by Renée Rosen
Evelyn shook her head, dismissing both of them as she pushed the talk button. “Let’s go again.”
The engineer hit a button and spoke into his microphone. “Rolling tape. ‘Chi-Baba Chi-Baba,’ take fourteen.”
There were three more takes after that. Leonard paced, slapping his hands to his thighs. The clock was ticking and he didn’t want to pay the overtime costs, which Leeba was calculating in her head. They had the studio booked at forty dollars an hour. The sidemen each got forty-one dollars and twenty-five cents for a standard three-hour session and Sherman as the bandleader got eighty-two dollars and fifty cents. Anything over three hours jumped the costs for everyone up to time and a half, according to the musicians’ union.
Eventually even Evelyn realized that the last take was as good as it was going to get, so she pushed the talk button one last time. “Okay. We got it. That’s it. Thank you, everyone.”
• • •
The following week the pressed records arrived—thirty-five hundred copies of “Chi-Baba Chi-Baba.” Leonard picked up a record and pursed his lips before chucking it back onto the pile. “Never should have pressed this many copies.”
Leeba spent the next two days gluing labels, stuffing 78s into sleeves and backing them with cardboard before placing them into packing envelopes. While she assembled the records, Evelyn and Leonard drove around town—Evelyn in her red convertible, Leonard in his beat-up Buick, both their trunks loaded with boxes of “Chi-Baba Chi-Baba.” They were trying to get the song into record stores, jukeboxes, drugstores and anywhere else they could think of. But more than anything they needed to get “Chi-Baba Chi-Baba” on the radio.
When Evelyn came back at the end of the day, Leeba knew she was exhausted. She sat with her jacket draped over her shoulders, her head cradled in her hands. A couple of jukebox distributors had said they would give it a try, and a drugstore had taken twenty-five copies, along with a beauty parlor that had agreed to take a dozen. Leonard, who had returned earlier, reported that he hadn’t fared much better.
“Are you even trying to sell this?” Evelyn asked.
“The record stinks,” said Leonard. “You give me something worth selling and I’ll sell the hell out of the motherfucker.”
“Really, Leonard, must you always talk like that?”
“What’s wrong with the way I fuckin’ talk?”
Leeba laughed. Leonard relished tormenting Evelyn, and in turn, Evelyn loved lording her fifty-one percent ownership over him. They argued for the sake of the fight, but in the end, Evelyn’s extra two percentage points always won out.
A week later Leeba was at the office, typing a letter to Evelyn’s furrier about storage for her mink, when she heard the familiar opening chords coming over the radio. Her fingers froze in place above the Smith-Corona. Even before the vocals started, she recognized the song immediately. It was “Chi-Baba Chi-Baba.”
Evelyn heard it, too, and dropped down in her chair. She went pale. It was “Chi-Baba Chi-Baba,” all right, but that wasn’t the Sherman Hayes Orchestra. Leeba noticed red blotches sprouting along Evelyn’s neck as the two of them listened, speechless. The disc jockey came on afterward and said, “And that was Louis Prima climbing the charts with his new hit, ‘Chi-Baba Chi-Baba’ . . .”
“Louis Prima.” Evelyn closed her eyes, her shoulders rising and falling as she breathed. More blotches appeared, deeper, redder. Leeba didn’t mention the upbeat tempo of the Prima version.
Evelyn rubbed her stomach. “I think I’m developing an ulcer.” She pulled a bottle of Bromo-Seltzer from her drawer. “I can’t compete with Louis Prima.” Leeba brought her a glass of water and Evelyn stirred in a spoonful of granules, the Bromo fizzing, misting up the insides of the glass just before she guzzled it down. “What are the odds—this can’t be happening.”
Two seconds later Leonard bolted through the front door looking rumpled, his shirt untucked, his trousers wrinkled, hair jutting out. “Did you just hear that?” He pointed to the radio. “It’s the second time they’ve played that goddamn song in the past hour.”
