YEAR
1987
INDUCTED BY
Ewart Abner
CATEGORY
Ahmet Ertegun Award
Leonard Chess, blues lover and owner of Chess record company, helped introduce black music to white audiences.
Chess signed artists such as Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, Etta James, Koko Taylor, and Bo Diddley.
Leonard Chess
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Michael Hill
In 1928, an Orthodox Jewish family named Checz came to America from Poland. They moved to Chicago, living at 1425 South Karlov, in the South Side, where Leonard, the older son, worked with his brother Phil in their father’s junkyard.
The Chess family found a sympathetic neighborhood in the black ghetto. Orthodox prayers, sung in elaborate Hebrew cantillation, found echoes in the blues scales and gospel harmonies of the Chesses’ adopted neighborhood.
As the years passed, the family made modest investments in liquor stores and eventually began running a saloon called the Macamba Lounge, which featured jazz and blues performers.
