Ship to
Ship to: 1425 South Karlov, the family’s front door. Re-address it.
In the box: Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, 1957; Little Walter, 1956; Willie Dixon, 1963; Fontella Bass, 1965. Credits in full where each photograph appears below.
3905 South Cottage Grove Avenue, at Oakwood Boulevard
By September 1947 Leonard had money in Aristocrat and was selling its records out of the trunk of his Buick.
After four years the club was badly damaged by fire, probably in early October 1950.
There is no club to go into. Look from Cottage Grove at Oakwood Boulevard; the photograph is the corner in 1978.
South Karlov Avenue, North Lawndale, Chicago: a private home
When the brothers renamed the company Chess on 3 June 1950, they started its numbering at 1425: the number of their childhood home on South Karlov.
In 1957 they started the Chess LP series at 1425 as well. Phil Chess was born Fiszel Czyz in Motol, Poland, in 1921, and changed his name after the family emigrated.
A private home. Named here, never mapped; the photograph shows Ogden Avenue a few blocks away in 1968, not the house.
Five doors · 1950 to 1967
Every hit lands on the pile with its number. When the next one came out from a new address, the whole pile has to move first. The doors are never far apart: all of them sit within 5.5 km of each other.
1425
The family’s house number, and the first catalogue number.
Nothing on the pile yet. The numbering starts at 1425.
Cottage Grove Avenue at 49th Street, Grand Boulevard
The company was at 4858 South Cottage Grove until June 1951, then moved round the corner to 750 East 49th Street, its home for nearly three years.
The first releases, Chess 1425 and 1426, came out in June 1950: Gene Ammons’s My Foolish Heart and Muddy Waters’s Rollin’ Stone.
The sessions were made downtown at Universal Recording, not here.
Office addresses only; look from the street. The photograph is Cottage Grove a few blocks north, in 2025.
Cottage Grove Avenue at 47th Street, Grand Boulevard
Cash Box reported the move here from 750 East 49th Street, to new and larger offices, on 1 May 1954.
A back room was set up to record demos. Muddy Waters’s November 1954 session was cut there, and it sounds muffled.
Asked by the musicians’ union whether he was recording in the back room, Leonard said he was not.
In April 1957 the brothers told Cash Box that Chuck Berry’s School Day was the biggest thing they had ever had.
Office address only; look from the street. The photograph is 47th Street at Drexel, a block east, in 1978.
From 49th Street to 2120 South Michigan is 5.5 km as the crow flies.
4750–52 Cottage Grove · Chess Record Company and Checker Record Corporation
Chess and Checker shared an address. For each of these six, which imprint carried the hit?
Choose for each card.
In October 1954 the Moonglows came out on both labels at once: as themselves on Chess 1581, and as Bobby Lester and the Moonlighters on Checker 806. Two labels were expected to get more plays from DJs.
Chess 1581, Sincerely, went to number one on the R&B charts and stayed on them for 20 weeks.
South Michigan Avenue · May 1957
Built in 1911 and remodelled for Chess in 1956–57, it was the brothers’ home from 1957 to 1967. It became a Chicago Landmark on 16 May 1990.
The studio was upstairs and Leonard’s office downstairs. Engineer Jack Wiener put matched echo chambers in the basement.
Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson and Chuck Berry recorded here; Johnny B. Goode and Rescue Me were made here.
Marie Dixon, Willie Dixon’s widow, bought the building in 1993; it reopened in September 1997 as the home of the Blues Heaven Foundation. The foundation runs free summer blues in Willie Dixon’s Blues Garden next door, the Record Row Concert Series.
Tours Tuesday to Saturday between 12 and 4pm, by reservation only (email or phone): adults $25, students (5–17) and seniors $20.
Near South Side, Chicago
Inside 2120 South Michigan: the office, the upstairs studio and Willie Dixon’s story. Tuesday to Saturday, 12 to 4pm, by reservation only (email or phone): adults $25, students (5–17) and seniors $20. Fees go to the foundation.
Request a tour
South Michigan Avenue, Motor Row, Chicago
In spring 1957 Vee-Jay’s Cash Box advertisements gave its address as 2129 South Michigan Avenue.
Record distributors advertised from 1303, 1343 and 2009 South Michigan in the issue that carried Chess’s first advertisement from 2120.
Back in 1954 Cash Box had already noticed a new music row on the South Side, with Chess and Checker, Parrot, King and Chance within a few blocks.