“Stop shouting.” Evelyn propped her elbows on her desk and pressed her fingers to her temples. “I can’t control who covers a song.”
“Maybe one of these days you’ll listen to me, huh?” Leonard picked up a copy of “Chi-Baba Chi-Baba” and sent it soaring across the room like a flying saucer.
FIVE
• • •
“Shake for Me”
RED
Getting to know a new guitar—especially an electric guitar—was like getting to know a woman. After almost five months Red was still getting comfortable with his Gibson, learning her curves, how to hold her, touch her and please her so she’d give off the sound he wanted.
Buying that electric guitar had cleaned him out. Seventy-seven dollars and fifty cents, but at least that included the fifteen-foot cord. The amp was another thirty-four dollars. Red knew he had no choice if he was going to make it in Chicago, but going electric was a whole new sound. He was still getting used to having tone and volume controls to contend with and learning how to deal with the feedback. Sometimes he actually liked the distortion, though, and tried working it into the songs.
But despite the Gibson’s fancy features, Red still preferred his secondhand acoustic. In the quiet of his crappy little room, he’d sit on the mattress—flush with the floor—and lean against the wall and play his Stella. That took his mind off his lousy job at the brickyard that still left him short after he’d paid his rent, always having to wonder how he’d eat from week to week.
Red and Little Walter had become regulars in Jewtown, playing out front of the Maxwell Street Radio and Record Store. When they weren’t on Maxwell Street, they were at the musicians’ union hall, a big recreation room with rehearsal booths along one side, card tables on the other and pool and Ping-Pong tables in the center. Two vending machines filled with cigarettes and candy greeted you at the doorway.
One day Red was sitting off to the side with Jimmy Rogers, another bluesman from Mississippi looking to break into the business. Jimmy was fiddling around, playing a few riffs on his new Harmony and talking about Aristocrat Records.
“They’re putting out race rec— Shit. God damn it.” Jimmy had dropped his pick inside his guitar. “God damn it,” he hissed again, shaking it violently upside down.
Red could hear the pick rattling around inside, trapped.
Jimmy kept talking, while still trying to retrieve it. “They got a new owner at the label now.” Shake, shake, shake. “It’s that white man—Leonard Chess—from the Macomba Lounge.”
Red knew the Macomba. It was over on Cottage Grove, and each time he went down there he was dazzled by the lights, the cars, all the action. Negro nightclubs lined both sides of the street, but the hottest spot on that strip was this little joint called the Macomba Lounge. He heard Archia got discovered there.
“God damn this thing.” Jimmy was still shaking his guitar.
“Give it here,” said Red. “I’ll get your pick out.”
“And how you fixin’ to do that?”
Red grabbed a pencil off a nearby table. “Watch.” He took Jimmy’s guitar and gently shook it until he lined the pick up with the sound hole. Red stuck the eraser end of the pencil down through the strings and held the pick in place while he gave the guitar a quick flip. With it still turned upside down, Red pulled out the pencil and the pick dropped through the strings and landed in his hand. “Here you go.”
“Damn.” Jimmy looked impressed as he reached for the pick and his guitar. “Now, like I was sayin’, if you boys was smart—”
“What do you mean, if? I am smart. I just got your damn pick out, didn’t I?”
Jimmy laughed. “Then you and Walter need to go make yourself a demo and take it to Aristocrat.”
And that was what they did. The next day Red and Little W
alter went to the Maxwell Street Radio and Record Store and talked to the owner, a Jewish guy with a glass eye. While Walter haggled over the price, Red glanced around the store at the brass horns, violins, maracas, concertinas and accordions mounted on the walls and at the beautiful baby grand up near the front. He kept looking around, eyes sweeping front to back, searching for that nice girl with the curly hair. It had been months since he’d seen her, but still each time he stepped inside that store his heart beat a little faster at the hope that she’d appear. She never did.
