Leonard and Phil Chess's legendary Chicago label helped invent rock'n'roll with Ike Turner, brought  the minimalist blues of Muddy Waters, and provided a direct influence on the young Rolling Stones

Frank Zappa once said that the best years of rock were when records were produced by "cigar-chomping old guys who looked at the product that came and said, 'I don't know. Who knows what it is? Record it, stick it out. If it sells, all right.'"

Leonard and Phil Chess were prototypical cigar-chomping, old-fashioned record men who took a chance on music they didn't understand. Jewish immigrants from Poland, they got into the record business more or less by chance: Leonard bought a liquor store in an African American neighbourhood on the south side of Chicago, and did well enough that he opened a small nightclub called the Macomba Lounge. It was a rough ghetto bar, patronised by prostitutes and drug dealers, but from the start it was known for having good music. In the late-1940s, that meant it had jazz groups playing bebop, pop tunes, and mellow blues ballads. That was what the better-paying black patrons preferred to hear, and when Leonard got involved with a small local label, Aristocrat Records, that was what he intended to record.

It was only after the first few records went nowhere that he took a chance on another kind of musician, a Mississippi singer who was too raw and country-sounding to have pleased the crowds at the Macomba. In fact, when Leonard Chess first heard Muddy Waters sing I Can't Be Satisfied, in a Delta growl backed with a whining electric slide guitar, he couldn't imagine it pleasing anyone. "What's he saying?" he asked. "Who's going to buy that?"
Fortunately, his partner in Aristocrat, Evelyn Arons, suggested that some of the black southerners who had moved north in search of jobs might enjoy the sounds of home. So Chess pressed 3,000 singles, they sold out in a day, and six decades later Waters's recording is remembered as the first masterpiece of electric Chicago blues.

In a movie – and there have been several based on this story – Chess would have instantly seen the light and devoted himself to creating further blues masterpieces. But in real life he was not a patron of the arts; he was a businessman trying to cut popular hits. By 1950 Arons had been replaced by Leonard's brother Phil and the label was called Chess, but most of its releases continued to be by jazz saxophonists.

Meanwhile Waters was also trying to reach a broader audience, adding a drummer and harmonica player to his live shows to create a tight, tough band. He was frustrated when Chess refused to mess with a winning formula and insisted that he keep making stark guitar-and-bass records like Rollin Stone, a one-chord chant that was archaic even by the standards of rural Mississippi. Neither of them could have imagined that a dozen years later five lads in London would like that record enough to name a band after it.
That is the paradox of the Chess story. The brothers were not musical visionaries; they were small-time "indie" record men making a quick buck from the poorest, least respected people in America. But their cheaply recorded, bread-and-butter discs of local street musicians and bar bands still sound as fresh today as they did 60 years ago. By failing to be timely, they succeeded in being timeless.

They were also lucky, and unusually loyal to their artists. That loyalty did not prevent them from playing some tricky games with publishing and royalty payments, but it meant that down-home bluesmen like Waters and Howlin' Wolf continued to make records long after other indie labels had switched to a trendy teen style called rock'n'roll.

Leonard Chess and Waters had a particularly close relationship, and it served both of them well. When Waters finally persuaded Chess to record his full band, he incidentally brought the label its biggest blues hit-maker: Little Walter was barely out of his teens, and reshaped the course of blues harmonica by amplifying his instrument and playing it like a jazz saxophone. It was a fresh, hip sound, and in 1952 he cut an instrumental called Juke that stayed at the top of the R&B charts for eight weeks. Then, in 1955, Waters introduced Chess to an unknown songwriter from St Louis named Chuck Berry. In retrospect, the list of artists who were associated with Chess in that first decade forms a pantheon of electric blues and blues-influenced rock'n'roll: Waters, Wolf, Walter, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Berry, Bo Diddley. There were some startling one-offs as well: In 1951, a teenage Ike Turner recorded a romping boogie-woogie called Rocket 88 at Sun Studios in Memphis, soon to be the birthplace of rockabilly – but Sam Phillips had not yet started the record label that would spawn Elvis Presley, so the disc appeared on Chess. When Presley hit, Chess got its own white rock'n'rollers, Dale Hawkins and Bobby Charles. Many of the label's biggest hits in this period came from doo-wop groups.
When people talk about the "Chess sound", though, they are not thinking of rockabilly or doo-wop, or even of the brilliant soul records the label produced in the 1960s with Etta James, Fontella Bass and Little Milton. They are thinking of the stripped-down blues discs that, despite changing fashions, always remained among the label's mainstays.

