by Renée Rosen
“He’s saying our record’s dead. That’s what you’re saying, Phil, isn’t it?” The knot in Leeba’s gut twisted.
“I’m sorry, girls. Like I say, it’s a tough business.”
“That’s it?” Aileen’s mouth was hanging open. Her nerves were coming unhinged. “But how can you just give up on it?” asked Aileen. “How can you give up on us?”
“I don’t want you to take this personally,” said Phil.
“Oh sure, Phil,” Aileen said with a sarcastic sneer. “Nothing personal about my whole future riding on this.” She scooted out of the booth, grabbed her pocketbook and umbrella. “You tell Leonard thanks for nothin’. He didn’t even have the guts to come tell us himself.”
“Wait—” Leeba reached out for her arm, but Aileen yanked it away and headed up front.
Leeba started after her and Aileen paused, her hand on the door already setting off the chimes overhead. “I don’t wanna talk about it. Just leave me alone, okay?”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m gonna go find Muddy.” She turned and stormed out of the restaurant.
Leeba went back to the booth and propped her head in her hands. So naïve she was. Even though she worked in the business, knew the odds, she had thought they were on their way. It had never occurred to her that their record could flop. But it did. Spectacularly. They never even got it played on the radio.
Part of her, like Aileen, was angry with Leonard and Phil for not doing more to promote the song, but she understood this was a business decision. Still her heart broke in so many places, for herself and for Aileen, whom she feared would be plunged into darkness once again.
Two days after her friend had stormed out of Deutsch’s, Leeba found Aileen sitting on the floor in her kitchenette in her underwear, ankles crossed, her arms looped about her shins. She stared into her potted plant watching the fruit flies. She’d had them for years—they’d breed, die, breed, die, breed some more.
“Are you okay?” Leeba asked foolishly, not knowing what else to say.
Aileen wouldn’t answer.
Leeba opened the window shade, letting the sunlight glint off the empty bottles of bourbon cast about the room. And a syringe.
“Aileen?” Leeba held it up, alarmed. “What’s this doing here?”
Aileen glanced back over her shoulder. “Oh, that. That’s J.J.’s. He must have left it here.”
“J.J.’s? What was he doing here? Are you on dope now? You’re not getting mixed up with him again, are you?”
“No, I am not on dope and, no, I’m not getting mixed up with him again.” A fly landed on the floor near her foot. Aileen leaned over and squished it beneath her index finger. A green inky smudge lingered. “He just stopped by ’cuz he knew I was upset.”
Leeba went over and sat down next to her. “I know you’re disappointed. I am, too. But look how far we got.”
Aileen shook her head. “Why do I let that man do this to me?”
Leeba sighed. “J.J.’s no good.”
“I’m not talking about J.J.” She looked up at Leeba with tears trundling down her cheeks. “It’s Muddy. I don’t know where he is or who he’s with. I just know he ain’t here with me.”
So this had nothing to do with their record. This was about Muddy.
“And you wanna know what the really crazy part is? I ain’t worried about Muddy’s wife. It’s all those women at his shows. They’re passing him phone numbers and addresses, sending him drinks. They get up on the stage dancing with him, running their fingers through his hair.” She paused as a tear ran down her face. “I get so jealous I can’t see straight.”
Leeba reached over and thumbed away her tears.
“The worst part about havin’ a jealous kinda love is that you end up having a relationship with the other woman, not with your man. ’Cuz you’re thinking about her when you should be thinking about him. A jealous kinda love is the worst kind of love there is.” She covered her face in her hands and cried. “Sometimes I swear I’m going crazy. Just like my mama did before she killed herself.”
Leeba held her while Aileen sobbed. “You’re not like your mama.”
“I swear I just want out. I just wanna die.”
Leeba had heard that so many times she no longer flew into a panic. It was just talk. It was just Aileen.
