Herb Abramson

Jubilee was founded in May 1946 in New York City by Herb Abramson, who later went on to found Atlantic Records with Ahmet Ertegun. Abramson sold the label to Jerry Blaine in September 1947. 

Jubilee was one of the first record companies to tap into the white record buying public with a black vocal group. In 1953 they recorded a country song, "Crying in the Chapel," by the Orioles. The record became a popular music top 20 hit. They were able to follow up in 1954 with "Marie" and "I Understand (Just How You Feel)" by the Four Tunes. 

A subsidiary label called Josie was formed in 1954, which issued more up-tempo material. The label had major hits with "Speedoo" by the Cadillacs in 1956 and "Do You Wanna Dance?" by Bobby Freeman in 1958. 

Both Josie and Jubilee had occasional hits in various styles in the '50s and '60s, but the company's main focus, at least in albums, seemed to be in specialty markets outside mainstream popular music. They issued an extensive line of "party" records, that is, comedy records of a risque nature. A staple of the label was Kermit Schafer's "Blooper" records, recordings of mistakes made on radio and television. Jubilee also distributed a label called Gross, whose sole artists were Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts, a group that was a favorite at college frat house parties and said to be the inspiration for the Otis Day and the Knights group in the movie Animal House. At the time, the Hot Nuts' material was off-color enough that Jubilee's name appeared nowhere on the Gross albums. 

Of interest to rock and roll collectors are the fine albums by the Cadillacs (1045, 1089 and 5009), the Four Tunes' 12x4 (LP-1039), Bobby Freeman's three albums (1086, 5010 and Josie 4007), The Cadillacs Meet the Orioles (LP-1117), The Dubs Meet the Shells(Josie 4001), The Paragons Meet the Jesters (LP-1098) and The Delta Rhythm Boys in Sweden (LP-1022). There are also many very good compilation albums on both labels; the most collectable one is The Best of Rhythm and Blues (Jubilee LP-1014) which was pressed on red vinyl. The albums titled Rumble (LP-1114), Boppin! (LP-1118), and Whoppers! (LP-1119) are also desirable. 

Songwriters Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich recorded as the Raindrops on Jubilee and issued one album, LP-5023. J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers had the maudlin hit "Last Kiss" on Josie and an album by the same name, Josie 4006. After leaving Motown, Mary Wells made one album on Jubilee (8018) but she had little success with the label. A very good New Orleans group, the Meters, made three albums on Josie (4010, 4011 and 4012). Near the end of the label, Jubilee issued the first album by Emmy Lou Harris calledGliding Bird (8031). 

The original labels were pink with black lettering, followed with a blue label with silver printing. Neither the pink nor the blue labels mentioned "Jay-Gee Records." Some time in 1959, between album numbers 1103 and 1107, the following changes occurred: the label changed to the flat black label with silver print; the numbering prefixes changed from the JLP/SDJLP- to the JGM/JGS- prefixes; a notation began appearing on the back cover that Jubilee was "A Product of Jay-Gee Recording Co., Inc., A Division of the Cosnat Corp."; and the Jubilee logo changed from "jubilee/LP HI FI" in an oval to "jubilee/JG HI FI" in an oval. This new logo, used on the album covers, continued until the label's demise. Albums reissued after the changeover in 1959 were renumbered with the new prefixes and reissued with updated labels, and although the front album cover art was not usually changed, the back cover had a notation about "Jay-Gee Records" on the bottom. 

Jubilee and Josie went out of business around 1970. The master tapes went to Roulette upon Jubilee/Josie's demise. When Morris Levy sold Roulette to Rhino in the late 1980s, the Jubilee/Josie masters became the property of Rhino. Reissue producer Bob Hyde made extensive forays into the Jubilee/Josie masters starting in the 1980s; many of the tapes had not been touched since they were recorded. As a result of his efforts, many of the Jubilee and Josie songs have been made available again on CD, some for the first time in true stereo.

Lew Chudd

The Imperial Label was started by Lew Chudd in 1946 in Los Angeles, California. Originally, the label concentrated on local Mexican groups and ethnic folk artists and the series of 10-inch LPs reflect this. In August, 1947, Lew Chudd started a popular record series consisting of rhythm and blues recordings. Two years later, he began tapping into the rhythm and blues artists in New Orleans, which had been largely ignored by the major record companies. His most significant discovery was Fats Domino, a 22 year old piano player who sang with a Creole accent. In 1949 he recorded a song called "The Fat Man" which became an R&B hit in early 1950. 

Fats Domino was the most important artist on Imperial and had a impressive string of hits from 1950 until 1963, when he left the label in favor of ABC-Paramount. The early Fats Domino records sold in the "Race Record" market, but with "Ain't It a Shame" in 1955, he crossed over into the mainstream popular music market, adding to his stature as one of the "founding fathers" of rock and roll. 

In addition to Fats, Chudd recorded T-Bone Walker, Smiley Lewis, Lil' Son Jackson and the Spiders. On most of the recordings made in New Orleans, the Dave Bartholomew band was used as accompaniment. Bartholomew served as the Artists & Repertoire (A&R) man for Chudd, and was the arranger for many of the sessions. Bartholomew's band was popular in the clubs of New Orleans at the time, and in addition to having two albums under his own name on the label, he recorded the original version of "My Ding-A-Ling" as a single in 1952 (Chuck Berry took essentially the same song to #1 twenty years later). 

In 1957, the young Ricky Nelson, son of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson of the popular TV show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,recorded three songs for the Verve label, essentially on a lark. His cover version of Fats Domino's "I'm Walkin'" was featured on the Nelsons' TV show and sold like hot cakes. Incredibly, Verve did not have Ricky Nelson under contract, and Lew Chudd quickly signed him to Imperial. Nelson became a "Teenage Idol" and a very consistent hit-maker for the label. Rick Nelson's singing is sometimes disparaged, but he did have a real feel and respect for rockabilly, and produced some fine examples of that genre. Many of the best songs Nelson recorded were written by Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. The Ricky Nelson album LP-9061, Ricky Sings Again, is a particularly good example of this. Nelson left the label in 1963 for Decca. 

In 1958, Imperial was one of the first labels to issue stereo albums. They used a disctinctive black stereo label for these issues intil 1964, when the label was sold. One of the decisions made in 1958, when the stereo albums were first issued, was to give them an entirely different numbering system not related to their mono counterparts, one of the only labels to take such a bewildering course. After a few years of confusion, Imperial changed the stereo numbering system (LP-12000 series) to echo the corresponding last three digits in the LP-9000 mono numbering system. We have provided a mono-stereo record number crosswalk as an aid to getting through this mess. 

In 1961, Lew Chudd bought the Aladdin Records catalog and reissued many of the Aladdin masters on Imperial (See Aladdin/Score Discography). The Imperial releases of Aladdin material have an "A" following the album number. In 1963, Chudd purchased the Minit Label of New Orleans from Joe Banashak. Imperial was the distributor of Minit from 1961, and with the acquisition of Minit, Imperial obtained the contracts of Irma Thomas and Ernie K-Doe. The discographies of Joe Banashak's Minit and Instant labels are included elsewhere under the Discography Main Page. 

