CHICAGO – As we make our way up the narrow, windowless, wooden stairway, we hear the jangly opening beats of The Rolling Stones' “2120 South Michigan Avenue” playing from a portable speaker behind us.

Along with early Mississippi migrants Muddy Waters, Son House, and Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon was a key figure and an early pioneer in the formation of the Chicago blues sound by the 1940s.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chess Records, which brought blues to white audiences in the 1950s and 60s, is one of a handful of labels identified with one musical genre - as Stax is with soul, Sun with ...