{"id":485046,"date":"2026-02-23T04:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T04:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/485046\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T04:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T04:27:09","slug":"the-chicago-address-immortalised-in-a-rolling-stones-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/485046\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chicago address immortalised in a Rolling Stones song"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Bent Rej)<\/p>\n

Sun 22 February 2026 23:30, UK <\/p>\n

Before they were the Glimmer Twins; before anybody knew who The Rolling Stones<\/a> were, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were just ambitious young kids who had a fascination with American blues music, especially the stuff coming out of one city in particular.<\/p>\n

\u201cI moved into a flat with [Mick],\u201d Richards once said, \u201cAnd the smart thing to do from that point on was to buy records from Chicago\u2014Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters\u2014and soak them up, because we wanted to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those \u201crecords from Chicago\u201d were usually released on the same label, Chess Records, and recorded in the same humble two-story building at 2120 South Michigan Avenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI recorded some of my biggest hits at that address,\u201d Chuck Berry<\/a> recalled to the Chicago Tribune in 1989. \u201cI have a lot of memories of it. They were great days of great music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chess, which was named after its founders, brothers Leonard and Phil Chess, was established in 1947 and moved into its Michigan Avenue building a decade later, with a team of just 15 people on staff running the whole operation. The Chess brothers were as ambitious as Jagger and Richards in their own way, and equally passionate about blues music, with the distinct advantage of living in a city where many of the great blues players from the American South had decided to resettle in the 1950s and \u201860s, drawn by economic opportunities and a growing Chicago music scene with a new sound all its own.<\/p>\n

These artists, including Muddy Waters, Howlin\u2019 Wolf, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Etta James, Buddy Guy, and Koko Taylor, didn\u2019t just export \u201cthe Chicago sound\u201d to the world with Chess; they laid the groundwork for rock \u2018n\u2019 roll in America and overseas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the Rolling Stones, on their first-ever American tour in the summer of 1964, made sure that their stop in Chicago included a visit to Chess\u2019s studios. And it wasn\u2019t just a quick tour of the building, either. Famously, the boys were given the opportunity to enter the studio space, watch Buddy Guy<\/a> lay down a solo, then get to work in the same room where so many of their heroes had made those records they used to buy back home. They were, naturally, feeling like little tikes in a sweet shop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The result was an entire EP of new recordings, all laid down on June 11, 1964, called Five By Five, which went straight to number one on the UK charts later that summer. It featured a few blues rock covers, including songs by Chuck Berry and Wilson Pickett, as well as two original jams collectively written and recorded by the band on the day: \u2018Empty Heart\u2019 and an instrumental homage to the day and place, called \u20182120 South Michigan Avenue\u2019.<\/p>\n

Just two years later, after the Stones had emerged as one of the world\u2019s biggest rock bands, Chess relocated to a larger building in Chicago, and 2120 S Michigan gradually fell into a rough state. The building was eventually revived and preserved as a museum, however, and remains a local landmark run by the Willie Dixon Blues Heaven Foundation. It\u2019s a worthwhile stop for any visitor to Chicago today, rivalled only by a gig at Buddy Guy\u2019s \u201cLegends\u201d Blues Club, where the man himself is still known to make appearances at the age of 89.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had no ambition to be the biggest or best band in the world,\u201d the Stones\u2019 late bassist Bill Wyman once told the Chicago Tribune. \u201cWe just wanted to play Chicago blues for anyone who would listen to us.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Bent Rej) Sun 22 February 2026 23:30, UK Before they were the Glimmer Twins;…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[137208,157,88,216,1735],"class_list":{"0":"post-485046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-blues","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-the-rolling-stones"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}