In 1964, Chudd sold Imperial to Liberty Records, and the label underwent an almost overnight metamorphosis. Gone were the label's former stars like Fats Domino and Rick Nelson, who had signed with other labels. The new owners also put somewhat of a damper on the label's artists who weren't selling much, and concentrated on getting a completely new stable of hip, teen-oriented talent. They brought Irma Thomas' incredible voice over from the Minit label. They signed several British Invasion groups, such as the Hollies, Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas, and the Swinging Blue Jeans. In addition, new American stars-in-the-making such as Cher, Jackie DeShannon, and Johnny Rivers were signed. They tapped into the Los Angeles "Go-Go" scene with "live" albums that added excitement to the label. At least at the beginning, the "live" Johnny Rivers albums (as well as the "live" Sandy Nelson album) featured studio recordings with label employees overdubbed as the live audience, but they were exciting nonetheless. The mid-1960s period, from 1964 to about 1968, was the most successful for Imperial on the record charts. 

In 1968, Transamerica Corporation, who owned United Artists, bought the Liberty/Imperial Labels and merged them with UA. Having had the mid-1960s talent more-or-less run it's course, the new company needed to recharge the label with the kind of aggressive talent search that was done in 1964. Unfortunately, the artists signed after 1967 were comparatively weak chart performers (with a few exceptions like the Classics IV, who were signed before 1968), and the label languished. In 1970, UA transferred most of the Imperial artists to Liberty for future releases, and by 1971 Imperial had essentially ceased to exist as a distinct new-product label. UA did, however, maintain the back-catalog of Imperial albums for many years afterwards, and they did reissue some Imperial and Aladdin material under the United Artists banner. Today, the UA, Imperial, Minit, Liberty, Aladdin and Score masters are all owned by the huge EMI-Capitol Music empire, which purchased United Artists from TransAmerica in the 1980s. 

Although rhythm and blues was the mainstay of the pre-1964 Imperial label, Lew Chudd's label also recorded jazz, with top artists like Sonny Criss and Warner Marsh, and country music (Slim Whitman being his most successful artist). Chudd's label had a broad scope and included recordings of movie soundtracks, big band music, folk artists, gospel, and march music. The Liberty-owned Imperial label, on the other hand, was much less eclectic, and much more top-40 oriented. As is many times the case, the sale of a successful label, as Imperial/Liberty was sold in 1968, leads to the decline of the label's success, and eventually, it's demise. This certainly was the case with Imperial. 

Lew Chudd, the founder of Imperial Records, died on June 15, 1998, just shy of his 87th birthday. 

Bob Keane

Bob Keane was born Robert Kuhn on January 5, 1922, in a Manhattan Beach, California. His parents, Benjamin Walker Kuhn and Gladys Cobb, were from New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts, respectively, and migrated to California before their son Bob was born. 

Bob Keane was a clarinet player who started performing as a teenager in the late 1930s. From 1948-1953 fronted his own dance band. In 1953, he started leading the Artie Shaw band. He had albums under his own name on the GNP and Whippet labels. When the big band business declined, Keane started getting into Latino music and rock and roll. 

Keane was associated with the Keen label for a short time in 1957. When he left the Keen label in late 1957, Bob Keane started Del-Fi Records. This label specialized in recording "pachucos," as local Mexicans in Los Angeles were called. Keane recorded Ritchie Valens and had a minor hit in 1958 with "C'Mon Let's Go," but at the end of the year, Valens had a #2 record with "Donna," a song Valens reportedly wrote for his girlfriend. The flip of "Donna," "La Bamba," only made it to #22 when released, but since 1959 has widely surpassed "Donna" in popularity. When Ritchie Valens died in a plane crash in February, 1959, Keane lost his biggest star. Later he had hits with Little Caesar and the Romans, with "Those Oldies but Goodies (Remind Me of You)" and Chan Romero with "Hippy Hippy Shake," the latter more through being the original of an international hit cover version by a British band, the Swinging Blue Jeans. 

By 1963, Del-Fi was concentrating on guitar-based surf/drag-racing music popular in southern California; Del-Fi released at least 19 albums of this genre. Donna Records was a subsidiary label to Del-Fi, obviously named for Keane's biggest hit record. 

1965, Bob Keane started a label called Mustang, which recorded a band from Texas, the Bobby Fuller Four. Bobby Fuller was an admirer of Ritchie Valens and sought out Keane to record him when he moved to Los Angeles. Fuller had a smash hit with "I Fought the Law" and two albums for Mustang records before dying in a controversial suicide in July, 1966. 

Although "Keane" is the way he spelled his name starting in the late 1950s, on the early albums of his own music such as DFLP-1202, his name is spelled Keene, which is how he spelled it when first changing over from Kuhn. We use Keane in this biography, but in the discographies his name is spelled as on the albums. 

The material Bob Keane recorded was reissued on Rhino Records in the 1980s. Because of a increased interest in surf music and the use of two Del-Fi songs, ("Surf Rider" by the Lively Ones and "Bullwinkle, Part II" by the Centurions) in the movie "Pulp Fiction", a reactivated Del-Fi released many of the original albums on CD with the original artwork starting in the mid-1990s. 

Bob Keane had a close relationship with Rhino Records starting in 1981, when Rhino started reissuing Del-Fi albums. Rhino was subsequently purchased by Warner Bros Records, and in November, 2003, Bob Keane sold Del-Fi and its subsidiaries, some 1,500 masters, to Warner Strategic Marketing (Rhino's parent) for an undisclosed sum. Bob Keane died of renal failure in Los Angeles on November 28, 2009.

Don Robey

Don D. Robey was born in 1903 in the heart of Houston's black business and residential district. He dropped out of high school to become a professional gambler. After getting married and having a son, he started a taxicab business. One of Robey's passions was music and he began promoting ballroom dances. In the late 1930s, Robey left Houston for 3 years to go to Los Angeles where he operated a night club called the Harlem Grill. He returned to Houston and in 1945 and founded a night club called the Bronze Peacock Dinner Club. The club featured some of the top Jazz bands and orchestras of the day and was a big success. 

His love for music also led him to open a record store. In 1947 he went into talent management. His first client was Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, a 23 year old singer- guitarist. Sometime in 1949, Robey started Peacock Records, named after his night club. Robey recorded six songs by Brown and they became the first 3 issues on Peacock. Robey built up an impressive talent roster, including Memphis Slim, Marie Adams, Floyd Dixon and Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton (who in 1953 recorded "Hound Dog", a very successful R&B record that was later covered by Elvis Presley). 

Peacock also had a gospel music division, one of the most prestigious in the country. The label had an impressive number of important gospel acts, including the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Sensational Nightingales and the Mighty Clouds of Joy. The gospel album releases on Peacock far exceed the issues on any of the other labels. A second gospel record label, Song Bird, was formed in late 1963 or early 1964. 

Duke Records was formed in 1952 by David J. Mattis and Bill Fitzgerald in Memphis, Tennessee. Duke and Peacock were combined in a partnership in August 1952. The most successful artists in the Duke lineup were Johnny Ace and Roscoe Gordon. In April 1953, Don Robey obtained full control of both labels and both were headquartered at the Bronze Peacock club at 2809 Erastus Street in Houston. Irving Marcus and Dave Clark were the sales and promotion representatives. Producers included Johnny Otis, Bill Harvey, Don Robey and Joe Scott. 

The Back Beat subsidiary was formed in 1957. In the 1960s, Back Beat became a soul music label with album issues by Joe Hinton, O.V. Wright, and Carl Carlton. Duke Records in the 1960s had hits by Bobby "Blue" Bland and Junior Parker. 

