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were often Little Walter, Willie Dixon, and Muddy Waters, with others such as Big
Crawford, Elgin Evans/S.P. Leary/Fred Below (drums), J. T. Brown, and Henry Gray/Otis

Spann (piano). Songs recorded in this period include 'The World’s In A Tangle' (covered
by Fleetwood Mac on “Blues Jam At Chess”), 'That’s All Right', 'Blues All Day' (covered by
Eric Clapton on various
albums) and 'Chicago Bound'.
The latter years of the decade
saw him also recording with
Big Walter Horton (harm-

onica), Robert Jnr. Lockwood
/Mighty Joe Young/ Luther
Tucker/ Fred Robinson (guit-
ar) amongst others, all repres-
Howlin-Wolf-1964 enting the cream of Chess

backing musicians of the day.
One of these recordings was
‘Walking By Myself’, which has
been covered countless times.

His Chess output over the
years 1950 - 1959 resulted in 13 singles (all of which appeared in the R&B charts) and

one self titled album (that was released in 1976), plus 12 tracks that remained unreleased
for many decades.

By the early years of the 1960s Rogers had become rather disillusioned by the music
business, and trying to run his own band. For a few months he became a member of the
Howlin’ Wolf band, so was in a unique position to compare working with these two huge
names - “Muddy wanted to be the big bear. Wolf wanted to be big - nobody was getting

too close to Chess, but they was thinking one would outdo the other one. Chess would get
Muddy cars every 2 years, and take it off his royalties. Wolf would get his own car, wouldn’t
let Chess buy one for him. Really, Wolf was better managing a bunch of people than Muddy
was. Muddy would go along with the company, but Wolf would speak up for himself. It
was more of a business thing with Wolf”. Interesting!

With a family of 6 children to support, after working with Wolf he dropped out of the

business - “I had a clothing store on the West Side, and I had a cab business, and things
like that”. However, he continued to make the occasional live appearance as a side man.

In 1968, sparked by the riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, his
store was burnt to the ground, which forced a return to music full time.

In spite of his low profile for a few years, Jimmy Rogers had not been completely forgotten,
and he was able to make a living as a musician again, including touring in the US and
Europe. There was considerable interest in his music and career amongst the white blues

fraternity, and over the next few years he recorded albums with guitarist Ronnie Earl,
Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and a relative who’s who of the blues/rock
field on his Atlantic album “Blues Blues Blues”, which featured, amongst others, Eric
Clapton, Jeff Healey, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. For someone who never sought the