Windy City Blues by Renee Rosen

Windy City Blues, by Renee Rosen

" When it comes to excellent historical fiction set in Chicago and based on real events, nobody does it better than Renee Rosen, and her latest outing -- all about the genesis of Chess Records and the evolution of Chicago's blues music scene -- is no exception.  Rosen's story is populated with characters both real (Muddy Waters! Chuck Berry!) and fictional and is about much more than music ** it's about major themes like prejudice, the struggle between love, work and family, and what it means to be innovative.  So Good! " -Recommended by Erika

Windy City Blues By Renée Rosen Cover Image
$16.00
ISBN: 9781101991121
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Berkley - February 28th, 2017

In the middle of the twentieth century, the music of the Mississippi Delta arrived in Chicago, drawing the attention of entrepreneurs like the Chess brothers. Their label, Chess Records, helped shape that music into the Chicago Blues, the soundtrack for a transformative era in American History.

But, for Leeba Groski, Chess Records was just where she worked...

Leeba doesn't exactly fit in, but her passion for music is not lost on her neighbor, Leonard Chess, who offers her a job at his new record company. What begins as answering phones and filing becomes much more as Leeba comes into her own as a songwriter and befriends performers like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry and Etta James. But she also finds love with a black blues guitarist named Red Dupree.


With their relationship unwelcome in segregated Chicago and the two of them shunned by Leeba's Orthodox Jewish family, Leeba and Red soon find themselves in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement and they discover that, in times of struggle, music can bring people together.