Don Robey sold Duke/Peacock to ABC-Dunhill on May 23, 1973, but stayed on, as a consultant with ABC overseeing the release of catalog material. Don Robey died on June 16, 1975.

Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton's Stax Records

Twelve years older than Jim, Estelle was brought up in the county of Middleton, Tennessee. Always strongly interested in music, as a teenager, she had been a fan of pop music, played the organ and sung soprano in the family gospel quartet.She came to Memphis in 1935 at the age of sixteen to get her teaching certificate. While attending Memphis State University she met her husband to be Everett Axton.  One year1ater she returned to Middleton to become her brother's first grade teacher. In 1941 she married Everett and moved back to Memphis.By this time she was married and had school aged children of her own. Jim twelve years younger, would later joined her in Memphis, where Estelle worked as a teller at the Union Planter's Bank in Memphis. 

Estelle stayed home for ten years raising her two children, before going to work at Union Planters Bank in 1950. There she stayed until she opened the Satellite Record Shop in 1961.

Jim Stewart was born July 29, 1930 in Middleton, Tennessee. His parents Ollie and Dexter Steweart ran a farm with Dexter also doing carpentry and brickwork on the side. Stewart's father bought him a guitar when he was ten. Many Saturday nights he would listen to the Grand Ole Opry and try to ply along with it. Constantly practicing Stewart learned by ear. Eventually he and a friend from a band that played at local square dances.

After high school he went to Memphis where he hoped to develop a career as a country fiddler. Influenced by the Western Swing of Bob Willis ant Texas Playboys, Pee Wee King and Tex Williams, as well as the honkey tonk sounds of Hank Williams, Moon Mullican and Ernest Tubb, he played odd jobs while working at Sears Roebuck during the day. Stewart could be heard on WDIA playing in the early morning as a member of Don Powell's Country Cowboys.

By late 1950 Stewart was working for the First National Bank.

He went into the Army in 1953 and was in the Special Services where he played the violin. He studied business at Memphis State in preparation for a banking career and graduated in 1956. Stewart's  intentions were to become a banker, but while working in a bank, he still played fiddle in Western swing bands around Memphis.

After getting out of the Army, Stewart returned to his job at the bank and got a job playing at the Eagle's Nest on Lamar Avenue. Stewart took advantage of the G.I. Bill and got a B.A. from Memphis State University majoring in business management and minoring in music.

By 1957 Stewart's interest in recording led him to tape a couple songs that he took to Sun Records as well as a few other local labels. With the exception of Erwin Ellis, his barber who owned the small Erwin Records, no one would give him the time of day. Ellis loaned Stewart his first recording equipment, educated about the value of publishing and and taught him the basic mechanics of running a small independent record label and establishing an affiliate publishing company.

Jim Stewart began fooling around recording music in his wife's uncle's garage around 1957 and he put out his first record in 1958, a country and western song named "Blue Roses" by a disc jockey named Fred Bylar (Satellite 100). At this time Stewart was equal partners in the new label with Bylar and a rhythm guitarist named Neil Herbert, as a three had put in three or four hundred dollars. Only a few hundred copies were pressed with virtually no copies being sold on its only airplay was on KWEM, the station where Bylar worked.

Stewart, Bylar and Hebert had been recording Satellite's releases in Stewart's wife's uncle' two car garage on Omni Street using a portable reel-to-reel tape record owned by Erwin Ellis. Wanting to buy a state of the art Ampex 350 monaural tape recorder Stewart asked his sister Estelle Axton for help by taking out a mortgage on her house. After convincing here husband Everett to go along a second mortgage was taken out. With the $8000 - $9000 Herbert and Bylar were bought out, the Ampex recorder was financed and badly needed operating capital was provided.

Estelle took out a $2500 on her house and they began a record label they called Satellite (probably because Sputnik, the Russians' first earth satellite, was launched in October, 1957, and dominated the news). In 1958, Estelle became involved when Jim Stewart asked her to invest in his record company, she took out a second mortgage on her home and they bought new recording equipment. The label was located in Brunswick, Tennessee in an old storehouse.

In the spring of 1959 Stewart recorded his first black group, the Veltones. The Veltones'  "Fool in Love"/"Someday" was released in in the summer of 1959. In September it was picked up for national distribution by Mercury Records for an advance of $400 - $500. The record went nowhere and Stewart received no further money from Mercury.

In 1960, they moved the label back to Memphis to rented for $150 a month the old Capitol movie theater on East McLemore and College. Short on money,  Estelle decided to convert the candy counter into a record shop to generate additional income.Estelle ran a record shop in the front of the building from which they would derive much of their early income.

After signing the lease,  they set about renovating the theatre. In the next few months after everyone's regular workday and on weekends, acoustical drapes were hung, a control room was built on stage, carpeting was put on the floors, baffles were built with burlap and ruffle insulation on the one outside plaster wall to cut down on echo and a drum stand was built. The hanging of the ceiling baffles was the only work that they paid professionals to do.

Although the renovations only cost $200 - $200, they again found themselves cash strapped. Unable to find local investors, Axton again refinanced her house to get another $4000 of badly needed operating capital. As luck would have it, their next recording would provide their first hit.

They recorded a local disc jockey named Rufus Thomas, who had had a minor hit with Sun Records earlier called "Bearcat". Rufus and his 17 year old daughter Carla recorded a duet titled "Cause I Love You" and it became a local hit in Memphis. The song came to the attention of Jerry Wexler, who was Vice President of Atlantic Records, he leased the record and obtained a five year option for future Satellite product for $5000. After "Cause I Love You", Carla Thomas recorded a song she had written called "Gee Whiz". The record came out on Satellite, but Wexler immediately claimed it for Atlantic, and it was released nationally on Atlantic. "Gee Whiz" went to Billboard #5 and became the first big national hit for Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton.

Estelle Axton's son Packy played tenor sax in a rock and roll band named the Royal Spades. Along with Packy was Steve Cropper on guitar, Charlie Freeman on guitar, drummer Terry Johnson baritone sax player Don Nix and bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn. This group became the Mar-Keys and recorded an instrumental named "Last Night" which became the next big hit for Jim and Estelle. When this song started up the charts, Jim Stewart became aware of another record company in California called "Satellite" so rather than risking litigation, the name of the company was changed to "Stax", the ST from Stewart and the AX from Axton.

Booker T and the MGs

A young piano player named Booker T. Jones lived in the neighborhood near the Stax studio, and started hanging around. He joined up with Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn from the Mar-Keys and with Al Jackson and they became the backbone of the "Stax Sound". They also recorded on their own as Booker T. and MG's (standing for Memphis Group) and soon had a giant hit named "Green Onions". Steve Cropper became an important producer for Stax and both wrote songs and produced many other acts for Jim Stewart.

In 1962, Johnny Jenkins came to the Stax studio to record a single for Atlantic. When the recording session for Jenkins turned into a disaster, they used the last half hour of studio time to record Jenkin's 21 year old driver, Otis Redding. He recorded a ballad he had written called "These Arms of Mine". "These Arms of Mine" was released in October of 1962 on Stax's new rhythm and blues subsidiary named Volt. It made the charts in March of 1963 and in September of 1963, Otis came back into the Stax studio and recorded "Pain In My Heart" which became an even bigger hit.

Fred Foster (Monument Records)

Fred Foster started the Monument Record label in 1958. The output of the label was popular music, country and western, rhythm and blues and rock and roll. 

