Leonard Chess was a record company executive and the founder of Chess Records

Chess Records

Chess Records was an American record label based in Chicago, Illinois. It specialized in blues, R&B, soul, gospel music, early rock and roll, and occasional jazz releases....

. He was influential in the development of electric blues

Electric blues

Electric blues is a type of blues music distinguished by the amplification of the guitar, bass guitar, drums, and often the harmonica. Pioneered in the 1930s, it emerged as a genre in Chicago in the 1940s. It was taken up in many areas of America leading to the development of regional subgenres...

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Chess was born Lejzor Czyz in a Jewish community in Motal, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 (but now within Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

). He and his brother Fiszel, sister Malka and mother followed their father to Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 in 1928. The family name was changed to Chess, with Lejzor becoming Leonard and Fiszel becoming Philip

Phil Chess

Philip Chess is an American record producer and company executive, the co-founder of Chess Records.He was born Fiszel Czyż in a Jewish community in Częstochowa, Poland. He and his brother Lejzor, sister Malka and mother followed their father to Chicago in 1928...

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Leonard and his brother Phil became involved in the black nightclub scene on the South Side of Chicago in 1946, when they took over the Macomba Lounge.