Seattle-born rock icon Jimi Hendrix is recognized by many as one of the most creative and influential musicians of the 20th Century. Hendrix is a member of the U.S. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the UK Music Hall of Fame, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was named by Rolling Stone as the No. 1 guitarist of all time, and was the first inductee to the Native American Hall of Fame.
Legacy Recordings and Experience Hendrix LLC are proud to announce the highly-anticipated release of West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology, featuring more than four hours of rare and previously unreleased Jimi Hendrix music on a 5 Disc (4 CD/1 DVD) deluxe box set, available Tuesday, November 16.

The long-awaited career-spanning box set tracks Hendrix's remarkable journey from little known R&B sideman to international stardom through an unprecedented assemblage of previously unavailable recordings.
West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology is not a collection of existing Jimi Hendrix albums but instead 45 unreleased Jimi Hendrix live and studio recordings including demos and alternate versions of songs from Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love, and Electric Ladyland. West Coast Seattle Boy includes Hendrix's never before heard version of Bob Dylan's "Tears Of Rage," solo acoustic recordings of Electric Ladyland favorites like "Long Hot Summer Night" and "1983 (A Merman I Shall Turn To Be)" as well as never before heard live performances from Berkeley and the legendary Band Of Gypsys Fillmore East concert on New Year's Eve 1969 combined together with such new Hendrix songs as "Hear My Freedom," "Hound Dog Blues," "Lonely Avenue" and more.

A centerpiece achievement in Legacy Recordings' monumental Jimi Hendrix catalog project, West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology is the first Hendrix collection to bring fans access to a comprehensive treasure trove of fresh material - including demos, alternate takes, live concert jewels and more - from all phases of the artist's recording career (1964 -1970).

West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology offers the most complete collection of Jimi's pre-Experience R&B performances (including his singles with the Isley Brothers, Little Richard, Don Covay, King Curtis and more) to ever be officially anthologized, while bringing together the most comprehensive and revelatory set of fully realized songs, never before heard live performances, alternate studio takes, acoustic and electric demos, and other rarities drawn from every chapter of Jimi Hendrix's remarkable life and career.

The newly curated and assembled West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology includes Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child, a new 90 minute documentary directed by the multiple Grammy award winning Bob Smeaton (Beatles Anthology, Festival Express, Beatles: The Studio Recordings, Band of Gypsys). An autobiographical journey told in the legendary musician's own words as read by Parliament-Funkadelic's Bootsy Collins, the film incorporates interviews with Hendrix, coupled with the artist's letters, writings and recordings to provide new insight into one of the most enduring icons of popular culture. The documentary features some of Jimi's greatest performances as well as rare and never before seen footage and photos including-for the first time ever-examples from the Hendrix family archive of the late guitarist's personal drawings, postcards home to his father, song drafts, sketches, and lyrics.

"Who better to tell the incredible story of a man's life than the man himself? Jimi was amazing and only his music, with tones and textures that he conjured, can capture the colorful and expansive essence of his time here on earth. I am enthralled with this all-encompassing new anthology which not only illuminates his years on both sides of the Atlantic and beautifully reveals his versatility as a performer, from his R&B origins to his explosion on the pop culture scene, but highlights who he was for those who knew and loved him," said Janie Hendrix, President and CEO of Experience Hendrix and co-producer of West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology. "This vast exploration of my brother's musical and life experiences leaves no stone unturned and is sure to broaden our understanding of who Jimi really was, not only as a legendary musician, but also as a timeless messenger of love."

"Jimi Hendrix changed the world with his music and West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology honors that achievement with an unprecedented collection of rarities and never-before-heard tracks from the Hendrix vaults that show the breadth and depth of this extraordinary artist," said Adam Block, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Legacy Recordings. "West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology is a comprehensive overview of Hendrix's career told through fresh materials and provides remarkable new insights into one of music's greatest geniuses."