Foster was born in Appalachia. At 17, he moved to Washington, DC, to work in a small restaurant. Through one of his customers, a nightclub owner, he was put in touch with music publisher Ben Edelman, and Foster started putting words to songs Edelman was publishing. His first effort was "Picking Sweethearts," which was recorded by the McGuire Sisters in 1953. Although he'd never produced a record before, he was allowed to supervise a session by Jimmy Dean and the Texas Wildcats, a combo that was working in Washington's Covered Wagon bar. Shortly after this, he got a job as a promotion man for Mercury Records and in 1955 went to ABC-Paramount. Although he was a regional promotion director for ABC, he did bring talent he discovered to the label, including George Hamilton IV and Lloyd Price (who at the time was living in the Washington area). 

He grew tired of the traveling that the ABC job required, so he took a job with J & F (Record) Distributors in Baltimore, Maryland, a short distance from Washington, DC. Using his life savings, in September 1958, he started the Monument Record Company (so named after the Washington Mounument in DC). His first recording was a reworking of the traditional "Done Laid Around," which was retitled "Gotta Travel On," sung by a former member of Jimmy Dean's Wildcats, Billy Grammer. The record went to number 4 on the popular charts. Foster then set up a second office for the record company in Hendersonville, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville. 

Not long after, Foster's partner Bob Moore, a top session bassist in Nashville and well-connected with the musicians, felt that Roy Orbison was not being promoted properly by RCA, and brought Orbison to Monument. At his first session for Monument, Roy recorded "Paper Boy," "With the Bug" and "Double Date." In order to make the soft-singing Orbison heard above the band, the producer placed Roy's microphone behind a acoustical barrier that would pick up far less of the band, which had the additional side effect of alleviating Orbison's painful self-consciousness. This technique of an "isolation booth" had grown out of the musicians' experimenting informally, but had not generally been used in Nashville recordings. Orbison's next sessions for Monument produced "Uptown," which reached a respectable number 72 on the pop charts in January 1960. The next release, "Only the Lonely," was a smash hit, and started Orbison and Monument on a long string of hits through 1965. Orbison had two #1 records for Monument, "Running Scared" in 1961 and "Oh, Pretty Woman" in 1964. The stereo versions of Orbison's albums "Lonely and Blue" and "Crying" are particularly in demand because of the superb stereo recordings by Foster. 

Throughout Orbison's stay at Monument, his backup band was a group of all-star studio musicians led by Bob Moore, and it was the play of Orbison's amazing voice against the dynamic yet uncluttered sound of the band that gave Orbison's records such a unique, highly identifiable sound. Moore, who is generally acknowledged at the top country session bassist of his era -- maybe ever -- was on thousands of pop and country songs, including over 500 chart records (including almost every type of music, from Elvis Presley to Marty Robbins to Pat Boone to Clyde McPhatter). Moore had a top 10 single under his own name in 1961, "Mexico," which was a forerunner of the trumpet-and-guitar sound Herb Alpert used effectively starting about two years later. Alpert later mentioned the Moore hit as one of his influences, and wondered that Moore didn't have a followup in the same vein. 

So as not to change the relationships he had with fellow musicians, Moore kept the fact that he owned 37% of Monument secret for years. It was only when Foster applied for a credit account at Owen Bradley's studio that the secret was uncovered. Bradley looked up Monument with Dunn & Bradstreet as a credit check, and noticed Moore's part ownership. Moore recalls that Bradley called him and said, "Good for you." But by the mid-1960s, Moore and Foster had a falling out over a business deal that Foster made that he apparently neglected to tell his partners about. Moore asked to be bought out. It was about this time (1965) that Moore helped Roy Orbison leave Monument for MGM Records. 

Orbison was certainly the most important artist on Monument, and without Orbison and Moore, the label declined. The label did have a strong country roster, however, and scored sporadic hits with Boots Randolph, Dolly Parton, Billy Walker, Jeannie Seely, Henson Cargill, and Charlie McCoy. Later, Foster became the first to record singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, with considerable success. 

In 1963, Foster formed a subsidiary label called Sound Stage 7. Over the years, they have issued singles by some well-known talent, including Arthur Alexander, Roscoe Shelton, Allen Orange (Allen Toussaint), Ivory Joe Hunter, the O'Jays, Alvin Cash, and of course Joe Simon. The first album release was by the Dixie Bells (with "Cornbread & Jerry"), titled Down at Papa Joe's, after their hit of the same name. Most of the subsequent albums on Sound Stage 7 were by Joe Simon, as the label was little used for album releases. This left most of the label's output unavailable in stereo, although it doubtlessly was recorded in that mode. For example, a smooth 1964 top-50 single by the Monarchs, "Look Homeward Angel," has apparently never been issued on LP. 

Another Monument subsidiary label, Rising Sons, was active in 1967-68. Although they had singles out by Robert Knight, Bobby Russell, Billy Swan, Ral Donner, Troy Seals, Charlie McCoy, and others, their only real hit was Knight's "Everlasting Love," which prompted an album of the same name. 

At the start of 1971, Foster entered into a distribution arrangement with CBS, and the catalog numbering system for the albums changed to the CBS numbering system. Since CBS had a "consolidated" numbering system (i.e., all labels under their distribution shared the same numbering series, with prefixes designating Columbia, Epic, "other," etc.), the albums issued on Monument from 1971-76 are not numbered consecutively. At that time the label design also changed. 

By 1976, Foster apparently opted to switch distribution, and signed a deal with PolyGram. The items then in his catalog were renumbered from the CBS system and reissued using a system of consecutive numbers in one of several new Monument-only series. The label design also changed from the rather unattractive brown label used for the CBS years to a nifty new black label with "MONUMENT" in three dimensional letters of carved stone. 

Monument continued into the early 1980s and Fred Foster even had another opportunity to record Roy Orbison, when Orbison came back to Monument to record the album Regeneration in 1976, but the two failed to rekindle the magic they had in the early '60s. 

Vee-Jay Records

Vee-Jay and it's subsidiaries were owned by Vivian Carter Bracken,  James Bracken, her husband, and Calvin Carter. Vee-Jay  was the first large independent record company to be owned by blacks and was the most successful black owned record company before Motown.  Vee Jay contributed a tremendous legacy of blues, rhythm and blues, doowop,  jazz, soul, pop and rock n' roll.

James Bracken was born in Oklahoma on May 23, 1909; grew up in Kansas City, Kansas; and attended Western University In Quindaro, Kansas. He was living in Chicago when he met Vivian Carter in 1944. Carter was born in Tunica, Mississippi, in 1920 and moved to Gary, Indiana, as a little girl. She graduated from Roosevelt High in 1939. In 1948, in Chicago, she won a talent contest for new deejays conducted by Al Benson. She worked three months at WGES and then moved to WJOB in her hometown  of Gary. Carter and Bracken became business partners in 1950 when they founded Vivian's Record Shop in Gary. After three years of saving their money, in mid-1953 they decided to start their own record company. Meanwhile Vivian continued deejaying in Gary, joining WGRY, in 1952 and moving to WWCA in 1954, which was undoubtedly a significant factor in attracting talent to their label.

From left to right: Art Sheridan owner Chance Records,
Ewart Abner and James Bracken

her brother, Calvin Cook was an established musician. Before starting Vee-Jay they had served as consultants for Chess brothers as to the commercial viability of Chess Records recordings.

