphis could be seen as more important to popular music; and even then, I reckon that spending time here at this place between 1956 and 1965 would have been the biggest thrill. During that time, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Etta James, Bo Diddley, Little Walter, Maurice White, Buddy Guy, The Rolling Stones and loads more all worked (and often lived) in these studios, making hundreds of the very greatest records of all time.
I ranted earlier today about the absence of a proper museum to the Blues in Chicago* but 2120 South Michigan Avenue might be the closest thing to it. The building is now owned and managed by “Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation”, and they’ve done a good job keeping the facility up and running, running tours around the remaining rooms and curating a few bits of memorabilia and old kit.
There’s a big focus, rightly, on Willie Dixon himself (in fact, our tour this afternoon was conducted by his grandson) and showcases his massive contribution to Chess Records, the Blues and Rock N Roll in the 50s through to the early 90s. He’s probably best known for his songwriting: he penned a series of sold gold classics in time at Chess including “Hoochie Coochie Man”, “I Just Want to Make Love to You”, “Back Door Man”, “Spoonful”, “Wang Dang Doodle” and “Little Red Rooster”.
I got to play Dixon’s upright bass – pictured in the photo below, which was quite a thrill. Though he didn’t write for Chuck Berry (another, perhaps the greatest, of the Chess alumni), he played bass on most of those early records: “Maybelline”, “Carol”, “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Johnny B. Goode”.
In the very early days, Chuck would drive from his home in St Louis to Chicago to get to Chess Records: a five or six hour drive there and back again. Tomorrow, my mate Ali and I will do some of that drive: the first part of Route 66, and specifically to see Berry’s old stomping ground.
*still annoyed about that
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