Another twenty minutes or so and she managed to get Aileen off the floor and into bed. Her eyes were swollen to slits from crying so much. Leeba stayed with her, perched on the side of the bed until Aileen had cried herself to sleep. Leeba pulled a blanket up to her chin, turned off the lights and let herself out, locking the door behind her with her spare key.
It was late. Red was on the road, touring in Cleveland and Cincinnati to promote his new record, “Settle Down, Boy,” which was climbing the charts. Leeba didn’t feel like going home to an empty apartment. Besides, something Aileen had said earlier had been knocking around inside her head, so she went to the office and headed for the piano. With her right hand she tinkered with something, letting the thoughts tumble out:
I got a jealous kinda love for you, baby
A love that burns down in my soul
Yeah, I got a jealous kind of love for you now, baby
and it’s a burnin’ in my soul
I got a jealous kinda love
and where my heart was, there’s a hole.
The melody was there as more lines came to her, all of it tied up in a neat package. The song “Jealous Kinda Love” was born.
The next night Leeba brought Aileen down to the office and played the song for her. As soon as Aileen heard it, her eyes sparkled wide and bright for the first time since Phil had told them their record was dead. “This is it,” she said. “This is my song!”
They stayed at Chess working on “Jealous Kinda Love,” the two sitting side by side at the piano, drinking coffee from paper cups and going over and over each line. Sometimes they got stumped by a phrase and it lost all meaning, like a word said too many times in a row. But when the lyrics and the music were working, Leeba felt it melding together inside her. The song was energy—a living, breathing thing. When they’d gotten it to where it needed to be, they both knew it. Leeba had never felt this way about anything they’d ever done together. It had the right melody, the right emotion; and it had a catchy hook.
The next day Leeba went to Phil. “We have a new song,” she said. They were in his office and she had just handed him a stack of mail and the new trade magazines.
“A new song, huh?” Phil opened the latest edition of Billboard, turning first to the charts. “You saw what happened to your last song.”
“I know, but wait till you hear this. You have to hear it. You just have to.”
Phil closed the magazine and squared his elbows on his desk. “Will we listen to it? Sure. Will we produce it? Probably not.”
“But this is the best thing I’ve ever written. And it was made for Aileen.”
Phil reached for his cigar resting in the ashtray and rolled it between his fingers, stalling, thinking. “Get her in here tomorrow afternoon. I’ll make sure Leonard’s around.”
• • •
Aileen came into the office the following afternoon and sang her kishkes out. She growled that song out, word by word, note by note. When they were finished, Leeba looked over at Phil and Leonard. Leonard had his eyes shut, his face frozen in a grimace. The first glimmer of doubt came to her. And it multiplied on the spot. She began to panic. Leonard had a gut feeling for what would and wouldn’t work. But how could he not see the potential in a song like this?
Leeba looked at Aileen. She wasn’t blinking and Leeba knew her sanity balanced on a pinhead, waiting for the verdict.
“What’s wrong with it?” Leeba asked finally. “Maybe we can change it. Fix it.”
Leonard opened his eyes, pounded
his fist to the console and shook his head. “Don’t you dare change a thing. It’s goddamn great.” He dragged his hand through his hair and turned to Phil. “Shit, now we gotta record this motherfucker.”
Leeba and Aileen gasped with relief and jumped up and down, arms circled about each other.
“But”—Leonard stood up—“that don’t mean I’m gonna press and release it. I can’t make that decision right now. But we gotta record this. We gotta get this one down.”
One week later they recorded “Jealous Kinda Love.” It was the easiest session Leeba had ever been through with Leonard and Phil. No shouting, no take after take after take. Leeba thought that was a good omen and she knew Leonard, superstitious as he was, believed in signs.
Yet despite all that, Leonard wasn’t ready to put their record out. Weeks passed and not a word was said about pressing and releasing the record. It didn’t make it any easier knowing that Leonard and Phil were putting out records by Muddy, Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers and Red.
