Other labels were active, however. J.O.B. issued sides by J.B. Lenoir and Sunnyland Slim. Art Sheridan’s Chance Records counted Homesick James and J.B. Hutto among its artists. Roosevelt Sykes and Tommy Brown recorded for United.
The hottest development at that point, however, was the activity occurring at Eli Toscano’s pair of labels on the west side, Cobra and Artistic. Three young guitarist / singers, Otis Rush, Magic Sam Maghett and George “Buddy” Guy, had each arrived in Chicago from the South earlier in the decade and were playing venues such as The 708 Club, The Big Squeeze and The Blue Flame when they came to Toscano’s attention. Their sessions were produced by bassist / songwriter / arranger Willie Dixon, who had interrupted his association with the Chess brothers in 1956.
The feel of the Cobra / Artistic records was more intense than that of the early-to-mid-fifties Chess sides of Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Jimmy Witherspoon, Bo Diddley and Eddie Boyd. The guitars of Maghett, Guy and Otis, along with those of Ike Turner and Matt Murphy, spewed forth frenetic, fiery runs up the necks of their axes in between vocal lines. The singing was likewise urgent and inclined toward the upper register. A bank of saxophones was usually on hand to lend haunting, echo-drenched riffs to the proceedings. “All Night Long,” “Double Trouble, “This Is the End” and the rest of the three performers’ output from 1956 through 1958 remain some of the most harrowing blues ever committed to vinyl.
Then there was the next wave in vocal music. The Cabrini Housing Project was home to several youths who had sung together in the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers. Two of them, Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield, went on to harmonized pop in The Alfatones and The Roosters and eventually synthesized the personnel of these aggregations into the Impressions. They landed the opportunity to cut a record, “For Your Precious Love,” for the Falcon label. It became a nationwide smash and a career-launcher.
That tune and the group’s other material was something new. It employed some falsetto, an element frequently found in doo-wop, and it had some church flavorings as well, but it had a lightness to where its predecessors took a more heavyhanded approach. The guitars used a lot of sixth chords and swinging little two-string figures that greatly advanced r&b rhythm guitar playing.
