Mississippi to Chicago
[Side A:]The "Great Migration" from the South to "the Promised Land" of Chicago brought more African Americans here from Mississippi than any other state, especially during and after World War II. With the migrants came the Delta blues that was the foundation of the classic postwar Chicago blues style. Muddy Waters, who became the king of Chicago blues, was among the thousands of Mississippians who arrived on Illinois Central trains at Central Station, which stood across the street from this site from 1893 to 1974.
[Side B:]Sweet Home Chicago Robert Johnson never moved to the place he praised in his song "Sweet Home Chicago," but his sentiments were shared by thousands of fellow Mississippi natives who came here in search of a better life. In "Chicago Bound," bluesman Jimmy Rogers called the city "the greatest place around," and in "Chicago Blues," Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup deemed it "the grandest place on earth." Many migrants traveled north on the Illinois Central (IC) via its extensive lines that spread across the Deep South, including eight hundred miles of IC-owned Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad track that criss-crossed the Mississippi Delta. Pullman porters on IC trains to Mississippi often delivered copies of the African-American newspaper, the
Chicago Defender, which organized "migrant clubs" and arranged group discounts for train fare northward. The first wave of the "Great Migration" began with World War I, and between 1910 and 1920 the number of black Chicagoans who were born in Mississippi increased from 4,612 to 19,485.
The rise of the blues industry in Chicago attracted many musicians, and during the 1930s, blue artists here who claimed Mississippi roots included Willie Dixon, Memphis Minnie, Lil Green, and Big Bill Broonzy. During World War II the need for factory labor helped fuel a larger wave of migration, and between 1940 and 1950 some 150,000 Mississippians move here. Muddy Waters, Howl'in Wolf, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed, Sunnyland Slim, Elmore James, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller), Otis Rush, and Magic Sam were among the many who arrived in the 1940s and ?50s and found recording opportunities with Chess, Vee-Jay (co-founded by Mississippi native Vivian Carter), Cobra, and other labels. Blues clubs proliferated on the South and West sides, and Chicago's airwaves also took on a down-home Mississippi flavor on programs hosted by Pervis Spann of WVON and Al Benson of WGES, who earned the honorary title "Mayor of Bronzeville" as the South Side's most popular personality. Local labels Delmark and Testament began recording blues albums in Chicago for a new generation of listeners in the 1960s, paving the way for other companies such as Alligator and Earwig. Albums by Mississippi-born bluesmen Big Joe Williams, Jimmy Dawkins, Carey Bell, Honeyboy Edwards, Big Walter Horton, Eddy Clearwater, Eddie Shaw, Magic Slim, Fenton Robinson, Eddie C. Campbell, and Hound Dog Taylor brought their music to worldwide attention. Foreign tourists made Chicago a musical destination, and the local blues audience adopted "Sweet Home Chicago" as its theme song as the blues expanded to the North Side, the suburbs, and here to Grant Park, where the world-renowned Chicago Blues Festival debuted in 1984.
Welcome to one of
the many sites on the
Mississippi Blues TrailVisit us online at www.MSBluesTrail.org
The markers on the Mississippi Blues Trail trace the historical route of the blues from its Mississippi roots through its development in Memphis, Chicago, and other cities. This is marker No. 77, Dedicated on June 11, 2009, on the eve of the 26th annual Chicago Blues Festival.
This site also marks the starting point of the Chicago Blues Tour, a guided journey to sites and sounds of Chicago blues history. Go to www.ExploreChicago.org to experience the tour narrated by Buddy Guy.
This project was funded in part by a grant from National Endowment for the ArtsCity of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, Mayor
[Photograph Captions:]
[Photographs, top left:]The IC route map, 1943, and postcard of the IC Depot (Central Station) and Grant Park, 1908.Central Station was within a mile of important institutions of Chicago blues, including the open-air market of Maxwell Street, where many newly arrived musicians from Mississippi played, and the stretch of South Michigan Avenue called "record row" because many record companies were headquartered there. Chicago's blues festival legacy began just east of this site in 1969 with a one day event called the Grant Park Blues Festival. The station building was demolished in 1974.
[Photograph, top right]Soul music pioneer Sam Cooke was born in Mississippi and raised in Chicago, where he began his career as a gospel singer. Chicago-based soul and soul-blues singer Denise LaSalle, Jerry Butler, Tyrone Davis, Little Milton, Junior Parker, Otis Clay, McKinney Mitchell, and Syl Johnson also came from Mississippi.
[Photograph, bottom right]Al Benson, the "Old Swingmaster," was once Chicago's most influential deejay. He also recorded blues and R&B artists on his Parrot and Blue Lake labels, among others. His nephews, fellow Mississippi transplants George and Ernest Leaner, operated an important Chicago soul label, One-derful! Records.
[Photograph, middle left]The classic sound of Chicago blues was largely shaped by Mississippi Muddy Waters (front), a leader in development of the electric blues band format, and Willie Dixon, who wrote and produced many of the genre's greatest hits. They are pictured together here at a September 1963 session at the Ter-Mar Studios of Chess Records at 2120 South Michigan. At right is Louisiana native Buddy Guy on guitar. The Chess building later became the home of Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation.
[Photograph, bottom left]The first blues club owner ever elected to the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame was Teresa Needham, who established the fabled Theresa's Lounge in Chicago in 1949 after arrival from Mississippi. She is pictured here at her club in 1974.
Images courtesy of Jim O'Neil (BluEsoterica Achives), Scott Barretta, City of Chicago, and Library of Congress
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