Marshall Chess - The Blues

The Blues

Leonard Chess and his brother Phil were two American immigrants from the Jewish community in Motal, Poland who in 1947 had purchased part of an independent record label called Aristocrat Records. Within a few short years the label was renamed after the family's Americanized surname 'Chess' and quickly produced a list of American blues artists that would come to be regarded as the greatest collection of the genre in recorded history.

Marshall learned every aspect of the record business while working for sixteen years with the founders of Chess Records; his father Leonard and his uncle Phil doing everything from pressing records and loading trucks to producing over 100 Chess Records projects and eventually heading up the label as President after the GRT acquisition in 1969. In the late 1960s Marshall also ran his own record label Cadet Concept, a division of Chess Records. He created and produced the Rotary Connection, which became the springboard for Minnie Riperton’s career. He signed John Klemmer and created a new format which was heralded as the first jazz-fusion album, “Blowin’ Gold.” He signed the underground black rock legends Black Merda. His Cadet Concept also imported and released the first and only American hit, Pictures of Matchstick Men, by the British rock group Status Quo. He also created and produced the controversial psychedelicized blues albums Electric Mud, by Muddy Waters; and, The Howlin' Wolf Album by Howlin' Wolf. He restored his reputation by producing the jam album Fathers & Sons with Waters, Mike Bloomfield, Otis Spann, Paul Butterfield, Duck Dunn, Sam Lay, and Buddy Miles in 1969.