The company was built entirely on doo wop groups Spaniels, El Dorados, Magnificents, Dukays, Dells and Shepards, with John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed exceptions. They owned their own publishing company Conrad.
Vee Jay was also a major player in the gospel music field, with luminaries like the Staple Singers, the Original Five Blind Boys, Harmonizing Four, the Caravans, Gospel Harmonettes and the Swan Silvertones in its stable of artists. It has even been suggested that one of Vivian Carter's main reasons for starting Vee Jay was to record gospel performers.
Vee Jay was the first to introduce the Beatles to the US. They dominated the pop charts with the first hits from the Four Seasons. Everyone from blues legends Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker, soul singers Jerry Butler, Curtis Mayfield and Betty Everett and the Dells recorded for Vee Jay. Interestingly enough, young unknowns David Gates (of Bread), Hoyt Axton and Jimi Hendrix briefly appeared on the label.

"I know a record company (probably referring to Vee-Jay) who done a minimum of fifteen million dollars worth of  business in two years and they are bankrupt ...... Syd Nathan of King Records.

Poor financial management led to bankruptcy in 1966 despite having the Dells, Four Seasons. and Jerry Butler and the Impressions.

Bobby Robinson

Bobby Robinson owned a record shop in New York City. He established many record labels in the '50s and '60s, on some he was the sole owner, on others he was in partnership with his brother Danny Robinson. Among them were Red Robin Records established in 1952 (Bobby and Danny), Whirlin' Disc Records established in 1956 (Bobby), Fury Records established in 1957 (Bobby), Everlast Records established in 1957 (Bobby and Danny), Fire Records established in 1959 (Bobby), and Enjoy Records established in 1962 (Bobby and Danny).

Red Robin and Whirlin' Disc recorded mostly vocal group rhythm and blues music. Originally Fury was established as a record label and Fire was to be the publishing arm. When Bobby Robinson issued "Kansas City" by Wilbert Harrison, it was a sensation and went to the top of the singles charts. At the height of this success, Robinson was sued by Savoy Records who, unknown to Bobby, had Wilbert Harrison under a 5 year contract that was to expire in August 1959, the "Kansas City" record came out in March 1959. Because Fury was tied up in litigation, Robinson began releasing material on the Fire Record label. The litigation lasted until September 1959 and prevented Robinson from issuing any follow-up Wilbert Harrison records while he was so hot.

Fire Records became known as a blues label and issued albums by Lightnin' Hopkins, Buster Brown and Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup. Bobby Robinson made occasional forays into New Orleans where he recorded Lee Dorsey and Bobby Marchan.

The biggest hits produced by Bobby Robinson were "Kansas City" by Wilbert Harrison which sold over 2 million records, "Fannie Mae" by Buster Brown and "Ya Ya" by Lee Dorsey both of which sold over one million records. In addition to these artists, he also had hits with Elmore James (some of his best work), Gladys Knight and the Pips (their first recordings), Lewis Lymon and the Teen Chords, Bobby Marchan, King Curtis, Don Gardner & Dee Dee Ford and Les Cooper.

Of the many labels only Fire, Fury, Everlast and Enjoy issued albums and are covered in the following discographies. As for stereo, the entire stereo story has only been heard on CD. The Robinsons' labels boasted "The Ultimate in Monaural Sound," and we know of no stereo issues on Fire, Fury, Enjoy, or Everlast. The Sphere Sound LPs were mono also, to our knowledge. It was only in the 1990s, when Little Walter DeVenne obtained the original multitracks from Bobby Robinson that the material began being issued in true stereo on the Relic label. For that reason, several CD issues are appended to this discography to illustrate the many songs recorded in stereo.

Sun Records

Sam Phillips is not just one of the most important producers in rock history. There's a good argument to be made that he is also one of the most important figures in 20th-century American culture. As owner of Sun Records and frequent producer of discs at his Sun Studios he was vital to launching the careers of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Rufus Thomas and numerous other significant artists. Although he first made his mark (and a very deep one) with electric blues by Black performers, he will be most remembered for his rockabilly stars, particularly Elvis Presley.

Sam Phillips was born January 5, 1923, the youngest of eight children and was raised on a farm just outside Florence, Alabama. In high school Phillips conducted the school band. His onstage presence impressed the manager of local WLAY radio that he was hired as a part-time announcer. The Phillips were a typical middle class family until the Great Crash of 1929. Sam's father died in 1941 just after Pearl Harbor. He then dropped out of high school to help support his mother and deaf mute aunt. He worked first at a grocery and later a funeral home. It was while at the funeral home that Phillips learn how to handle people tactfully in emotional situations, a skill that later would serve him well.

Originally Phillips wanted to study law, but because of circumstances decided to go into radio. He went to Alabama Polytechnical Institute in Auburn, Alabama where he majored in engineering, including audio engineering for radio. In broke into radio in 1940 when he conducted and emceed the band for a college concert. This impressed Jim Connally the station manager at WLAY enough that he hired Phillips.

Phillips at his desk at WREC

In 1942 he married Rebecca Burns. Phillips next radio job was for three years at WMSL in Decatur, Alabama and then to WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee and finally in June, 1945 to WREC. At WREC he hosted the "Songs of the West" show daily at 4 PM. There he was able to put his engineering skills into use. In those days many programs were prerecorded on 16 inch acetate discs which were often duplicated and passed to other stations. Thus the radio engineers were also recording engineers and thus Phillips was able to develop his recording skills. He also took care of the station's sound effects and found records for its library.

While at WREC he hosted "Saturday Afternoon Tea Dance" where he played jazz, blues and pop from the Skyway Room of the Peabody Hotel. The shows were broadcast nationally over the CBS radio network

In October 1949 Phillips signed a lease on a small storefront located at 706 Union Avenue near downtown Memphis. The rent was $150 a month. With the help of two year loan from Buck Turner a regular performer at WREC he installed recording equipment. The Memphis recording studio opened in January 1950 with the slogan "We Record Anything-Anywhere- Anytime." With a Presto five-input mixer board and Presto PT900 portable tape recorder in the Trunk of his car, Phillips would whatever weddings, funerals or religious gatherings he could book.

                          

Most of his early commercial recordings were done onto acetate rather than than at that time unproven tape. By 1954 he had upgraded his equipment  and installed two Ampex 350 recorders: one a console model and another mounted behind his head for the tape delay echo, or slapback.

Memphis Recording Studio's first paying job  was transcriptions of Buck Turner's band for the Arkansas Rural Electrification Program. These were distributed to fifteen to twenty stations throughout the mid-South. It was probably five or six months later that Phillips decided to record artists to sell or lease masters.

Phillips along with his friend Dewey Phillips decided to start their own record label. The new label was simply called Phillips - "The Hottest Thing in the Country." The first record was "Boogie in the Park" by Joe Hill Louis. On August 30, 1950 three hundred copies were pressed  and shipped to Music Distribution in Memphis.

Phillips decided to get out of the manufacturing end of the business as his relationship the Biharis (Joe, Saul and Jules) Modern Records grew. The Biharis had started a subsidiary RPM Records for music with a down home feel. At first Phillips sent them samples of Joe Hill, a local gospel group and jazz pianist Phineas Newborn, Jr.

In 1950 Jules Bihari signed B.B. King to a contract and placed him with Phillips. Working under Bihari's direct Phillips recorded King from mid-1950 until June 1951. The Biharis released five singles from the material Phillips sent, making King one of the first artists on  their new RPM subsidiary.Phillips' involvement with King would later end a casualty of the dispute between the Biharis and Phillips over the placing of "Rocket 88" with Chess Records.

