Phil Chess, the Polish immigrant who brought blues to the world

Phil Chess, a Polish immigrant who helped deliver Chicago blues to the world, died on Wednesday. He was 95.

Chess and his brother Leonard built Chess Records, the record label on Chicago’s South Side that first recorded the pantheon of post-war blues and R&B greats who would, a decade later, directly influence the British Invasion and the rock ‘n’ roll aftermath. Their artists – Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Etta James, Little Walter, Buddy Guy, among many others – were either first recorded at Chess or the label shepherded the most influential recordings of their careers. In 1951, Chess released Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, which is considered the first rock record. Besides electric blues, between 1950 and 1969, the label also released jazz, gospel, soul, doo-wop, rockabilly, some country and psychedelic rock.

“The body of work created by Chess is unmatched in blues history with literally hundreds of songs that are considered classics,” said Bruce Iglauer, president of Alligator Records, the Chicago blues label.

Phil and his older brother Leonard emigrated from Poland to the US in 1928 to join their father in Chicago where he worked as a shoemaker and carpenter. By then Yasef Czyż had changed the family name to Chess and his sons, Lejzor and Fiszel, became Leonard and Philip. As teenagers they later joined him in running a family junkyard that happened to be across from a black Baptist church. Years later both brothers would say they were influenced by the music they heard coming through the building’s windows throughout the week.

“On a Sunday, man, they’d get going with that groove and you couldn’t help but stand there and dance. Really, that’s, that’s how good it was,” Phil said in a 1995 interview. “We gradually got a feel for this black blues. And thank God it took off.”

After a stint in the army, Phil joined his brother in the club business in Bronzeville, the city’s center of black nightlife. Eventually they took over Aristocrat Records, a pop label they renamed Chess. The first record under their direction was I Can’t Be Satisfied by Muddy Waters. The 3,000 copies the company pressed sold out in a single day.

Through his earliest days running liquor stores and clubs in Bronzeville, Leonard Chess got to know many of the label’s earliest artists such as Muddy Waters, and throughout the label’s heyday he played a prominent role in securing the artists and producing sessions while his younger brother played a quieter role in the back office, which included handling Arc Music, the company’s important publishing arm, and traveling to radio stations across the US and persuading disc jockeys to give their artists a chance.

“Phil was the rock of the company. He held down the office and took care of financial matters,” said Iglauer. “Leonard was known to be emotional, mercurial, and sometimes difficult to deal with while Phil was always the solid one. He was the go-to guy when business had to be dealt with.”

Together the brothers recorded artists targeting the black market with no intention of targeting white record buyers, primarily because radio remained largely segregated with little opportunity for exposure. However as the 1950s moved forward, artists such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters found their way outside the black market, particularly to England. “Their early releases of the Muddy and the Wolf and Sonny Boy records helped whites get into it although I don’t think they were too aware this was happening,” said Bob Koester, founder of Chicago-based Delmark Records, the oldest jazz and blues independent record label in the US.

Both men were not musicians nor had musical training, but they often admitted they had no method to their process but instead prided themselves with having an ear for artists they knew were unique. “Anything different that would draw your attention,” was their baseline for signing artists, Phil said. After getting his demos rejected elsewhere, Chuck Berry showed up at the Chess doorstep with just a notebook of lyrics and a tape. “It was different … It had a lot of country to it,” he said. The label would test records by throwing open its doors on South Cottage Grove Avenue and watch the reaction of people waiting at the bus stop. “That was our gauge. It wasn’t always right, but 99% of the times it was right,” he said.

As Chess grew it expanded beyond blues and served as an important label for jazz, recording saxophonists Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, pianists Ramsey Lewis and Ahmad Jamal.

The British Invasion helped usher in a new wave of interest on Chess artists during its second decade. The Rolling Stones, who named their band after a Waters song, made the pilgrimage to Chicago to record there, as did the Yardbirds. But the label never lost its connection with its black audience. In 1963 the brothers purchased a South Side radio station and changed its call letters to WVON (Voice of the Negro) and it became a towering outlet for black music during that decade.

The brothers got out of the business in 1969; a few months after selling the company Leonard died of a heart attack. Phil Chess relocated to Arizona where he lived until his death. Sheva Jonesi, his wife of 70 years who he met in high school, died in April.

The Universal Music Group now controls the Chess catalogue and the label’s final headquarters at 2120 S Michigan Avenue is now operated by a foundation owned by the family of Willie Dixon, the label’s house songwriter, arranger and bassist.

Until his death Phil insisted that Chuck Berry invented rock ‘n’ roll, not Elvis Presley. Berry turned 90 on Tuesday.

“The story of the blues is you tell your feelings,” Phil said in 1995. “That’s what it is, you have to catch the blues when it comes from the heart. I don’t care if you’re black, white, green or yellow.”