An essential and historic addition to the Jimi Hendrix catalog, West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology brings together, for the first time, many of Hendrix's earliest commercial recordings, providing a rare glimpse of the rising rock guitar hero through a series of stellar sideman performances on a set of highly collectible pre-Experience R&B singles. Included on Disc One of West Coast Seattle Boy are:

1. Isley Brothers - Testify (1964)
2. Don Covay & the Goodtimers - Mercy, Mercy (1964 - No 1 Cashbox R&B - No 35 Billboard Hot 100)
3. Don Covay & the Goodtimers - Can't Stay Away (1964)
4. Rosa Lee Brooks - My Diary (1965 - written by Arthur Lee)
5. Rosa Lee Brooks - Utee (1965)
6. Little Richard - I Don't Know What You Got But It's Got Me (1965)
7. Little Richard - Dancing All Around The World (1965)
8. Frank Howard & The Commanders - I'm So Glad (1966 - written by Billy Cox)
9. Isley Brothers - Move Over And Let Me Dance (1965
10. Isley Brothers - Have You Ever Been Disappointed (1965)
11. Ray Sharpe - Help Me (Get The Feeling) (Part I) (1966)
12. The Icemen - (My Girl) She's A Fox (1966)
13. Jimmy Norman - That Little Old Groovemaker (1966)
14. Billy Lamont - Sweet Thang (1968)
15. King Curtis - Instant Groove (1969)
* * * * *
Disc Two of West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology focuses on 1967-68 and Hendrix's breakout sessions with the Jimi Hendrix Experience:

1. Fire(1967) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
2. Are You Experienced (1967) - Previously Unreleased Recording
3. May This Be Love (1967) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
4. Can You See Me (1967) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
5. Love Or Confusion(1967) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
6. Little One (1967) - Previously Unreleased Recording (featuring Dave Mason on sitar)
7. Mr. Bad Luck (1967) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
8. Cat Talking To Me (1967) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
9. Castles Made Of Sand (1967) - Previously Unreleased Recording
10. Tears Of Rage (1968) - Previously Unreleased Recording
11. Hear My Train A Comin' (1968) - Previously Unreleased Recording
12. 1983 (A Merman I Shall Turn To Be) (1968) - Previously Unreleased
Recording
13. Long Hot Summer Night (1968) - Previously Unreleased Recording
14. My Friend (1968) - Previously Unreleased Recording
15. Angel (1968) - Previously Unreleased Recording
16. Calling All The Devil's Children (1968) - Previously Unreleased Recording
17. New Rising Sun (1968) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
* * * * *
Disc Three of West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology revisits 1968-1969, both a peak and pivotal period for Hendrix in which the artist was exploring bold new directions on stage and in the studio:

1. Hear My Freedom (1968) - Previously Unreleased Recording
2. Room Full Of Mirrors (1969) - Previously Unreleased Recording
3. Shame, Shame, Shame (1969) - Previously Unreleased Recording
4. Messenger (1968) - Previously Unreleased Recording
5. Hound Dog Blues (1969) - Previously Unreleased Recording
6. Untitled Basic Track (1968) - Previously Unreleased Recording

7. Star Spangled Banner (1969) - Previously Unreleased Original Mix
8. Purple Haze (1969) - Previously Unreleased Original Mix

9. Young/Hendrix (1969) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
10. Mastermind (1969) - Previously Unreleased Recording
11. Message To Love (1969) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
12. Fire (1969) - Previously Unreleased Recording
13. Foxey Lady (1969) - Previously Unreleased Recording
* * * * *
Opening with Hendrix's incendiary New Year's Eve performance of "Stone Free" at New York's Fillmore East on December 31, 1969 and closing with a previously unheard recording from Hendrix alone in his Greenwich Village apartment in 1970, Disc Four of West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology provides a fascinating portrait of an artist at his fiery best, working on the future:

1. Stone Free (1969) - Previously Unreleased Recording
2. Burning Desire (1970) - Previously Unreleased Recording
3. Lonely Avenue (1969) - Previously Unreleased Recording
4. Everlasting First (1970) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording (featuring Arthur Lee)
5. Freedom (1970) - Previously Unreleased Recording
6. Peter Gunn/Catastrophe (1970) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
7. In From The Storm (1970) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
8. All God's Children (1970) - Previously Unreleased Recording
9. Red House (1970) - Previously Unreleased Recording
10. Play That Riff [Thank You] (1970) - Previously Unreleased Recording
11. Bolero (1970) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
12. Hey Baby (New Rising Sun) - Previously Unreleased Alternate Recording
13. Suddenly November Morning (1970) - Previously Unreleased Recording
* * * * *
West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology is the centerpiece of Legacy Recordings/Experience Hendrix LLC's second wave of Hendrix catalog releases. Also arriving on November 16 from the artist Rolling Stone magazine called "the greatest guitarist of all time" are deluxe editions of Jimi Hendrix Experience: BBC Sessions and Jimi Hendrix: Blues, his legendary Live At Woodstock performance, and Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year, the highly collectible Jimi Hendrix Christmas EP.