The owner led them back to the recording booth. A big sign over the doorway said “Welcome to Ora Nelle Record Company.” It was nothing more than a closet with shelving along one wall, loaded down with sheet music. It was a tight fit with the two of them inside and it was hot and smelled of hair tonic. They recorded an old Charley Patton song, “A Spoonful Blues.”
Red was sweating by the time they stepped out of the booth, but he was exhilarated. The owner handed him an eight-inch lacquer disc, his voice, his guitar playing committed forever in those grooves. This was the first real step he’d taken toward landing a recording deal.
• • •
The next day Red and Walter went down to Aristocrat Records. Red wore a suit he’d bought from a thrift store and freshly shined shoes. Walter slicked back his hair and put on too much aftershave. Red was anxious, nervous. So much was riding on Aristocrat wanting to produce their demo.
When they first got to the building, Red double-checked the address he’d jotted down. It didn’t look anything like he’d imagined a record company would and he tried to shrug off his disappointment as they stepped inside.
“. . . That’s what I’m saying, motherfucker . . .”
Red recognized Leonard Chess right away from the Macomba Lounge. He was on the phone, cussing someone out while a cigarette bobbed between his lips. An Admiral radio and phonograph took up most of his desk. There was a pretty redhead sitting behind a second desk, also on the telephone, plugging her ear with her free hand to block out Leonard. The third desk, a smaller one, was empty. They had a piano pushed against the wall, the bench piled high with magazines and newspapers.
As they stood there waiting, Little Walter couldn’t keep still. He was twitchy, tapping his foot, jangling the coins in his pocket. Neither Leonard nor the redhead seemed to notice they were there. Or maybe they didn’t care. The clock on the wall was frozen in time, stuck at a quarter past three. Red had no idea how long they’d been waiting.
“What are we supposed to do now?” asked Walter.
Red cleared his throat to get their attention. Nothing. He was thinking they should come back another time, when a young woman stepped out of the back room carrying a stack of folders. It took a moment before Red realized she was the girl from the radio and record store. That same surge of hope that he carried into the old Jewish man’s store each week along with his amp cord suddenly flooded his body. There she was. Without thinking, Red started to smile. She looked up, startled, like he and Walter had scared her. She almost dropped her folders. Red quickly reined himself in, remembering that he was a colored man with no business even thinking of a white woman like that.
He drew a deep breath and set his mind right. “Excuse me, ma’am—”
She recovered with a smile. “Oh—oh, hi.” She set the folders on her desk. “You’re the guitar player from Maxwell Street. You’re Red Dupree.”
He was so surprised she remembered him that he was struck speechless.
While he wrestled to think of something to say, Walter spoke up. “We’re here to see Mr. Chess. We got us a song for him to listen to, so you just tell him Little Walter’s here.” He raised the demo, shaking it like a tambourine.
She glanced over her shoulder in Leonard’s direction.
“. . . I’m done with polka music, motherfucker . . .”
“He should be finished with his call soon,” she said, looking back at Red. “Why don’t you fellows stick around.”
There were no chairs for them so Red and Walter stood there while the girl returned to her desk. Red felt her eyeing him when she thought he didn’t notice and it would have been wonderful if she’d been looking at him with even a glimmer of desire, but he knew better. He was used to white folks keeping tabs on him in their place of business, afraid he’d steal something or start trouble.
“So,” she said when he dared to let his gaze meet hers, “are you still playing in front of the radio and record store?”
“Sure are,” said Walter before Red could speak. “Every week. Last weekend we was playing for the biggest crowd yet . . .” Walter kept talking until Leonard Chess finally got off the phone.
Setting the receiver down he looked at Red and Walter for the first time. “Who are you?”
“Leonard—” The girl stood up as she made the introductions. “This is Red Dupree and Little Walter. They have a demo for you.”
Red’s chest went tight. His heart was pounding. This was it. This could be the moment that would change everything.
Leonard stubbed out his cigarette. “Okay,” he said, his fingers impatiently summoning them over, “let’s hear it.”