The Clovers

Considered one of the first rhythm and blues groups to cross over into rock and roll, the Clovers were certainly central in forming both styles of music. Their easily identifiable was sound was based on a combination of blues and gospel. The Clovers did not follow the "pop" singing style of the Mills Brothers or the Ink Spots and sounded distinctly different from the Orioles and the Larks, rhythm and blue's first role models.

The Clovers started as a trio of Armstrong High School students in 1946 all from the same neighborhood in Washington, D.C. The leader of the group Harold "Hal" Lucas, sang baritone. From 1946 through 1949 the group went through many personal changes as they performed in several of the area's small nightclubs. In 1950, they were heard by Lou Kreftz, a local music dealer, while performing at the Rose Club. He got them a recording contract with Rainbow Records, a small New York label, but only one record was released in 1950. In February 1951 they signed with Atlantic Records, where they stayed for seven years. Their first Atlantic release was "Don't You Know That I Love You So," which sold a quarter million copies.The follow up, "Fool, Fool, Fool" did even better selling a half million copies and "One Mint Julip" almost went gold. Of their first nine records at Atlantic, three were number one rhythm and blues hits, three reached number two and two went to number three.

In 1952 the group consisted of John "Buddy" Bailey (first tenor), Mathew McQuarter (2nd tenor), Harold Jerome Winley (bass), and Bill Harris (guitar). In September 1952 Bailey was drafted, and was replaced first by John Phillip and then Charlie White, who had been an original member of the Dominoes and the Checkers. In 1953 Billy Mitchell, who had been a solo artist at Atlantic, became the lead tenor. When Bailey returned from Korea in May, 1954  he alternated with Mitchell and the group expanded to six members.

Their peak year was 1952 with five songs in the national rhythm and blues top ten, but had hits for Atlantic until 1957. Their last hit was "Love Potion #9" for United Artist in 1959. By the early 1960s the group had disbanded with two new groups of Clovers, one led by Bailey and one led by Lucas, touring the country. The Lucas group continued to perform in clubs into the 1970s.

The Clover's sound was heavy on the bottom. Both the vocal group and and the instrumental backing employed an accentuated bass line. No distinctive lead tenor carried the group; rather, it was a blending of all the voices over a varied mixture of drums, saxophone, and piano that gave the recordings by the group the warm feel of warmth even on the up-tempo numbers.

Few rhythm and blues groups in this period  could claim the popularity and longevity of the Clovers. While the Dominoes and the Orioles opted for the "better" clubs and hotels, the Clovers stayed within the Black community, becoming "their" vocal group more than any other at this time.

Bang Records

The Bang Records story falls neatly into three parts. From 1965-1973, the label was established and operated in New York City. In 1973, the label moved to Atlanta, where they operated doing their own distribution until 1978. Lastly, in 1978, they entered into a distribution deal with CBS. This arrangement lasted until the label was sold to Columbia Special Products in the early 1980s, where it remains today. They issued product sparingly by record label standards, but they placed most of their efforts on the charts. 

The New York Years (1965-1973): 

Bang records was started in New York in 1965, and for a time had an extremely successful string of releases. Bert Berns was the prime mover at the label, as an owner and director of operations. Berns' friends from Atlantic, Ahmet and Neshui Ertegun and Gerry Wexler helped set up the label, and the name is an acronym for the first letters of their names. Berns had been involved in making successful records for years by the time Bang was formed, either as a songwriter or as a producer. He was responsible for "Twist and Shout", "Under The Boardwalk", "Hang On Sloopy," "Brown Eyed Girl", "Piece Of My Heart", "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love," "A Little Bit Of Soap," "Push Push," and dozens of others. Berns quickly proved as adept at running his own label as he was at making hits for others. 

One of the first groups Berns signed to the label was the Strangeloves. Producer Bob Feldman was directly involved in the first four chart records on the Bang label (with three different groups!), as a songwriter, artist, and producer. As one of the people around "in the beginning" at Bang, Bob was in a unique position to tell us about what it was like being in a small, but successful, record company in the mid-1960s. Also interesting is how three songwriters from New York could become the first Australian rock group to hit the US charts! 

Although the Bang story starts in 1965, Feldman's success goes back several years before that, as producer and writer of the classic Angels' hits "My Boyfriend's Back," "Thank You And Goodnight," and others, with partners Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer in Feldman-Goldstein-Gottehrer (FGG) Productions. The following recollections on history of the label and the Strangeloves were recorded in an interview for Both Sides Now Stereo Newsletter in 1990: 

Bob Feldman: We were writing and making demos of our songs, and we were using the Angels as singers on our demos. They told us that they had been with Caprice Records, and they weren't recording and they weren't happy, so we worked out a deal with Caprice to let them go. The night we cut "My Boyfriend's Back," we cut four A sides with four different groups, because we didn't have a lot of money [for studio time] and we put the same B-side on all four songs. One was Heavy And The Companions, we sold that master to Columbia, we sold another master to Kapp Records, we sold three of the four, one we never sold. But one of the four was "My Boyfriend's Back." The 45 had an edit where the instrumental break was taken out of it, and some splicing here and there, but the long version on the album My Boyfriend's Back [Smash SRS-67039] is the uncut song.

"My Boyfriend's Back" was banned. We had to put out the record without the intro. We had to do edits for a lot of radio stations, including MCA in New York. The followup to "My Boyfriend's Back" was supposed to be "The Guy With The Black Eye." It's on the album, you've got to listen to it. It picks up the story. The boyfriend comes back and gets the guy and beats him up for saying all these things. This is the natural followup, right? When you listen to it, it sounds like in the background they're singing "look at the gal with the black guy," not "look at the guy with the black eye." In 1963, radio just wouldn't play anything as controversial as a song about a white girl going out with a black guy. Smash wouldn't put it out because of what somebody might think was in the words, even if it wasn't really there.

But it was a time when you could be any group you wanted, a Ia Phil Spector, Darlene Love, or the Beach Nuts. We could just go out and make good records. And fun records. Snuff Garrett and I were in New York together on a rainy Saturday, and he says, "Let's go into the studio and make a record." No song, no nothing. Marty Coopersmith, who was in Jay and The Americans, showed up at the studio, and we did a record called "Don't Monkey With Tarzan" by The Pygmies. And Marty Coopersmith came out and had leopardskin bikini underwear on and ran through the studio with a Tarzan scream, and the record came out [Liberty 55624, ca. 1963]. We had nothing to do that day, it was raining, so we would just go and make records. 

And early in the days of the Bang Label, the Strangeloves and Angels collaborated on a record as artists: The Beach Nuts. 

"Out In The Sun (Hey-O)" [Bang 504, 7/65] was the Strangeloves and the Angels, along with a steel band. We were one of the first people to use a steel band on a rock and roll record. But during the session, we couldn't get through that we wanted than to play "The Banana Boat Song." Seems they never heard of it. After an hour and a half; somebody says, "you know, 'Day-O'." They say, "Day-O? Why didn't you say so?" An hour and a half, we couldn't get "The Banana Boat Song" on record. Crazy times; fun times.