A single disc "Best Of" edition of West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology will be available, with or without the Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child DVD documentary. West Coast Seattle Boy - The Jimi Hendrix Anthology will also be available in a deluxe edition featuring 8 12" vinyl LPs.
* * * * *
Experience Hendrix Tour 2010, the fourth edition of the biennial concert tour that features an all-star line up of music greats paying homage to the music and legacy of Jimi Hendrix, is currently underway with performances across the country.

Featured artists who will be performing music written and inspired by Jimi Hendrix include some of the best known and most respected musical talent in contemporary rock and blues including Steve Vai, Jonny Lang, Eric Johnson, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Brad, Ernie Isley, Living Colour, Mato Nanji, Double Trouble's Chris Layton, along with bassist Billy Cox. Cox, who first befriended Hendrix when the two were in the 101st Airborne Division of U.S. Army, played in both the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Band of Gypsys and performed with Hendrix at such landmark festivals as Woodstock and the Isle of Wight.
(All tracks are original master recordings)

(These tracks will be available in Europe on PlayStation 3 system Oct. 13)
According to the April 2010 Stereophile review of Valleys of Neptune, “Today, [Hendrix’s] music appeals as much to musically wise 17-year-olds as to still-spirited baby boomers.”
Janie Hendrix, the CEO of Experience Hendrix LLC, and Sony Music Entertainment’s Legacy Recordings launched their monumental 2010 Jimi Hendrix Catalog Project on March 9 with the release of “Valleys Of Neptune.”

The newly curated album of 12 fully realized studio recordings features more than 60 minutes of music never commercially available on a Hendrix album.

The project focuses around tracks recorded during a pivotal and turbulent four-month period in 1969.

“Valleys of Neptune” unveils the original Jimi Hendrix Experience’s final studio recordings, (Hendrix, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bass player Noel Redding) as the trio lays down the foundation for its follow-up to Electric Ladyland, alongside first sessions with bassist Billy Cox, an old army buddy he’d recruited into his new ensemble.

“Valleys of Neptune” is previously unreleased Hendrix music, originally recorded and mixed for this historic release by Hendrix’s longtime engineer Eddie Kramer, who first worked with the guitarist on his debut Are You Experienced? album in 1967.

“Valleys of Neptune” reveals an audio view of what Hendrix was up to musically in the critical period between the release of Electric Ladyland in October 1968 and the 1970 opening of his own Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, the state-of-the-art facility where he would begin his final project, the album First Rays of the New Rising Sun.

“Valleys of Neptune” is produced by Janie Hendrix, John McDermott (who contributes detailed liner notes to the album) and Kramer.

“The idea was to look at a really interesting period of Jimi’s career,” presents John McDermott. “It’s about the Jimi Hendrix legacy. We look at it as an important piece of the puzzle. We had spent the last few years sort of enhancing and improving the classic iconic live things like Woodstock and Monterey and so here let’s turn back towards the studio. Let’s again focus on a time period that is really important in terms of the development of Jimi’s career.

“You discover the root is the songs. The songs are wonderful. They connect and continue to inspire. They’re great. The cool thing about Jimi Hendrix that particularly young fans should understand is that he had the foresight to own his own master recordings. He did not record at his record company’s studio like The Beatles did, for example. He did not have an engineer who was a union employee and who would look at a clock, ‘OK Jim, you got to go. Somebody else is coming in at 11.’ He was a guy used the studio as a tool to write and create.”

About his product collaborations with Janie Hendrix and Eddie Kramer, McDermott also adds, “We have the benefit of continuity. And that Janie, Eddie and I have worked together now for 12 years. And we’ve been able to not only plot out releases that we want to focus on but cast the net to find cool things. And so we’re not beholden to anybody to put records out. So in this process we mixed some things, kept going, found like a couple of gems, and said, ‘This fits perfectly here. That’s going to be part of the record.’ ‘Ships Passing Through The Night’ is one such example. That is what informs a lot of the decision making. You get gifts like that,” reflects McDermott.

Housed in the “Valleys of Neptune” album are songs that include the final studio recordings birthed by the original Jimi Hendrix Experience (after Electric Ladyland, in addition to capturing Hendrix’s initial efforts to forge a new sound equation with drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Billy Cox).

