Customer Reviews

Machers and Rockers: Chess Records and the Business of Rock & Roll (Enterprise)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Machers and Rockers is an embarrassment to the publishing industry. Just about everything the author knows about Chess Records and the Chess brothers was lifted from Nadine Cohodas's vastly superior book, Spinning Blues Into Gold. Cohen manages to insert a mistake onto every other page of his book, even to misreading Cohodas's book. For example, the address of the Macomba was 39th and Cottage Grove, not 47th and South Karlov, Muddy Waters was NOT pioneering his new sound in the Checkerboard (a club that came way after the 1940s), Chess was not recording in makeshift studios early on, but in the top-notch Universal Recording, he has Sam Phillips selling Evis's contract to RCA for 30K in one place and 35K in another, he has Etta James singing "Don't Go to Strangers" instead of Etta Jones and then pretends to have listened to it with an evocative description, he has 2120 the last address of Chess when the address was it was 320 E. 21st, he has Ben E. King leading the Moonglows when it was Bobby Lester, and on and on and on. Not only can Cohen not get the facts right, he has absolutely no understanding of the label and its recording legacy. This is a dishonest book written by an author who has absolutely no quams on foisting a worthless book on the public.

If you plan to spend money on a book about Chess Records and the Chess brothers I emplore you to invest it in the tremendously researched and far more interesting Spinning Blues Into Gold. Books like Marchers and Rockers need to be ground up into pulp as fast as possible to avoid infecting the public discourse on this famous label.

This is a book about American Pop Culture. About music, yes, but also about a certain type of person, and and a certain time, and a certain culture that is on its way out. Or already gone. I think it is really like a Chicago version of that Irving Howe book, "World of Our Fathers." It is about Jews, blues and the old city of Chicago. I reccomend it highly.

this book reminds me of a great old rock and roll song. more than any other book or movie i know, it makes clear all the connections, where the blues turns into rock and roll, and where the businessman becomes the rock and roll executive. it is also the bigger story of race and culture, and how that old nation became the new America.

I read this book in one sitting, it just flows. But it's also full of surprises and things you will want to tell people about.

I had no idea who Leonard Chess was before this, and now I cant believe that was the case.

I recently purchased Rich Cohen's 'The Record Men' and 'Machers and Rockers', which are presented as two separate books on the subject of Chess Records, i.e. the descriptions are completely different. In actuality, the only difference is 'The Record Men' is a paperback, and 'Machers and Rockers' is hardcover. Otherwise, the chapter titles and text throughout are exactly the same. Amazon also offers a discount for purchasing these titles together, which is highly misleading. If Mr. Cohen didn't have enough material or insight on Chess Records to write two separate books with separate content, he should have written one book, and included better pictures and more extensive historical information. Buyer beware!

i liked rich cohen's previous books, and this one is filled with juicy anecdotal detail and a fresh perspective on the emergence of rock & roll. but it's filled with factual errors: bo diddley's name is misspelled throughout (in a history of chess records!); ben e. king is identified as the lead singer of the moonglows (it was the drifters); twice, cohen says that sam phillips sold elvis' contract to columbia records; he places the who's 'who's next' tour in '77 (the album came out in '71); dion & the belmonts didn't record 'stagger lee'...dion did as a solo artist. cohen's writing is vivid, and the story he has to tell is an important one, but when the story is riddled with mistakes (there are plenty more), it becomes frustrating.

Another addition to the "hey I never knew" series of books put out by this author. Gritty, tough, hard to put down. This is a great read and short enough that it doesn't give you a hand cramp. What could be better? Okay, so maybe Chess was a bit of a thieving creep, but he was interesting and did something with his life. No? You might also check out: Tough Jews. Different characters, same gestalt, more blood.

This is a decent book that is mostly about the life of Leonard Chess, who was the genius behind Chess Records, which produced some of the greatest electric Blues and Rock 'N' Roll records of the 1950s and '60s. Unfortunately, the author constantly misquotes lyrics to songs by Muddy Waters, Chess Records' biggest star, something for which there is no excuse. There are also many other inaccuracies in the book, such as: the author stating that "Gershwin created the template for Jazz" (page 88), which is beyond absurd, the mentioning of Robert Little John (does the author mean John Littlejohn?) and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown being Chess artists (page 105), stating that there wouldn't have been a Woodstock without the Beatles (where is the proof of this?), giving incorrect lyrics to a Little Walter song (page 112), stating that The Moonglows' lead singer was Ben E. King (he was a part of The Drifters), mentioning that older Blues stars, specifically Lonnie Johnson, were pushed into retirement during the Rock 'N' Roll era and "rediscovered" twenty or thirty years later (this would mean Lonnie was "rediscovered" in the '70s or '80s, by which time he was long dead), and some minor mistakes. This is an easy read and certainly not a bad book, though.

These "record men" were a special breed. Men like Herman Lubsinky at Savoy in New Jersey, Sam Phillips at Sun in Memphis, Syd Nathan of King Records in Cincinnati and one Leonard Chess were the driving force in the evolution of the music we now call rock and roll. "Machers and Rockers: Chess Records and the Business of Rock and Roll" concentrates on Leonard Chess and tells the remarkable story of Chess Records. In the span of 20 years beginning in 1948, the Chess brothers, Leonard and Phil, would build Chess records into the second largest independent record company in America. No small achievement! More importantly, it was Leonard Chess who played a pivotal role in bringing the blues out of the fields and into America's cities. It was this development, perhaps more than any other, that would ultimately result in the emergence of what we now call rock & roll in the mid 1950's.

How did these guys do it? Why did these men succeed when so many others tried and failed? As author Rich Cohen points out there was really nothing terribly mysterious about it. Leonard Chess was a savvy businessman who was determined to succeed in the record business. And God knows, he was not afraid of hard work. Successful "record men" would do whatever it took. Leonard Chess was actively involved in nearly every aspect of his business. He beat the bushes in search of talent. He signed the artists and produced the records. Then he would stuff thousands of records into the trunk of his car and hustle them all over the Midwest. For the indies like Chess there was little margin for error. A major miscalculation could doom a small record company.

"Machers and Rockers" is a revealing look into the underbelly of the recording industry in 1950's America. However, as other reviewers have pointed out there are several glaring errors in this book. Some pretty sloppy research if you ask me. The best I can muster is a lukewarm recommendation. Since there are a number of books devoted to the subject of Chess records you might want to check out one of those.

Avid followers of popular music will readily understand the importance of Chess Records in the early to modern business of rock and roll production, and won't want to miss Rich Cohen's Machers And Rockers: Chess Records And The Business Of Rock & Roll, an excellent survey of the two immigrants who changed the course of musical history by recording such artists as Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry. Cohen's lively coverage tells how Chess rose to become a multi-billion-dollar business, aggressively marketing artists and riding the rock and roll wave.