Willie Dixon has been called the
Poet Laureate of the blues, and indeed
he was one of the pre-eminent songwriters
of his time. A prolific composer credited with
writing more than 500 songs by the end of his life,
Dixon is a towering figure in the history and creation
of Chicago blues on other fronts as well. While on staff
at Chess Records, Dixon produced, arranged, and played
bass on sessions for such titans as Chuck Berry, Mud-
dy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter and Sonny
Boy Williamson. In no small way, he served as
a crucial link between the blues and rock
and roll.

Born in 1915 in Vicksberg, Mississippi,
Dixon began rhyming, singing and writing songs
in his youth. He was exposed to a variety of music
- gospel, blues, country & western - which served as the
seeds for the symbiotic music he would later make in Chicago.
Moving to the city in 1936, he had a brief career as a boxer and
then skirmished with the U.S. Army, refusing induction on the grounds
he was a conscientious objector. His early forays on the Chicago mus-
ic scene included stints with the Five Breezes, the Four Jumps of
Jive and the Big Three Trio, all of which made records. Dixon
really found his niche at Chess, where he was allowed to
develop as a recording artist, session musician, in-
house songwriter and staff musician beginning
in 1951.

Some of the now-classic songs he wrote for
others during his lengthy tenure at Chess include
"Hoochie Coochie Man," "I'm Ready" and "I Just want to
Make Love For You" (Muddy Waters); "Back Door Man," "Spoon-
ful" and "I Ain't Superstitious" (Howlin' Wolf), "My Babe" (Little Wal-
ter); and "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor). Though he didn't write for
Chuck Berry, Dixon played bass on most of his early records. For a
few years in the late Fifties, he also wrote for and worked with
artists on the crosstown Cobra label, including such
fledgling bluesmen as Otis Rush, Buddy Guy
and Magic Sam.

In his later years, Willie Dixon became a
tireless ambassador of the blues and a vocal ad-
vocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven
Foundation. The organization works to preserve the blues' legacy
and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were ex-
ploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark
of his songs, Dixon put it like this: "The blues are the roots and the oth-
er musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because
it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of
all American music. As long as American music sur-
vives, so will the blues."