Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood has been chosen to curate a concert celebrating the music of Chess Records for Bluesfest UK in June.
Ron Wood, The Rolling Stones (photo by Ros O'Gorman)
Ronnie will perform at the show and bring along some very special friends to play with him as well.
Chess Records was founded in Chicago in 1950 by brothers Leonard and Phillip Chess. The label was at 2120 S. Michigan Avenue. That address became famous as the title of a 1964 Rolling Stones years later.
Chess Records featured the world’s finest blues artists including Chuck Berry, Willie Dixon, Do Diddley, Memphis Slim, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williams II, John Lee Hooker and Buddy Guy.
The Rolling Stones recorded a total of 26 songs at Chess Records including ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Time Is On My Side’, ‘Little Red Rooster’ and ‘It’s All Over Now’.
The association with Chess continued when The Stones set up their own label ‘Rolling Stones Records’ and hired Leonard’s son Marshall to run the business.
Ronnie has been working on a setlist for his show and it will include the Chess classics No Particular Place To Go, At Last, My Babe, Hoochie Coochie Man, I’d Rather Go Blind, I’m A Man, Smokestack Lighnin’, Forty Days and Forty Nights and Maybellene.
Ronnie Wood and Friends – Celebrating The Chess Records Story will be held at the Hammersmith Apollo on Saturday, June 30, 2012.
