Electric blues became rock and roll inside the building you are facing. From 1957 to 1967 this was the studio of Chess Records, run by brothers Leonard and Phil Chess, immigrants from Poland who recorded the migrants pouring up from Mississippi. Through this door came Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon, Etta James, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry, whose driving guitar laid the foundation of rock and roll.
The young Rolling Stones, who took their name from a Muddy Waters song, made a pilgrimage here in 1964 and recorded an instrumental they simply titled 2120 South Michigan Avenue. Today the building houses Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation. Stand at the storefront and look at the plain brick face; behind it, in small rooms, the amplified sound of the Delta transplanted to Chicago changed the music of the entire world.