When this interview with Henry Glover by a sixteen-year-old Steve Tracy was first published in three installments in December-March 1972, it was the first extensive discussion with Glover that had ever appeared in print. BU was always interested in exploring more than the lives of truly great but barely functional blues singers from the 1920s and 1930s and the related valuable history behind them, as the “moldy figs” would have it. The focus on King Records was a valuable impetus to many further reissue programs and subsequent research dealing with more contemporary styles of blues. Besides King’s own repeated reissues on the King and Gusto labels—the earliest already under way when the following interview was done—reissues by Jonas “Mr. R&B” Bernholm on Route 66, Saxophonograph, Dr. Horse, and Jukebox Lil, and programs on Charly, and Ace followed, along with other scattered but important releases on Time-Life, Rhino, Westside, and Proper, and a massive Freddie King set on Bear Family. When Jon Hartley Fox’s King of the Queen City: The Story of King Records was published in 2009, Fox gratefully acknowledged the importance of Tracy’s interview and research in the book’s preface.
In recent years there has been a concerted effort in Cincinnati, Ohio, to recognize the contributions of King Records and to preserve the site on which the company stood. With a board of directors that includes Honorary Chair Bootsy Collins and legendary King drummer Philip Paul and associations with the city of Cincinnati, Xavier University, and the Evanston Community Council, the campaign for King Studios has generated a development budget and has collected over one million dollars to date in its quest to establish a nonprofit educational and recording facility (for more information, or to contribute, contact info@kingstudios.org). The organization has also sponsored video-recorded educational events such as the “King Records Roundtable,” featuring Dr. Steven C. Tracy of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Philip Paul, Otis Williams, Dr. Christine Anderson of Xavier University, and Dr. David Purcell of Kent State University. Tracy incorporated elements of his interview with Glover into a chapter on King blues and R&B in Going to Cincinnati: A History of the Blues in the Queen City (University of Illinois Press, 1993). Although BU often eschewed what it called the “cold, dead, clammy hand of academia,” its contributions are recognized by music, American studies, and African American studies departments that seek authoritative information in the fields of blues and R&B.
After Henry Glover left King, he produced LPs for Muddy Waters (Grammy winner), Paul Butterfield, and Levon Helm, and helped arrange horn charts that were used in the Band’s concert and film, The Last Waltz. He was honored by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1986. Henry Glover died in St. Albans, New York, on April 7, 1991. Of the major musicians about whom he spoke in the interview, Freddie King died in 1976; Roy Brown on May 25, 1981; Bull Moose Jackson on July 31, 1989; Sonny Thompson on August 11, 1989; Bill Doggett on November 13, 1996; John Lee Hooker on June 21, 2001; and Lula Reed on June 21, 2008.
—Steve Tracy
King of the Blues: The Story of a Record Label Henry Glover Interview
Steve Tracy
Blues Unlimited #88/89 (Jan./March 1972)
I interviewed Mr. Glover in a place very familiar to him: King Record Studios in Cincinnati, the place where he had his first job with the company. Times are hectic these days for him. When I met with him he was looking over some masters and getting ready to fly back to New York. He rushed in, finishing off his lunch, remarking that he’s “been running late for the past five years!”
Well, Steve, I’m giving you this information. My name is Henry Glover. I am now vice president with Starday-King Records. I am a resident of St. Albans, New York, which is about sixteen miles from New York City proper. I’ve lived there for seventeen years—eight years before that I lived in Manhattan with the family. I was associated for some time with King Records; now known as the Starday-King Records Complex. Syd Nathan gave me a job back in the early ’40s as his artist and repertoire director, and I was perhaps the second black man to ever have an executive position with an independent record company in the United States.
The first was a gentleman called by the name of Mayo Williams. He was connected with Decca Records. He was responsible for some of the very early blues discoveries. He had quite an active catalogue at Decca with blues artists.
I finished college in ’43. Did graduate work in Lane University between ’43 and ’44 and went with a band called Buddy Johnson. After Buddy Johnson I played with Tiny Bradshaw, an artist I later picked and recorded for King—about eight or nine years later. He was dead and I brought him back to life again. I did the same in the case of Lucky Millinder. He came up with a couple of hits between “I’m Waiting Just for You” and some of the others. I came through Cincinnati with the Millinder orchestra and Syd Nathan came to see Millinder and I about making some records. Millinder couldn’t do anything himself,1 because he had to live up to the terms of his agreement with Decca. He did let Bull Moose Jackson, Panama Francis, Sam “The Man” Taylor record, and later the saxophonist by the name of Burnie Peacock. Out of all of us in the band, Bull Moose Jackson happened to be the lucky one to come up with the hits!
Bull Moose Jackson was the first successful rhythm and blues artist King Records had. Of course, in those days we referred to them as race artists. Trade magazines listed them, and, ah, had them in this special category—race records. Bull Moose was a saxophonist with Lucky Millinder’s band, with whom I was very friendly. Dear friend of mine, and that was the arranger and first trumpet player with the orchestra. We first met Syd Nathan in the hotel where he came and said he was forming a record company. I had a record company and he wanted some sides. The early sides on many of the R&B artists were cut in a studio downtown called the Herzog. I don’t know whether they’re still there or not. Bull Moose Jackson’s first side with King was what they called in those days, and what we still refer to as, a “cover.” Joe Liggins had a song out by the name of “The Honeydripper,” and we tried to duplicate it as close as possible.2 His band was known as “Bull Moose Jackson and the Buffalo Bearcats,” a name given him by Lucky Millinder, with whom he was playing at the time. His first very big hit was a thing called “I Love You, Yes I Do” that I wrote. After that we had a succession of big sellers, “All My Love Belongs to You,” “I Can’t Go On Without You,” “Bowlegged Woman,” “Little Girl Don’t Cry,” and he has a couple of things that were in sort of double entendre, like “Big Ten Inch Record” … As his popularity waned, of course, he had lesser records than the ones that I’ve referred to previously.