Look from South Michigan Avenue. The photograph is Motor Row at 23rd Street, two blocks south, in 2012.
South Loop, Chicago
A 1,206-room hotel at 2121 South Prairie Avenue, two blocks east of 2120 South Michigan, joined to McCormick Place. Pictured: Motor Row on Michigan Avenue.
See the hotel
June 1964
The Rolling Stones recorded an instrumental named after the address here in June 1964, on their first American tour.
That same year Willie Dixon’s song Little Red Rooster gave the Rolling Stones a number one: the label’s blues, sent back from England.
706 Union Avenue · 5 March 1951
775 km · 482 miles from Union Avenue to 2120 South Michigan, as the crow flies
In March 1951 Chess struck a deal with Sam Phillips’s Memphis Recording Service.
Phillips cut Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats on 5 March 1951; Chess issued it as Chess 1458.
Howlin’ Wolf’s Moanin’ at Midnight was recorded in Memphis in July 1951 and came out on Chess 1479 that August.
The studio is at 706 Union Avenue; its tour tells the stories of B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf and Ike Turner.
Open every day, 10am to 5:15pm. Forty-minute tours on the half hour, no reservations: adults $20, students $18, children 5–11 $15.
Memphis, Tennessee
Forty minutes in the room where Rocket 88 and Howlin’ Wolf’s first Chess sides were cut. Every day on the half hour from 10.30am to 4.30pm, no reservations: adults $20, students $18, children 5–11 $15.
Plan a visit
1 April 1963 to now
1 April 1963
South Lawndale, Chicago
Leonard and Phil Chess bought WHFC, a 1,000-watt station licensed in Cicero, and relaunched it as WVON on 1 April 1963.
Its first presenters, the Good Guys, were Franklin McCarthy, E. Rodney Jones, Herb Kent, Wesley South and Pervis Spann.
Studio and transmitter were here, near the Stevenson Expressway, between the West and South Sides.
After Leonard’s death in 1969 the family sold the station.
The former studio building. Look from Kedzie Avenue; it is not open to visitors.
1967
East 21st Street, Near South Side, Chicago
In 1967 Chess moved from 2120 to a bigger space here.
Art Hoyle, the session trumpeter on Rescue Me, worked at 2120 until that move.
Look from 21st Street. The photograph is Calumet Avenue near 21st, in 2004, not the building.
16 October 1969
Norridge, on Chicago’s north-west edge
Leonard Chess, born in 1917, died in Chicago on 16 October 1969, aged 52, and is buried here in the Westlake Section.
Phil Chess died in Tucson in October 2016, aged 95.
A working cemetery. Visit quietly; the grave is in the Westlake Section.
Now
700 South Wabash Avenue, South Loop, Chicago
Buddy Guy, who recorded at Chess, credits the brothers with recording music nobody else was paying attention to.
Seating is first come, first served, and shows are for 21 and over.
Live blues most nights. No reservations: arrive early. Ages 21 and up.
Nineteen years after Chess 1425, the brothers’ own story ends in Norridge. The records are still on the pile.
10 places you can visit in Chicago and Memphis. The family home on South Karlov is private: named, never mapped.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. There is no club to go into. Look from Cottage Grove at Oakwood Boulevard; the photograph is the corner in 1978.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Office addresses only; look from the street. The photograph is Cottage Grove a few blocks north, in 2025.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Office address only; look from the street. The photograph is 47th Street at Drexel, a block east, in 1978.
3905 South Cottage Grove Avenue, at Oakwood Boulevard
Leonard Chess ran a neighbourhood bar and after-hours club here, the Macomba Lounge.
There is no club to go into. Look from Cottage Grove at Oakwood Boulevard; the photograph is the corner in 1978.
Cottage Grove Avenue at 49th Street, Grand Boulevard
The company was at 4858 South Cottage Grove until June 1951, then moved round the corner to 750 East 49th Street, its home for nearly three years.
Office addresses only; look from the street. The photograph is Cottage Grove a few blocks north, in 2025.
Cottage Grove Avenue at 47th Street, Grand Boulevard
Cash Box reported the move here from 750 East 49th Street, to new and larger offices, on 1 May 1954.
Office address only; look from the street. The photograph is 47th Street at Drexel, a block east, in 1978.
Stay
A big hotel on South Prairie Avenue, a short walk from the building.
South Loop, Chicago
A 1,206-room hotel at 2121 South Prairie Avenue, two blocks east of 2120 South Michigan, joined to McCormick Place. Pictured: Motor Row on Michigan Avenue.
