Willie Dixon (1915-1992)

Willie Dixon has been called “the poet laureate” of the blues.  He was indisputably the pre-eminent blues songwriter of his era, credited with writing more than 500 songs.  While on staff at Chess Records, Dixon produced, arranged, and played bass on sessions for Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson II, and others.  He served as a crucial link between the blues and rock ‘n roll.

Dixon was born in Vicksburg, MS—one of fourteen children.  Willie picked up his mother’s habit of often rhyming things she said.  Willie was introduced to blues while serving time on a prison farm as a young teenager.  In his later teens he joined the Union Jubilee Singers and began performing on Vicksburg’s WQBC radio station.

Dixon moved to Chicago in 1936.  At 6’6” and weighing 250 lbs., he took up boxing and became Joe Louis’s sparring partner.  While at the boxing gym, Willie would harmonize with Leonard Caston who encouraged him to pursue music seriously.  In 1939, he became a founding member of the Five Breezes and began playing upright bass.  When World War II broke out, Willie refused induction into military service because he would not fight for a nation in which racism and racist laws were prevalent.  After serving time Willie formed the Big Three Trio with Caston and recorded for Columbia Records.

In 1951 Willie signed on as a full-time employee at Chess Records as a producer, session musician, and staff songwriter.  From the 1950’s through the early 1960’s his output and influence was prodigious.  Several of his songs have become blues standards including “Help Me,” “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “I Can’t Quit You,” “I’m Ready,” “Little Red Rooster,” “My Babe,” “You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover,” I Ain’t Superstitious,” and “The Seventh Son.”  Many rock artists have adapted his songs including Jeff Beck, Canned Heat, Cream, The Doors, Foghat, Led Zeppelin, Ten Years After, and The Rolling Stones.

Willie Dixon believed “the blues are the roots of all music and the other musics are the fruit.”  He founded the Blues Heaven Foundation to encourage a new generation of blues greats and to provide the on-going welfare of senior blues musicians.

Willie Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.  In 2007 he was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Vicksburg, and in 2008 was portrayed by Cedric the Entertainer in the film Cadillac Records based on the early history of Chess Records.