TWENTY-NINE
• • •
“The Wolf Is at Your Door”
RED
There weren’t many men who could look Red Dupree in the eye. He had always been the tallest man in the room, until the day Howlin’ Wolf showed up at Universal Recording.
Red was filling in for Jimmy Rogers that day, Muddy’s second guitarist. Muddy’s band had just started recording when Leonard walked in with a menacing-looking man. Red and Wolf were about the same height, but Wolf was huskier all the way around. Big square head, neck as thick as a tree trunk and that voice. Deep and growling, the Wolf spoke with a gurgle, like he was always on the verge of clearing his throat.
Leonard, who barely came up to Wolf’s shoulder, made the introductions and invited Wolf to have a seat and listen in while they recorded Muddy’s band doing “Who’s Gonna Be Your Sweet Man.” When the big man sat down, Red noticed his white socks sticking out through a gaping hole in the front of each shoe, his toes pulsing in time with the music.
They got through the first verse and had just reached the guitar solo when Red watched Muddy throw down the most twisty, whining, squealing riffs he’d ever heard from him. He seemed angry and when Red saw the way Muddy eyed Howlin’ Wolf he understood that this was his friend’s way of marking his territory, letting it be known that he was the top dog around Chess Records.
Red knew that Muddy felt he was losing ground. Just a few months before, Little Walter had hijacked Muddy’s band to record his own song. Muddy didn’t mind at the time. Hell, he’d even backed Walter on the record, a harmonica instrumental. There wasn’t anything like it out there and when “Juke” started climbing the charts, passing up Muddy’s “Please Have Mercy,” it left Muddy rattled. Since then Walter had been a front man in his own right. He didn’t have time for the old band anymore so Muddy brought in Junior Wells on harp. But he told Red he would have done anything to get Walter back.
They were in the middle of recording and Red had a nice, even rhythm going when Muddy reached over and yanked the cord out of his amplifier.
Leonard slapped his hands to his head. “Why the fuck did you do that? We almost had it.”
Muddy ignored Leonard and stormed up to Red. “What you tryin’ to do? You play this damn song the way I tell ya to play it, ya hear me?”
Red shot up and glared at Muddy. “I’ll play the damn song the way it needs to be played. And you can’t hear it ’cuz you’re too busy putting on a show.”
“Who you think you talkin’ to like that?”
“Okay, guys.” Leonard rushed over and put himself between Red and Muddy. “Everybody calm down. Take a break. Everybody take five.”
Red went outside to clear his head. It was cold and the wind had a bite to it. It was snowing, too, and Red tilted his head back and watched the sky sprinkle down. Even after five winters, snow still fascinated him.
“Sure do get cold up here, don’t it.”
Red looked over and there was Howlin’ Wolf, shivering, his hands stuffed down in his pockets.
“First thing you need to do is get yourself a warmer coat. And the second thing,” said Red, pointing to his feet, “is get yourself a pair of shoes that aren’t full of holes.”
“Those ain’t holes,” said Wolf, looking down at his socks sticking out. “These are brand-new shoes. Biggest size I could find and I still had to cut ’em open so they’d fit.”
Red laughed.
“You play good, man,” said the Wolf. “You got something, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I mean it. Now, I tell you what, I heard you, so now you come hear me. I’m playing at Silvio’s tonight.”
• • •
That night Red and Leah bundled up and rode the El down to Silvio’s. He paid a dollar at the door for the two of them to see Howlin’ Wolf. Silvio’s was a tiny, smoke-filled room with a long bar, a short bandstand and a few tables. That was all there was to it. It looked like any other blues club, not too different from the old Macomba Lounge. And Silvio, like Leonard, was a white man who owned a nightclub for Negroes. Things got rough down there, too, as rough as they’d ever been at the Macomba. Leah was the only white woman in the place and Red saw the men looking her up and down and the glares coming from the women.
“You sure you want to stay?” he asked.
“I’ve been in tougher clubs than this,” she said with a smile.
