"..."Cadillac Records" the new film about the legendary R&B label Chess, has already performed the valuable public service of exposing some of the greatest American songs to millions who might not otherwise have heard them. There would be no Rock and Roll without Bo Diddley's walloping backbeat and Chuck Berry's pealing guitar solos; no strutting rappers without the badass blues boasts of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf; no Beyoncé crooning "If I Were a Boy" in 2008 without Etta James' pained pleading..."
Jody Rosen Rolling Stone Magazine
"Their stories are so important and need to be told, because it would be no Beyoncé or any of us out right now," said Knowles, who was dressed in Dolce & Gabbana. "They were the first African Americans to cross over on the radio before Motown and it's something that I didn't know. I didn't know that rock 'n' roll came from Chess Records. And I didn't know that the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and all these people copied their music. And it's great for them to finally get their due."
Beyoncé Knowles talking about Chess Records to USA TODAY
WELCOME TO THE ARC MUSIC GROUP
Since 1948, the Arc Music Group had been one of the leading independent music publishers focusing on American music. Our catalog is a unique treasure of some of the most famous, classic and influential songs in Rock ’n’ Roll, R&B, Gospel, Big Band, Jazz and Surf music. Songs like ”Who Do You Love”, ”Susie Q”, ”Pipeline”, ”Boom Boom”, ”Bright Lights Big City”, “You Never Can Tell (C’est La Vie)”, ”Surfin´ USA”, “Duke of Earl” are just a small assortment of the of great songs in the catalog.
The Arc Music Group catalogs consists of
The ARC MUSIC (BMI) catalog- contains a tradition of artists that features songs written by Chuck Berry, Ellas McDaniel (Bo Diddley), Chester Burnett (Howlin’ Wolf), Alec “Rice” Miller (Sonny Boy Williamson) and Walter Jacobs (Little Walter) from the Chess Records vaults. We also represent songs written by Stan Lewis, Bernard Roth, Peter Chapman (Memphis Slim) and New Orleans institutions James “Sugar Boy” Crawford, Paul Gayten, Robert Guidry (Bobby Charles) and Clarence “Frogman” Henry. Get yourselves a seat and take a listen to any one of these writers works and you’ll be hooked. They are all great.
CONRAD MUSIC (BMI) is a division of Arc Music and represents songs but Vee Jay Record artists, John Lee Hooker, Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, Some very cool Doo Wop and an astounding amount of jazz from Eddie Harris, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, and Gospel, gospel, gospel.
There is so much music to offer that this page doesn’t touch the surface but it’s all worth listening to.
It's painless to search through our data base to find the songs you need and once you find them go to out licensing page fill out the forms for the proper license and send it to us and you have begun the process.
Go to our contact page and send us any questions you may have about the song searches, licensing or anything else involving songs from the Arc Music Group.