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Chess Rock 'n' Roll - The World of Chess Records
Comment:
For all that we think of Chess as a blues label — and with Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter on the roster, why wouldn't we? — its roots in rock are just as deep, and every bit as impressive. Truth is, the very first album Chess ever issued was the soundtrack to DJ Alan Freed's [i]Rock, Rock, Rock![/i], and seven of the label's first ten LPs were also rockers. Until Chess signed Benny Goodman(!), Dale Hawkins was the label's lone white artist, but his stompabilly smash, "Suzie Q," positively [i]scorches[/i] with the raw bite of fresh-made swamp-water hooch straight outta Shreveport, where it was recorded. While Bo Diddley's "Roadrunner" is missing two classic Diddleyisms — the hambone beat and Bo's own, oft-inserted name — it shimmies and swaggers with the world's easiest-to-follow prescription for that infectious rock 'n' roll: Shake. Boogie. Repeat. And the king of Chess rockers, Chuck Berry, duck-walks his way into the second-biggest hit of his career with "Sweet Little Sixteen," the song that unwittingly started surf music after it was swallowed whole by the Beach Boys half-a-decade later as "Surfin' U.S.A." From "Rocket 88" to "High Heel Sneakers" to "Memphis," Chess artists laid down a rock-solid foundation for three generations of rock 'n' rollers from L.A. to London, and we've got it all.