Which brings us to Marshall Chess, the son of Leonard. However, the artists effectively became heritage acts, peddling old product for an eager white audience. Artists like Muddy Waters found new audiences not just on the folk music circuit in the U.S., but also across the pond in Europe. It became the music for the elders.īut that British invasion precipitated a rediscovery of blues music by white teenage audiences as they discovered the inspirations for their favorite white rock groups. Amongst the people who birthed it, the blues withered like an overripe peach. Motown and other soul labels grew to take the lion’s share of black American dollars.
Then there was the birth of mass produced, slickly written soul music from the motor city and beyond. The British invasion was fueled by the love of all things blues and Jimi Hendrix was an alumnus of the Chicago blues scene before he smashed the music world to smithereens. That young upstart rock & roll had kicked down the doors, taken huge chunks of blues sensibility and reimagined them for a younger audience. The jewel in the crown though was the swaggering King of Chicago blues Muddy Waters, a man indelibly linked to the change in blues music from its acoustic down south early days to the electrified urban sound in the industrial cities of the north.īut the 1960s had been a tumultuous decade for blues music. The list of great artists to adorn the label was long and illustrious: Howlin’ Wolf, Koko Taylor, Buddy Guy, Chuck Berry, Etta James, Little Walter and the bass playing, songwriting lynchpin Willie Dixon. In partnership with Sun Records founder Sam Phillips in Memphis, the label became home to the epochal record “Rocket 88” by Ike Turner and His Delta Cats, often revered as the first rock & roll record issued.īut the electric blues was its stock in trade as the ‘50s progressed and the roster of talent was mind-blowing. Taking over what had been known as Aristocrat Records gradually, they began to shape the label into a home for down home blues, R&B and a crazy new sound called rock & roll. There always is.Ĭhess Records was founded by Polish immigrants Lejzor and Fiszel Czyz (or Leonard and Phil Chess after a swift Americanization of names) alongside Evelyn Aron in Chicago in 1950. How could Marshall Chess, the son of label co-founder Leonard Chess, lower the bar in such a dramatic and unwelcome way? Was he pissing on the bones of a recently deceased art form for shits and giggles?Īt least that’s what some people thought. Electric Mud was an abomination-a monstrous carbuncle on the ass of blues music. In October of 1968, Chess Records released the worst blues album in the brief but explosive history of the genre. Happy 50th Anniversary to Muddy Waters’ fifth studio album Electric Mud, originally released October 5, 1968.
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