See the hotelGo there
The Blues Heaven tour of the Chess building, Sun Studio in Memphis, and Chicago blues tours on the marketplace.
Near South Side, Chicago
Inside 2120 South Michigan: the office, the upstairs studio and Willie Dixon’s story. Tuesday to Saturday, 12 to 4pm, by reservation only (email or phone): adults $25, students (5–17) and seniors $20. Fees go to the foundation.
Request a tourMemphis, Tennessee
Forty minutes in the room where Rocket 88 and Howlin’ Wolf’s first Chess sides were cut. Every day on the half hour from 10.30am to 4.30pm, no reservations: adults $20, students $18, children 5–11 $15.
Plan a visitChicago
Live marketplace results for blues tours and club nights in Chicago. Check each itinerary for South Michigan Avenue and the South Side.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursWhat’s on
Two nights at Buddy Guy’s Legends, listed by the club.
Checking current event dates…
Take it home
Two original bills from our own store with Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry, the history of the brothers, and six LPs from the label’s own catalogue.
An original 1968 Avalon Ballroom bill with Muddy Waters, from his Chess years. 20.2 × 14.2 in, rolled, mint.
In stock
View posterAn original 1967 Fillmore bill by Wes Wilson, with Chuck Berry at the top. 13.5 × 20.6 in, rolled, mint.
In stock
View posterNadine Cohodas
The history of the brothers and the label; the discographers cite it on the back room at 4750.
Find the bookMuddy Waters · LP, Chess LP-1427, 1958
Chess’s LP numbers also started at 1425; this was the third.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyChuck Berry · LP, Chess LP 1426, 1957
Released in the month the label moved to 2120.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyLittle Walter · LP, Chess LP-1428, 1957
Little Walter’s best-of, from the year Chess moved to 2120.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyBo Diddley · LP, Chess LP 1431, 1958
Bo Diddley’s LP, issued on Chess in 1958.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyHowlin’ Wolf · LP, Chess 1434, 1959
Howlin’ Wolf on Chess, 1959, when the label was at 2120.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyEtta James · LP, Argo LPS 4003, 1960
Etta James on Argo, the third imprint at 2120.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyDates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
11 of 11 places · 24 of 24 Moments
South Karlov Avenue, North Lawndale, Chicago: a private home
Aristocrat becomes Chess, numbered from 1425, the family’s house number.
3905 South Cottage Grove Avenue, at Oakwood Boulevard
Leonard Chess runs the Macomba Lounge on Cottage Grove; Tom Archia leads the house band.
Leonard buys into Aristocrat Records and sells its records from the trunk of his car.
The Macomba Lounge is badly damaged by fire.
Cottage Grove Avenue at 49th Street, Grand Boulevard
Chess 1425, My Foolish Heart, and Chess 1426, Rollin’ Stone, reach the shops.
Checker 758, Little Walter’s Juke, is released and becomes a hit.
Muddy Waters’s Chess 1560 comes out in late January.
Cottage Grove Avenue at 47th Street, Grand Boulevard
Chess and Checker move to 4750 Cottage Grove.
Muddy Waters records in the back room of the offices.
Bo Diddley’s first single, Checker 814, reaches the shops.
The brothers call Chuck Berry’s School Day the biggest thing they have had.
Motor Row, Near South Side, Chicago
Chess, Checker and Argo move into 2120 South Michigan Avenue.
Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode, made at 2120, comes out as Chess 1691.
Howlin’ Wolf releases Willie Dixon’s Spoonful, Chess 1762.
The Rolling Stones record at Chess on their first American tour.
Fontella Bass’s Rescue Me is made at 2120, with Art Hoyle on trumpet.
The building reopens as the home of the Blues Heaven Foundation.
South Michigan Avenue, Motor Row, Chicago
Vee-Jay advertises from 2129 South Michigan.
East 21st Street, Near South Side, Chicago
Chess leaves 2120 for 320 East 21st Street.
South Lawndale, Chicago
The brothers’ radio station goes on air.
Norridge, on Chicago’s north-west edge
Leonard Chess dies in Chicago, aged 52.
706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee
Sam Phillips records Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats for Chess.
Howlin’ Wolf records in Memphis; Chess 1479 is out in August.
700 South Wabash Avenue, South Loop, Chicago
Buddy Guy, who recorded at Chess, keeps live blues going at his own club.
