Lafayette Leake

CTL-E-6115 · Person · musician · 1919–1990

PROVISIONAL evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07332 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6115.

Lafayette Leake (June 1, 1919 – August 14, 1990) was a Chicago blues and jazz pianist, organist, vocalist and composer. Born in Winona, Mississippi — some derivative sources give Missouri, and his birth year is sometimes given as about 1920 — he enters the documented record in the early 1950s, when he replaced Leonard "Baby Doo" Caston in Willie Dixon's Big Three Trio and began his association with Chess Records. As a Chess session musician from the 1950s through the 1970s, Leake played piano on Chuck Berry's One Dozen Berrys (1958) and on Berry Is on Top (1959), where his piano, not Johnnie Johnson's, carries the original recording of "Johnny B. Goode". He also backed Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Rush, Junior Wells and Little Walter. In the 1960s Dixon made him resident pianist of the Chicago Blues All-Stars, with whom he toured and recorded until the mid-1970s. Leake appeared with Berry at the 1986 Chicago Blues Festival and recorded Dixon's Hidden Charms in 1988. He died in a Chicago hospital in 1990 after a diabetic coma at home.

The record

• Also known as: Slow Leake

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 4 — 747 Program, Wave 11; fourth Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Lafayette Leake entity in the live graph at 3,763 entities (exact / normalized / alias match + token containment; CLEAR). ID CTL-E-6115 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — Scan Tail Wave 3 packet ordered reserve, position 30 of 35 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #1958). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Chicago record — Chess Records session pianist at the centre of Chicago blues; this is the packet's Black Chicago anchor, ahead of canon records by the standing scope rule. Vital status: Deceased: born June 1, 1919 (year/place disputed — see conflicts), died August 14, 1990, in Chicago, Illinois, aged 71, after a diabetic coma at home (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16). STATISTICS — STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Leake's listed years active run from the 1950s to 1988, with leader albums Might Is Right! (1960) and Feel So Blue (1978) (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16). A primary discographic session record places him at the piano for a Chess Records session at Ter-Mar Studio, 2120 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, on February 12, 1960 (Chuck Berry Database, accessed 2026-10-16). CONFLICT SHOWN, NOT BLENDED: birth data conflict across sources — June 1, 1919, Winona, Mississippi (Wikipedia infobox and text) vs Winona, Missouri in many derivative copies of the same biography and vs a birth year of about 1920 in All About Jazz and in the Blues Records discographic directory, which also gives his birth name as Ellis Leake. Death (August 14, 1990, Chicago) is consistent across all sources. TIER: Provisional under CTL-GOV-006 — vital data conflict (birth year 1919 vs c. 1920, with one liner source at 1917; birthplace state given as Mississippi in the principal source and Missouri in derivative copies) and no Britannica/NPS-grade source exists for this subject; the death date (August 14, 1990, Chicago) is consistent across sources. MEDIA: photo HELD (Photograph captioned "Leake in 1978" on the Wikipedia biography page for Lafayette Leake — a later PHOTO-001 pass to verify photographer, credit, and rights; no license claimed here. — named candidate only; file-level rights verification per CTL-PHOTO-001 still required; no license claimed); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6115-lafayette-leake.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (person record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Persons carry no map in the packet standard.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged.) | audio = HELD (No rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged.)

Relationships

• Chess Records — recorded for
  Leake played for Chess Records as a session musician from the 1950s through the 1970s; a discographic session record lists him as pianist at a February 12, 1960 Chess session in Chicago. NOTE for assembly: check whether a Chess Records entity already exists in the graph before minting.
• Chuck Berry — collaborated with
  Leake played piano on Berry's One Dozen Berrys (1958) and Berry Is on Top (1959) and on documented Chess sessions in 1960.
• Willie Dixon — collaborated with
  Leake worked closely with Dixon from the Big Three Trio through the Chicago Blues All-Stars and recorded Dixon's Hidden Charms in 1988.

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Lafayette Leake" (accessed 2026-10-16), resting on Daniel M. Raessler's entry in the Encyclopedia of the Blues (Routledge, 2006) — born June 1, 1919, Winona, Mississippi; died August 14, 1990, Chicago; Chess Records session musician and Big Three Trio member replacing Leonard Caston; piano on One Dozen Berrys (1958) and Berry Is on Top, including the original 'Johnny B. Goode'; Chicago Blues All-Stars resident pianist; 1986 Chicago Blues Festival appearance; Hidden Charms (1988); diabetic coma and death in hospital — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Leake (build store)
• All About Jazz, "Lafayette Leake" musician biography by James Nadal (accessed 2026-10-16) — Chess Records pianist of the formative Chicago blues years; replaced Caston in the Big Three Trio alongside Willie Dixon; session work with Chuck Berry, Otis Rush, Junior Wells, Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson; Feel So Blue (1978) for the French Black & Blue label; gives birthplace Winona, Mississippi but birth year 1920 (see conflicts) — https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/lafayette-leake (build store)
• The Chuck Berry Database (crlf.de), session details for February 12, 1960, Chess Records, Ter-Mar Records Studio, 2120 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago (accessed 2026-10-16) — primary discographic session record listing Lafayette Leake as pianist on 'Driftin' Blues', 'I Got to Find My Baby' and 'Don't You Lie To Me', produced by Leonard and Phil Chess — http://www.crlf.de/ChuckBerry/cbdb/session/19-1960-02-12%2000:00:00.html (primary source · build store)

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Record CTL-E-6115 · Combined Graph record U-07332 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 3 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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