|
|
Get Four
|  | OCTOBER 12, 2004
By Hardy Green Rock 'n' Roll's Unlikely Midwife [Page 2 of 2] "THE LOUDEST MUSIC." Waters plays a key role in Cohen's story. He was first recorded by folklorist Alan Lomax, who in 1941 was casting about the Mississippi Delta in pursuit of legendary bluesman Robert Johnson. (He learned that Johnson was dead.) Months later, when Waters (a.k.a. McKinley Morganfield) heard himself on Lomax' recording, he decided that tenant farming on Stovall Plantation left something to be desired. Waters lit out for Chicago, where he worked in a factory and picked up occasional gigs in the clubs. Almost by accident, Chess recorded him in 1948 -- and had an immediate hit with Waters' tune I Can't Be Satisfied, which ultimately sold over 60,000 copies. But that was just the beginning. As Waters went on to pioneer a new electric-blues sound in the clubs. Cohen says this "was the first Rock & Roll band, though it was not yet called that. It was the loudest music anyone ever heard. It had the drive of an engine, the hum of a diesel on an inky black night -- music that makes you feel like staying out late, driving too fast, drinking more than is advisable, starting a fight." But Waters' success wasn't the high point for Chess. That would come after a black 19-year-old from suburban St. Louis showed up at Leonard's office door in 1955. The youth played a few songs of his own and was told to come back with a demo. And he did, with Ida Mae, later turned into Maybellene. Leonard, perceiving it to be new music, ordered 30,000 copies pressed, and soon Chess employees were working all-night shifts to fill the orders. Chuck Berry was on his way. PIONEER OF PAYOLA. "Where did Chuck get this music?" asks Cohen. He had taken "the electric blues and run it through a blender, through the brand-new teen sensibility." And even though there was much he had borrowed and stolen, he had created something new: "Rock & Roll was invented by Chuck Berry in 1955," the author writes. Despite the appearance of such musical prodigies, Leonard Chess remains the central character of Machers and Rockers. This is not to say he's always a model citizen: Cohen shows him to be a tireless field operative and pioneer of the bribes-for-radio-airtime known as payola, a paternalistic benefactor who's not above liquoring up a performer before getting him to sign a sweetheart contract. Terms might include work-for-hire, surrender of music-publishing rights to Chess, and very low royalty rates on record sales. Many were paid in goods and services rather than money: Etta James, whom Cohen calls "a terrific junky," got no royalties, but Leonard bought her a house. It was as if some artists had traded one plantation for another. Still, many preferred Chess to other labels: "If they were going to get screwed, they would rather get screwed by Leonard, because at least Leonard was honest about it," observed Chess engineer Ron Malo. SAW IT COMING. In the end, Chess's greatest triumph, rock 'n' roll, proved its undoing. Once major labels like RCA Victor caught on to the new music's vast commercial potential, they began buying up independents and pushing other small-time operators out of the business by offering their musicians better deals. Then, too, the civil-rights movement and black nationalism seemed to suggest that African Americans should run their own record companies. Leonard Chess saw the handwriting on the wall and sold out in 1968. For a paltry $6.5 million plus some stock, Chess became the property of General Recording Tape, a pioneer of the now all-but-forgotten eight-track tape-cartridge format. Later that year, Leonard died of a heart attack, and by 1971, the record unit was bankrupt. Rock 'n' roll may be here to stay, but for Chess, the game was over.
 Green is an associate editor for BusinessWeek in New York
BW MALL
SPONSORED LINKS
Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.
Buy a link now! Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
 Copyright 2004, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.Terms of Use | Privacy Notice |
Printer-Friendly Version