The 2010 March release includes unearthed studio covers of Elmore James’ classic “Bleeding Heart” and Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” as well as original Hendrix compositions like the aforementioned “Ships Passing Through The Night,” “Lullaby For The Summer” and the original un-dubbed Jimi Hendrix Experience rendition of “Hear My Train A Comin’.”

Also included in “Valleys of Neptune” is “Mr. Bad Luck,” a Jimi Hendrix Experience track produced by Chas Chandler during the 1967 Axis: Bold As Love sessions. There’s also a recording of “Stone Free” that Hendrix produced with vocal overdubs courtesy of Family’s Roger Chapman and Andy Fairweather Low.

“Jimi would re-visit songs — like ‘Stone Free,’” McDermott explains. “The cool thing is, which I think people have to understand, is that it’s a signature song to the audience at large. No doubt about it. It was the first song he wrote for The Experience and [it’s] on the B-side of ‘Hey Joe’ but not included in the debut U.S. Reprise Records U.S. Are You Experienced? album.

“He did it quickly because it was all that they could afford. And by 1969 he had brought it back to his live set and said, ‘You know what? America and the world have not really heard this song.’

“And ‘Stone Free’ also shows the role of Eddie Kramer. I think the wonderful thing about Eddie — and he is such an asset to the work we do; we’re grateful to have him — is that I’ve been through every tape in the library. And when Jimi wanted to be serious about something, you can tell it’s a session Eddie is involved with, because there’s a communication between the two of them. You can hear it on the session tapes. They are working towards something. Like ‘Stone Free,’ for example. When they brought Billy (Cox) in, they did a few sessions with Billy playing with other people, jamming a little bit, but when it was time to get serious, Jimi called Noel in and called Mitch in and they cut ‘Stone Free.’ And you know it’s time to get to business.”

The first wave of products for the Jimi Hendrix Catalog Project, Legacy Recordings released on March 9 new deluxe CD/DVD editions of “Are You Experienced?,” “Axis: Bold As Love,” “Electric Ladyland” and “First Rays of the New Rising Sun,” also available on vinyl.

Each of the subsequent titles in the Hendrix catalog planned for reissue on Legacy will feature a bonus DVD featuring newly created documentaries directed by Grammy-award-winning director Bob Smeaton [“Beatles Anthology,” “Festival Express,” “Beatles: The Studio Recordings”] and featuring interviews with Experience members Redding, Mitchell and Cox, original producer Chandler and engineer Kramer.

For us, the blues just sounded right, "he said. "It resonates with people in a way that truly authentic And that brings us to the Howlin 'Wolf, which is one of the pioneers of blues, so he is a great figure for us to draw from so we listen ..'. Lightning chimney, 'with clear vocals and harmonica performance, we think it is the perfect way to accompany our story says. "

Besch, who is an executive creative director at McGarryBowen, said the other radiated Wolf music a key ingredient in Viagra campaign - masculinity. "Wolf's Song has a vibration really sure for that," he said. "It felt very masculine - it is really communicated in tones of sand and the style of who this person really is."

All that AdSpeak than about confidence and masculinity, I should think that if Wolf is still alive today, he would get a big kick to hear one of his songs used to plug Viagra, so someone explain to him what the product is for. I saw Wolf a few times when I was a teenager and even in the twilight of his career he flowed sex appeal, always drawing ooh and aah from Chicago's South Side woman watching him work his magic on the local blues clubs. In fact, if you listen to the lyrics of some of Wolf hits, like "Back Door Man," "The Red Rooster" and "Wang Dang Doodle," You could say that Wolf grasp the essence of Viagra, long before it was even invented.

North America Inquiries Contact:
Morganfield Enterprises
Atlanta, Georgia
Office (770) 249-0079

William Morganfield…Owner/Agent
Email: bbm@bigbillmorganfield.com


Debra Lyn…Agent
Email: debralyn@bigbillmorganfield.com

For Southwestern US Bookings Contact:

Texas Music Agency/TMA Talent
Wallace Watson…Owner/Agent
31 Royal Oaks Cir.
Denton, TX. 76210
Phone: (940) 391-1536
Email: wallace@texasmusicagency.com




For European Booking Inquiries Contact:

Break Live Music
European Booking Agency
Via del Commercio 70
63100 Ascoli Piceno ITALIA
ph/fax: 0039.0736.344251
Massimo Piccioni…Owner/Agent
e-mail: info@breaklivemusic.com

Tickets are available through MissionTix: www.missiontix.com/

Venue Information – Bourbon Street: www.bourbonstreetbaltimore.com/