POP/ROCK - Jan. 10, 1989

The Commission on Chicago Landmarks this week will consider the nomination of the home of Chess Records, a nondescript two-story terra-cotta building on South Michigan Avenue, for city landmark status. Singer Chuck Berry thinks the structure should take its rightful place as a historic location in the development of urban blues. “I recorded some of my biggest hits at that address,” Berry says. “I have a lot of memories of it. They were great days of great music.” The building once was the mecca for the nation’s blues musicians--the home of Chess Records. Bluesman Willie Dixon would like to make the building the national headquarters for his Blues Heaven Foundation, which raises money for music scholarships, and perhaps a blues museum. “It is part of the history of America,” Dixon says. “Remember, all rock is the blues by rearrangement. And the blues should have a place, a home, so the world knows where they came from.”