Bang got started after Bert Berns did a lot of producing for Atlantic Records, a lot of the Drifters things, and other hits [not on Atlantic] like "Twist And Shout" on Wand. He was very close to Jerry Wexler and the Erteguns, and they gave him his own label to work with, which Atlantic distributed. The label name, "Bang," is actually the first initials of the four of them (Bert Berns, Ahmet Ertegun, Neshui Ertegun, and Gerald Wexler). He was personally involved with a lot of things with the label. I can't remember if he was actually in the booth when we put our voices on "I Want Candy," but he was personally involved with all the acts he signed to the label.

In 1964, we [FGG Productions] had basically cut "Bo Diddley" in Atlantic Recording Studios. We were looking to sell the master, and Atlantic loved it. They told us that they were starting a new label with Bert Berns. We had cut the track, they had loved the track, and we were going to do "Bo Diddley." But Bert Berns told us, "Why do Bo Diddley? Let's write a new song." That's how "I Want Candy" came about.

What happened was, we had a record out on Swan as the Strangeloves ["Love Love (That's All I Want From You)", Swan 4192] before the Bang record. It hit the charts [Billboard #122, 12/19/64]. This was in '64, just after the British Invasion hit. The West Coast was another world, but the East Coast writers and producers were having a tough time selling anything because all anybody wanted were English groups. We had a track lying around, and I convinced my partners that the only way we were going to get say product was if we were British. Being that everybody was from England, we came up with the "fact" that we were from Australia, so we became in essence the first Australian rock group to come to the United States. We had this old track lying around that we were going to do with the Angels, but we had never put out. The record was called "Love Love." On the back of "Love Love" was a demo of a song called "I'm On Fire," which Jerry Lee Lewis ultimately recorded [Smash 1886, charted 4/64, #98], and it's in the Great Balls Of Fire movie. But that was the original demo that we had cut to send to him. Somewhere in the record I went (uses British accent) "a little love that slowly grows and grows," and did this monologue with an accent.

So we sold the record to Swan and said that we were from Australia. And they bought it. So we had a record that hit the charts on Swan, but they wouldn't pay for a followup record. So we went into the studio with our own money, and cut "I Want Candy." 

Following up with the idea of being an Australian group, the three billed themselves as the Strange Brothers, Miles, Niles, and Giles, and started touring. 

I put on a wig, long hair and a beard. We invented Armstrong, Australia, and said that the reason we looked different was that we had the same mother, but three different fathers, and that I was the boomerang champion of Australia.

For our first show, we went to The Dome in Virginia Beach, and we were co-headlining with Chuck Berry. Gene Pitney was on the show, and the Shangri-Las, and a bunch of people. We drove two cars down to Newport News [an adjacent city], then got on a private jet that taxied to Virginia Beach. It never left the ground; it was like a couple of miles. There were 3000 people with banners waiting, the mayor with the keys to the city, television cameras, signs saying "Welcome to America, Strangeloves." And instead of flying in from Australia, we had driven all night from New York to get there.

On a TV show, I think it was KDKA in Pittsburgh, a guy, I think his name was Clark Race, surprised me and handed me a boomerang. I had never seen one in my life. He asked me to demonstrate my championship technique. I threw the damned thing, and they had one camera shooting, and I hit the cameraman, and the camera fell over. So he says to me, "that's not the way you hold a boomerang." I said, "That's why I'm the champion and you're not." It was just marvelous.

We did this for a year, we toured with every major British act, the Beach Boys thought we were insane, so we did three tours with the Beach Boys. They thought we were nuts, and we thought they were nuts.

"I Want Candy" was also banned! It went to #1 in St. Louis and they never played it. Crazy times.

We were doing a show in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the Dave Clark Five. "Hang On Sloopy" was originally on the Strangeloves album, the same track "Hang On Sloopy" was supposed to be the followup to "I Want Candy." The Dave Clark Five were leaving, getting ready to go back to England, and they needed a new single. They loved what we were doing with "Sloopy." They taped it. We were supposed to fly home, and there were tornados all over the place, all over that part of the country, and I didn't want to fly in that, so I said, "No, we're driving." So an agent said, "Listen, if you're driving home, why don't you stop in Dayton, Ohio, and do a show on the way home and pick up a couple of thousand bucks?" We said fine.

I remember it was Friday night, we stopped in Dayton, and Rick and The Raiders were a substitute backup band. They were a last minute replacement as a backup for the Strangeloves. We were standing in the wings watching them, and I heard a sixteen year-old [Rick Zehringer, later Derringer] that played guitar like I'd never heard anybody play a guitar. And they backed us up. We were worried about the Dave Clark Five, because they had told us that they were going to cut "Hang On Sloopy." Being that "I Want Candy" was just out and on the way up, there was no way we were going to get it out [before they did without killing "Candy"]. We heard the group who would be the McCoys, we thought they'd be great, had them call their folks, and we all drove to New York. We named them on the way, from Dayton to New York. First it was the Real McCoys, then just the McCoys. We got there, went right in the studio, put their voices on the track, and then put Rick's guitar on it. But if you listen to the Strangeloves version of "Hang On Sloopy," listen to the track, it's the same. The McCoys single also has an edit, there was an extra verse we took out, strictly because the song was too long for a single. Bert Berns was a stickler for getting airplay, and at that time songs being under three minutes was necessary. 

The liner notes for The Strangeloves album were written with tongue firmly in cheek, leaving plenty of clues that the group was actually Feldman, Goldstein, and Gottshrer. It would seem just a matter of time before someone uncovered them... 

Nobody uncovered us. We went out on a tour with the McCoys, the McCoys were the Strangeloves' backup band, and it was the Stangeloves-McCoys, but halfway through the tour, "Hang On Sloopy" became #1, and they became the ultimate stars of the show. I remember I took off my fall, it was my wife's hairpiece, and they booed me. They didn't want to know that it wasn't real. They wanted to believe that we were from Australia. Later, Max's Kansas City and New York had all our records in the juke box saying we were the fathers of Punk Rock, because we dressed in zebra skins, leather pants, carried spears, and did all sorts of wierd things. 

One of the things that has puzzled record collectors is what came out in stereo on Bang. For example, the first album, by the Strangeloves, is listed as being stereo in some of the references from 1965 and 1966, and the album pasteover has a stereo banner on it, but nobody's ever found one in stereo. 

There wasn't really a hell of a lot of stereo on the early Bang that I can remember. The Strangeloves I don't remember doing a stereo on. We mixed it to mono. We did it actually as a two-track, I think. I don't remember doing a stereo. If it was, it was a phony stereo. As for someone finding a stereo copy, if I didn't do one, they couldn't find one. Most of what we did was recorded on four track or eight track, but it was mixed down to mono. You have to remember that AM radio was king. As for FM stereo, there really wasn't that much of a call then. That didn't really start happening until the end of 1966, or 1967.

The last Bang record we had anything to do with was the McCoys' "Beat The Clock," in late 1966. That's a long time ago. 

And after the Strangeloves? 

I have one of the all-time oldies on KDKA. I was part of a duet called Rome And Paris, Jerry Goldstein and I tried to imitate the Flamingos. We did "Because Of You" [Roulette 4681, 7/66 Billboard # 104]. I did sing on a couple of records besides that, but I don't remember them offhand, they weren't too memorable. 

The Strangeloves had one other chart hit, "Honey Do," [Sire 4102, #120] in late 1968. Today, the three former Strangeloves are alive and well, although scattered throughout heir "adopted" country, the US. Jerry Goldstein is on the west coast and Richard Gottehrer is on the east coast, both still in the music business, while Bob Feldman makes Colorado his home. The McCoys moved to Mercury Records in 1967, went through numerous (and essentially total) personnel changes through the early 1970s, and eventually became a country and western bar band bearing no resemblance whatever to Rick and The Raiders. Rick Derringer, at that time long since departed from the McCoys, had several solo singles chart in the mid-1970s, most notably "Rock And Roll Hoochie Coo" [Billboard #23] in early 1974. 