“Yes, sir.” Little Walter rushed forward and handed him the lacquered disc. “We have a big following down in Jewtown. Every Sunday folks down there be waiting for us and—”
Leonard raised his hand. “Spare me the sales pitch.” Leonard looked at the label on the demo. “Another one from Ora Nelle Record Company, huh?” He put the disc on the Admiral turntable and dropped the needle.
It sounded different listening to it in front of Leonard Chess. All Red heard was the poor quality of the recording. The distortion amplified, the scratchy static. He felt himself shrinking under the girl’s gaze, feeling her eyes on him. He started to sweat.
Eventually the redhead ended her telephone call.
“You hearing this, Evelyn?” Leonard said to her.
She came over and introduced herself just as the vocals began. She leaned on the desk, squinting as if that helped her hear better.
“Just guitar and harmonica?”
Red nodded. The best part—his guitar solo—was coming up and he didn’t want them to miss it.
“No sax? No piano?”
“No, sir.”
Leonard and the redhead exchanged looks just before Leonard raised the tonearm on the turntable and the music died. “Listen, fellas, a guitar and a harmonica do not a record make. Come back when you have a real band.”
SIX
• • •
“Bilbo Is Dead”
LEONARD
Leonard may not have had a hint of musical talent, but he knew how to spot someone who did. He booked all the acts for the Macomba and when it came to making records, he was learning to trust his gut. Just the other day a couple of musicians dropped off their demo—no sax, no piano, no nothing. He gave it a listen and turned them down. It was like that all the time, guys coming in off the street wanting to audition for him right at his desk. Some he liked and wanted to record, some he sent over to Phil at the Macomba and some, like that guitarist and the harp player, he sent packing.
But even more than his feel for talent, Leonard Chess had a head for business. Every other label, from the majors like RCA Victor and Capitol to the independents like Aristocrat, was putting out records by big bands and crooners. They all sounded alike. Especially the bulk of records Evelyn was producing. She insisted on putting out more Sherman Hayes records and had just signed a new act, the Dave Young Orchestra. Leonard bet they’d sell a couple hundred copies and soon be forgotten. “Fishin’ Pole” was the only song right now bringing in any money for them.
Personally Leonard didn’t have a strong feeling about race music one way or the other, but at least the songs coming out of the Macomba and other clubs on the South Side were different, fresh. It took some convincing, but after that �
��Chi-Baba” disaster Leonard got Evelyn to come down to the club to hear another young singer performing there. Andrew Tibbs was a good-looking kid with smooth dark skin, a thick wavy coif and a voice so clean, so sultry it made you sway along with him. The kid had charisma, too, and man, what he did to the women. He was shameless the way he’d look at them, suggestively sliding his fingers up and down that mike stand like he was hiking his way up under their dresses.
Evelyn agreed to sign him and two days later they had Tibbs in Studio A, the best room at Universal. They brought Tom Archia in to back him on the sax and another guy on piano. They had just finished laying down his first song, “Union Man Blues,” and there was still some time on the clock so Evelyn pushed the speaker box in the control booth and asked Tibbs if he wanted to record something else.
Andrew pulled a crumpled paper bag with some handwriting on it from his pocket. “Wait till you hear this,” he said.
Leonard propped himself on the edge of the control console. Evelyn lit a cigarette. The reel-to-reel was pausing off to the side.
“I’m calling this one here ‘Bilbo Is Dead,’” said Tibbs.
Leonard pressed the speaker button. “Bilbo? You wrote a song about that motherfucker in Mississippi that just died?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You wrote the song on a paper bag?” asked Evelyn.
“The inspiration just come to me and I didn’t have nothing else to write on,” said Andrew as he smoothed out the paper bag on top of the piano and launched into the lyrics, a sarcastic farewell to his “old friend” Theodore G. Bilbo, senator from Mississippi, bigot and proud member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Leonard howled. “I love it.” He leaned over and spoke into the mike, addressing Archia and the piano player. “How long will it take you fellas to learn this Bilbo number?”
