You can take a walk down Michigan Avenue from Roosevelt Road to Cermak on the sunniest afternoon of the summer, but no matter how bright the light, it won’t illuminate the full history of the street. New condos, bars, and restaurants abound, but only a couple signs remain to hint at this neighborhood’s lasting impact as an incubator of Black popular music from the late 1950s through the early 1970s.

Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power Aaron Cohen will speak about Record Row as part of a discussion of his new book, Move On Up, published by University of Chicago Press. Thu 10/24, 7 PM, Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln, 773-293-2665, free, all ages

Of course, exciting soul and R&B were being made elsewhere in Chicago as well—a flood of eager singers, talented musicians, would-be entrepreneurs, and more than a few hucksters churned out 45s throughout the city in the 1960s and ’70s. Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom Records set up shop at 8543 S. Stony Island in 1968 and later moved northwest to 5915 N. Lincoln. (Both buildings’ exteriors look the same now, which can’t be said of most sites on Record Row.) Some of Chicago’s best recording studios, including Universal Recording (46 E. Walton), were north of the Loop. But that said, few streets in America, let alone in Chicago, played host to a concentration of artistic talent and entrepreneurship as dense as that on the ten blocks of Michigan Avenue between Roosevelt and Cermak.

Chess Records

2120 S. Michigan

320 E. 21st

Once the records were cut and pressed, they needed to be sent to retailers near and far, and distribution companies were key to this process. Of the dozens of operations on Record Row, M.S. Distributing was the biggest, but Garmisa likely had the most long-term influence. In the early 1960s it provided an entree into the business for teenage Ron Alexenburg, who moved to New York in 1965 and later rose into the executive ranks at Columbia Records, where he signed such midwestern heroes as the Jacksons. He also fought against segregation in national media, which initially stymied Michael Jackson’s crossover dreams. “I used to have a statement: If you came from Chicago, you had an open door with me,” Alexenburg says. “This is my hometown.”

Garmisa Distributing Company

1455 S. Michigan

Vee-Jay Records and Brunswick Records

1449 S. Michigan

After Vee-Jay Records fired president Ewart Abner (partly because of his gambling addiction), he set up shop at Constellation in 1963. Though it lasted just three years, the company had a big impact on the people involved. Gene Chandler joined the label’s roster, and after a few failed singles, in 1964 he recorded the Curtis Mayfield number “Just Be True,” which hit number 19 on the pop charts. As Chandler remembers it, Abner had bet him a steak dinner that the song would also tank—one bet that Abner was undoubtedly happy to lose. Still, the company folded two years later. Constellation producer Carl Davis went on to considerable success at Brunswick, and Abner rehabilitated his reputation in Detroit, where he became an executive at Motown and managed Stevie Wonder.

Constellation Records

1421 S. Michigan

One-derful Records

1827 S. Michigan

Jerry Butler’s Songwriters Workshop

1402 S. Michigan

Radio host Richard Steele has said that a defining characteristic of Chicago’s musical crews was that the artists and media personalities enjoyed hanging out together even if they weren’t exactly teammates. As he tells it, competition was more amiable than cutthroat, and Mama Batt’s Restaurant, in the long-gone New Michigan Hotel, was where they would eat and hatch their plans. Marshall Chess, who ran the Cadet Concept imprint of the label run by his father, Leonard Chess, agrees—and adds that this spot was the heart of an environment that seemed at odds with the city as a whole, where staff from Black-owned labels would hang out with staff from white-owned labels even when the city was wracked by racist violence.

Mama Batt’s Restaurant

112 E. Cermak