The Story of Chess Records
Contributors: Buddy Guy (Foreword)
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: October 15, 1998
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 192
ISBN-13: 9781582340050
Subjects: History and criticism; Popular music; Genres & Styles - Rock; Black Musicians And Their Music; Economic Aspects Of Music; Sound recording industry; Music/Songbooks; Music; History; Business Aspects; Genres & Styles - Blues; Music / Blues; Recording & Reproduction; United States; Chess Records (Firm)
First sentence: In April 1948, five years after making the trip from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago, Muddy Waters went into the recording studio for the second time in a month.
Description: In late 1948, Muddy Waters burst upon the Chicago music scene with his first record on the Aristocrat label. In 1950, Leonard and Phil Chess became sole owners of the label and changed its name to Chess Records.

The Chess story evolved because Chicago was the chosen destination of two distinct migrations, of rural blacks from the South and European Jews. This relatively small record label had, within ten years, irrevocably altered the course of twentieth-century popular music, introducing black music to white America and to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and every rock musician since. The Story of Chess Records is the first book to be devoted to the label.