In addition to FGG, who produced the first three albums for Bang (The Strangeloves and McCoys albums), Berns used other producers, such as Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who were Neil Diamond's producers. Diamond was a New Yorker who had been trying to break into the music business since he was a teenager, when he recorded an obscure single for the Duet label in 1960. He worked as a songwriter in new York in the early 1960s, where he undoubtedly met fellow Tin Pan Alley songwriters Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. After another obscure single in 1963 ["Clown Town"/"At Night" on Columbia 42809] and a songwriting success in 1965 ["Sunday and Me" for Jay and the Americans], he hooked up again with Barry and Greenwich as producers and signed with Bang Records. The three were considering which of Diamond's songs to record for a single when Barry and Greenwich heard "Solitary Man," a song Diamond wrote about his social life, a personal song he joked that he used just for self-torture. They convinced him to record it and issue it as his first Bang single [Bang 215]. Although it only reached #55 nationally, it was a moderate hit in some of the major markets like New York and Chicago, and got him some recognition. His second single, "Cherry Cherry" [Bang 528], though, reached top-10 nationally and established him as a recording star. The refrain "She's got the way to move me..." was widely misinterpreted as "She's got the wedding movement...," which, although somewhat nonsensical, was thought to be kind of quaint and inventive, and added to the public's like of the song. 

Diamond's first album was released hot on the heels of "Cherry Cherry's" success. Called The Feel of Neil Diamond, it was set up as a look into the studio life at the time. A memo on the back of the cover by Bert Berns told of things that allegedly happened during recording of the album, and the recordings themselves had studio talk at times with Barry and Greenwich encouraging (demanding?) Diamond as he prepared to sing. In addition to his own material, he made it through some other hits, sometimes seriously and sometimes not. "La Bamba," in particular, has confused anyone who knows the actual Spanish words (huh? what is Diamond singing?), since it sounds like they were taken phonetically off the Ritchie Valens single. 

More hits followed ["I Got The Feelin' (Oh No No)," Bang 536, #16; "You Got To Me," Bang 540, #18; "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon," Bang 542, #10; "Thank The Lord For The Night Time," Bang 547, #13; and "Kentucky Woman," Bang 551, #22]. A second album,Just for You, was issued in the summer of 1967, about the time "Thank the Lord for the Night Time" was current. By the time "Kentucky Woman" was a hit, however, Diamond's contract was running out and he opted to go with the Uni label. Bang issued aGreatest Hits album, but that was it. Bang issued several more singles from Diamond's back catalog, and most of them were charters due to his growing popularity. These included "New Orleans" [Bang 554,#51, from his first LP], "Red Red Wine" [Bang 556, #62, from his second LP], "Shilo" [Bang 575, #24, from his second LP], "Solitary Man" [Bang 578, #21, a reissue of Bang 215 that did far better the second time around], "Do It" [Bang 580, #36, the flip of the original release of "Solitary Man"], "I'm A Believer" [Bang 586, #51, from his second LP], and "The Long Way Home" [Bang 703, #91, from his second LP]. 

To say that Bang shamelessly exploited his material following his departure (in a tried-and-true record company manner) is perhaps a bit overstated; after all, the public bought them eagerly. (Well, maybe the issuing of the Shilo and Do It albums, with all recycled songs, was a bit much...) Eventually, Diamond himself put a stop to the reissues by buying the masters back. He now controls the CD reissue of his Bang catalog, and for the most part, his preference is to reissue the songs in mono. 

Diamond's Bang songs have some variations, with three different versions of "Solitary Man," and two versions each of "Do It; 'Shilo," and 'i'm A Believer." The original 45 versions of "Solitary Man" and "Do It" have never appeared In stereo; the alternate versions are different takes or have added instrurnentation. The discography notes the different versions. 

Another hitmaker for Bang was Van Morrison, the singer from Belfast, Ireland, who had gone back to Ireland after leaving his group, Them. Bert Berns brought him to New York and produced an album for Morrison, Blowin' Your Mind, and from those sessions, Bang eventually issued three separate albums! The big hit single, "Brown Eyed Girl" [Bang 545] reached the top-10, but it was the only hit from the Bert Berns sessions. Released in the summer of 1967, it was indeed strange times in radioland, as "Brown Eyed Girl" ran into censorship problems due to the line, "makin' love in the green grass behind the stadium." Berns quickly provided a "cleaned-up version," splicing in a line from another part of the song, the result being, "Laughin' and a-runnin', behind the stadium." This version was used for the mono version of the album, and appears from time to time on reissues. 

On December 30, 1967, Bert Berns died at the age of 38, and his wife Ilene took over the company. It was on her watch that the endless reissuing of the back catalogs of Neil Diamond and Van Morrison took place, but it was also on her watch that she found the star for Bang's future, Paul Davis. A singer/songwriter from Mississippi, Davis had fronted a group called the Reivers in the 1960s, and even had a single released on the White Whale label. He signed with Bang in 1969, and Ilene Berns shipped him to New York to work with Barry and Greenwich to learn about producing. Eventually, Davis had hits for Bang from 1970 to 1980. He then went on to a further career as a country music songwriter and sometimes artist for Arista. 

Davis started with the non-charting single "Mississippi River"/"If I Wuz A Magician" [Bang 568] in 1969. When that failed, he switched to the Bert Berns-penned "A Little Bit of Soap," which had been a top-15 hit for the Jarmels in 1961 [Laurie 3091]. It also had been done by the Exciters in 1966, during their days with Bang [Bang 515, #58]. Davis did a bit better with it, making #52 in 1970 [Bang 576], demonstrating that at least the song had staying power. Davis' followup, "I Just Wanna Keep It Together," did about the same at #51 [Bang 579]. Davis then dropped off the charts for more than two years until "Boogie Woogie Man" made #68 in early 1973. An album released to follow up on the single didn't sell well. 

The Atlanta Years: 

The label moved to Atlanta in 1973, opting for one last Van Morrison reissue on the way. Actually, T.B. Sheets was not a reissue in the strict sense, but an album of outtakes and alternates from the Blowin' Your Mind session. As such, it was at least interesting to Van Morrison's fans. 

Paul Davis' next single, "Ride 'Em Cowboy" [Bang 712, #23], was a tear-jerker about a aging rodeo bronc rider. It was his biggest hit yet, and portended his move into country music. It wasn't until "I Go Crazy" in 1977 [Bang 733], though, that he finally reached the top 10. The song seemed to hang around forever on the charts, lasting an astonishing 40 weeks, at that time setting the chart record for longevity. He had two more top-30 hits for Bang with "Sweet Life" [Bang 738, #17] and "Do Right" [Bang 4808, #23] before moving to Arista in 1981. 

Besides Paul Davis, Bang had one other major hitmaking act during its days in Atlanta: a funky soul group called Brick. Brick hit the scene with "Dazz" ("dazz, dazz, disco jazz") in 1976, and followed over the years with six albums that made the charts for Bang. Other than Paul Davis and Brick, and Elton John's band member Nigel Olsson, the label had a few scattered one-and-done albums, including a comedy album by New York deejay Don Imus. The label was sold to CBS in 1982.