George Daniels pt 1 from Brandon “N2ition” Riley on Vimeo.

I had no idea Andrew and his FakeShoreDrive team were working on this, but I’ve been waiting all day to have a minute to watch their 2-part interview with George Daniels. George, the founder of George’s Music Room, was one of the most influential music retailers in Chicago, but beyond that, he’s someone that everyone knows in the business….for his big personality, and also for his OG-status. Aside of the shop, George and his wife Regina also spent time managing R.Kelly (ending in some controversy) and they even managed Cam’ron for a time (made sense to me because Cam loves Chicago and full-length furs, lol). As a Chicago-native, it was always funny to see how George, along with Bishop Don Magic Juan, were like a de-facto Chicago welcoming party for visiting celebs.

In part 1, George talks about his memories working at Chicago’s Chess Records: “Len and Phil [Chess] had a bar on the 4200 block of Cottage Grove, and on the weekends, they’d have live blues…Muddy Waters, he used to work at US Steel during the week, and on the weekend, he played at they bar….oh by the way, that I was dating, that worked there, that was Minnie Ripperton. Thought I’d let you know.”

After the jump….George talks to FakeShoreDrive in part 2 about the changing business of music retail, and more…

George Daniels pt 2 from Brandon "N2ition" Riley on Vimeo.

(great work, FakeShoreDrive!)