When Howlin’ Wolf opened up with his first number Red was impressed. He’d never seen another musician take command of a stage like that. Dressed in a white shirt and black necktie, a pair of black trousers and those white socks showing through his cut-up Stacy Adams shoes, he was a showman all the way. And the name Howlin’ Wolf fit, especially when he rose up from his chair in the middle of “Dog Me Around,” acting like a wild creature on the stage. “Moanin’ at Midnight” sent chills through the air when his voice howled on the high notes and then dipped lower than a bass singer’s. When he switched from guitar to the harp, that harmonica was the size of a chicken bone in the man’s massive hands. All you could see were the two enormous gold rings he wore on either pinky.
Red eased back in his chair and took a pull from his whiskey, enjoying the show. After the first set Wolf came over to their table. Red reintroduced him to Leah. They’d already met back at Chess when Leonard brought Wolf around. The Wolf took a seat and slipped on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. He looked like a lawyer or a doctor.
“Now that you seen what I can do,” said Wolf in that deep, gravelly voice, “how ’bout joining my band? Ain’t nobody gonna work you harder, or treat you more fair. I pay you what you’re worth and then some. And I pay you every week. Now, how do that sound to you?”
“I’ve got my own band, Wolf. I can’t come with you.”
“Well, I had to ask; ya know I had to.”
Red laughed. He was flattered.
“Then at least come up on stage tonight and join me for a set,” said Wolf. “Could use you on guitar while I’m blowin’ harp.”
“You think that stage is big enough for the two of us?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Wolf laughed, a deep rumbling coming from his belly.
“Go on, Red,” said Leah, gently pushing him. “Do it.”
So when it was time for his next set, Red joined Howlin’ Wolf on stage. They were doing a bunch of old Charley Patton and Robert Johnson songs from the delta; but the number that really got the crowd going was “Sweet Home Chicago.” When Red pulled the pick that was resting between his teeth and played the intro, the audience started clapping, swaying. Wolf came in with the lyrics and Red joined him on the chorus.
It was a fun night and when he and Leah made it back to their apartment she was tipsy, leaning on his shoulder, singing “Sweet Home Chicago.” The hallway smelled musty, like wet dog. A pair of salt-stained penny
loafers were outside a neighbor’s door. Leah was still singing as she gripped the banister while he keyed into their apartment.
He glanced down and noticed that someone had slipped a piece of paper under their door. Leah swooped down, humming now as she picked it up; and as she read it, he saw her eyes open wide as her hand covered her mouth.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” He was worried they’d gotten a late notice from the landlord.
Her hand was trembling as she gave him the sheet of paper. There it was, scrawled out in thick dark letters: Go home, nigger, and take your nigger lover with you.
THIRTY
• • •
“Key to the Highway”
LEONARD
It was a meeting of the brothers. Leonard and Phil sat on one side of the booth and Gene and Harry Goodman sat on the other. They were New York City music publishers. Their brother Benny Goodman had told them to come to Chicago and talk to Chess. They were at Deutsch’s and the table was covered with kreplach, chopped herring, kishke and kasha.
“Ah, I do miss Chicago,” said Harry, taking a bite of his corned beef sandwich. He and Gene had grown up in the old Lawndale neighborhood, and Leonard vaguely remembered them from the old days.
Harry dabbed his lips and folded his napkin. He still had mustard stuck in the hinges of his mouth. “Let’s get right to the point. You two have signed some nice artists. That Muddy Waters and Little Walter are gaining in popularity. So is Howlin’ Wolf.”
“And let me tell ya, it wasn’t easy to get that motherfucker,” said Leonard. “I had to beg Sam Phillips for his contract.”
“The point is you got him,” said Gene. “And some other up-and-comers, too, like John Lee Hooker and Red Dupree. Your catalogue is very promising.”
Leonard scooted his plate aside and leaned forward. “So what exactly are you getting at?”
“As you know,” said Gene, “Harry and I have our own publishing company in New York. It’s time for you to do the same with Chess and we’re here to help.”