Chicago-born composer, producer and arranger Charles Stepney is known to some for his work with Earth, Wind & Fire, Deniece Williams and Ramsey Lewis, or for his work at Chess Records in the 1960s, where he was a major creative force behind landmark recordings by the Rotary Connection, Minnie Riperton, Marlena Shaw, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Terry Callier, The Dells, The Emotions and many others.

In the decades since his untimely death in 1976, his name in the liner notes and on vinyl labels has become a cachet for record collectors, music historians and aficionados, while his sound has been used by countless samplers in the hip-hop world, including Kanye West, A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees, MF Doom and Madlib. But compared to the post-mortem fame of his sound or the music he created and the artists he supported during his lifetime, Stepney is a far too under-appreciated figure... a genius relegated to the shadows.