REWIND
‘Spinning Blues Into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records’
By Ron Wynn
Welcome to REWIND, a monthly look back at some of the blues historical treasures. For those who might wonder about my qualifications for this, I’ve been involved in blues, jazz and other roots music journalism for 46 years.
One of the things I’m most proud of in regards to my career was being interviewed for Robert Gordon’s classic film on Muddy Waters, and being a recipient of a 2024 Keeping The Blues Alive Award. Hopefully, in the months ahead, my expertise and love for the music will display itself sufficiently within this column to at least render me a credible source, whether you agree or disagree with my observations and opinions.
This month, we start our journey with a certified classic, a definitive examination and analysis of one of popular music’s greatest labels. Journalist Nadine Cohodas proved the ideal author to tackle the rich and complicated legacy of the Chess brothers Leonard and Phil, and the company they created. She did this in superb fashion via the volume “Spinning Blues Into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records” (St. Martin’s). As this past March 12 marked Leonard’s 108th birthday (March 27th will be Phil’s 104th), this seemed an ideal time to revisit this book. It also nicely ties in with Women’s History Month.
Perhaps this volume’s most important accomplishment was in setting the record straight regarding the relationship between the Chess brothers and the amazing roster of artists who recorded on their labels. The book also properly assesses exactly who and what Leonard and Phil Chess were in terms of artistry and culture.
Neither was a musician. They were Polish immigrant Jews whose prior connection to the sounds that ultimately made them wealthy, was non-existent. They weren’t like Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, Turkish immigrants and longtime music lovers who saw starting a label (Atlantic) as the natural extension of their lifelong devotion to a vital and neglected culture. The Chess brothers were first and foremost businessmen, and their initial operations included a junk store, two liquor stores, and finally a nightclub in a Black neighborhood on Chicago’s South side. That enterprise was their motivation and window into entering the world of recording. Live entertainment was a key aspect of keeping the club going, and at the time (1946) they were savvy enough to recognize that the wave of Southern Blacks who’d migrated to Chicago loved and would support recordings of the same musicians whom they readily supported through seeing them in the club.
Plus, the record industry was hardly opening its arms to Black musicians at the time. There were “race” labels, plus the well-known “Chitlin Circuit,” an array of clubs and honky-tonks scattered across the South and Midwest. But few white record business types at the time had the combination of insight and business savvy the Chess brothers possessed.
Cohadas details how they carefully utilized connections with both performers and audiences, learning how to maneuver through the tangled network of DJs, radio stations, and distributors. They regularly paid visits to these stores and stations, hustling records and hawking songs. Their efforts (and Cohados makes it clear both were heavily involved) the Chess brothers absorbed local culture and sounds, made connections and friends, and signed musicians. They built Chess into a national force by the late ’50s. It became far more than a two-person, mom and pop venture. Just as Berry Gordy turned Motown into a massive one-stop shop for a variety of artists and labels, Chess expanded into a multi-layered company with subsidiary labels Checker, Argo and Cadet. Perhaps the ultimate irony is while it was the blues that launched them, and that’s the sound so many folks associate with Chess, from a strictly commercial standpoint, the brothers made more money on R&B, soul, even jazz in terms of chart-topping, crossover recordings.
But more importantly from the creative end, Chess was home to innovative and virtuoso performers, amazing instrumentalists and vocalists whose music had an enormous impact on this nation’s cultural legacy. The work of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter Jacobs, Etta James, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and others was epic, and remains among the world’s most beloved. Even as blues was losing favor with a significant core of its Black audience, the Chess recordings were still enjoying enormous impact across the ocean. During an early American tour, the Rolling Stones were astounded by the lack of reverence and knowledge so many Americans had regarding the blues they loved. They went to Chicago and recorded in the same studios where their idols had cut the classics they idolized.
“Spinning Blues Into Gold” isn’t a starry-eyed fan account, nor a chronicle obsessed with breaking down musicians’ technical approaches or stylistic preferences. While it doesn’t completely ignore that end, the major thing Cohodas wanted to do was provide a thorough and accurate account of the Chess story, and she provided lots of interviews, while also utilizing a wealth of other sources like artists’ biographies, local newspapers, city directories and trade magazines like Billboard and Cashbox. However one area where things can get a bit dicey comes in her documenting of business practices. The word she uses to describe the brothers when it comes to money is “frugal.” Folks like Muddy Waters used words a lot harsher at times, with “cheap” being among the kinder and least profane. One example of how the brothers could be on the stingy side concerns the departure of production head Dave Usher. After seeing the label racking up hit after hit, Usher felt he was due for raise. He got a curt dismissive response from Leonard Chess and quickly hit the road. His successor, Jack Tracy, did get a decent royalty payment for the era, and Leonard Chess quickly told him “We’re going to change things. You won’t be getting a royalty again.”
The brothers’ defenders rightly point Chess artists were frequently given lavish automobiles, or had their apartments or attorney fees paid. However, it’s acknowledged this was largely done in lieu of royalties, and the question of fair payment for royalties, as well as publishing rights and copyrights, has long been and remains a controversial thing. Such otherwise sacred labels as Blue Note, Atlantic, Prestige, Motown, you name it, have all been accused at one time or another of playing fast and loose with figures. But again, in her quest for accuracy, Cohodas provides in the epilogue, ”Lawsuits and Legacies,” an extensive list of the many financial and copyright clashes Chess had with its musicians following Leonard’s death.
One assertion that remains debated to this day concerns the ugly business with Chuck Berry over his extremely questionable (very likely race-fueled) arrest on Mann Act charges (also known as the White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910, it was a federal law that criminalized the transportation of individuals, including women and girls, across state lines or into foreign countries for the purpose of prostitution, debauchery, or any other immoral purpose.) Berry was indicted December 23, 1959 in St. Louis on charges relating to his transportation of a 14-year-old girl across state lines for allegedly “immoral purposes.” He eventually spent 20 months in federal prison. “Spinning Blues” says that the Chess brothers paid for his attorneys. Berry’s autobiography denies that they did, and Cohodas acknowledges that he was on the record making that claim. Interestingly enough, Berry also had a reputation for maybe being even more “frugal” than the Chess Brothers.
Still, there hasn’t been a better combination of reportage, analysis and commentary regarding Chess Records or the complicated interactions between them, their artists and the overall Black community and music business since “Spinning Blues Into Gold” was released in 2001. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in getting factual background and detailed information about one of America’s premier music companies.
‘Spinning Blues Into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records’ here
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