My duties at King in the early days were general. I did quite a few things. Syd was a very brave man. He was in the midst of building equipment. He and I designed the original echo chamber, and it was at King that one of the very first was used. We duplicated the system in our early mixing setup at the King Studio and it’s still existing. My duties were not inhibited only to the blues and R&B. I did many of the country and western artists like Moon Mullican. I did all of Moon’s early recordings and Grandpa Jones. I recorded Cowboy Copas and the York Brothers. The Everly Brothers copied their style. Let’s see, Boyd Bennett was one of the original rock groups. When I came with the company, he, like Ivory Joe Hunter and Lonnie Johnson, had hits out. Moon Mullican’s country hit (and in those days just like they said “race records,” they called the country records “hillbilly”), Moon Mullican had a thing out called “Jole Blonde,” which was in the Louisiana dialect that Hank Williams made famous. Immediately after that we had a thing that Moon and I wrote together called “I’ll Send My Ship Along at Today’s Funeral,” a country standard, it’s in our catalogue.
Bernie Pearlman, unknown, Earl Bostic, Syd Nathan, Henry Glover.
As I said, I worked with Syd on many projects in the early days of the record company. Naturally, him putting together a pressing, printing, studio distribution complex, there were many things that you could do and you at the same time learn. I moved to Cincinnati in 1949 and stayed until 1950 in order to learn the basics of the recording setup—a rare opportunity not only for a black man but also for a white. I was taught the basic fundamentals of the business of music and the studio mechanics and such. So, as I said, it wasn’t a matter of my experience with Syd or the company which is being tied down to the musical end. I’ve received great knowledge of the business end as well as the complicated copyright situation, licensing and publishing, which I’m still at.
Fortunately, I had a fairly decent education and I protected all of my songs with copyrights, and I own 50 percent of every song this company has ever recorded by any artist. I recorded and wrote for a company called J & C and in their catalogue are big hits like “Fever,” “Twist,” and “Drown in My Own Tears.” I am at present waiting on the renewal term contracts so I can put them in trust for my children.
John Lee Hooker, with whom I had the pleasure of recording—conducting recording sessions—was very unique. He was extemporaneous in his creativity. He wrote songs as he played and his foot was his rhythm, and I believe that my amplifying of my recording—I put the microphone on his foot to pick up the sound of him patting his foot as he played—had a lot to do with the influence of this four beat that they use today. Of course with him trying to compose a song, play the guitar, and pat his foot all at the same time, it wasn’t always the best rhythm you ever heard, but at least he would try his best to do it. My early experience of recording him, I used a 4 by 8¾" plywood board on the floor. He sat by that and put a microphone on the sound of his foot. We had very good sides by John Lee. I would say some of his … perhaps examples of his best. However, he, like others, was very poor and would jump at any chance to record for any record company that made an offer. Many companies had duplications of John Lee Hooker sides, because he would record for anyone with a dollar bill at the time. I don’t think he has to do that now, because I understand he is still living and he’s doing a great job. He is legend among the blues buffs and other people.
Robert Henry was a kid from Dayton who wandered into the office one day and made an audition for me. He was, he had to be unique for me to even think of recording him. He played the piano, the guitar, and the mouth harp and sang all at the same time. Not all at the same time, but he complemented himself with one or the other and such. One song that he had in particular, that I liked very much because it related to me, my knowledge of the old traditional, what we called country-folk blues. It sounded so authentic that that was my reason for recording him. I think the title of it was “Something Is Goin’ Wrong with My Lovin’ Machine.” Some of his lyrics and expressions were so typical of the old authentic blues singers that down through the South years ago you’d see walking the street, playing for a nickel or a dime … sometimes they’d dance also.
Detroit Count? I don’t know too much about him. I never recorded him, so I’d rather not go into that too much, but I do know he had a band and he would come in from Detroit to record. I don’t know whatever happened to him—whether he became great. When I came with King Records, as the recording director in the late ’40s, Lonnie Johnson was a blues singer-guitarist. I had known him for many years, because he had been in Detroit, singing in different clubs. One in particular was a club that the famous Joe Louis Sparks owned, called “The Three Sixes.” Lonnie was what you would call a table troubadour and he would go from table to table playing and singing. There was another very fine artist at the same club at the same time, Bobbie Caston. Had a very fine version of—what was the tune? “God Bless the Child (That Has His Own),” and a couple others. They associated her styling with that of Billie Holiday, and they say she may have had some influence on Billie Holiday … Back to Lonnie … when I came with King Records, Lonnie had moved to Cincinnati and he lived over in Rockdale, where he had purchased a house—I don’t know the exact address; it’s near Reading Road. In fact, I was passing there the other day and it is one of the better-kept residences in that particular area. Lonnie had a big song at the time, “Tomorrow Night,” and several others, but none racked up sales like his “Tomorrow Night.”
I also recorded Roy Brown. We inherited Roy with a deal from a purchase of De Luxe Records, which was a Linden, New Jersey, corporation owned by several brothers—Jules and Dave Braun. I understand now that Dave Braund is very wealthy because he has gone into a lot of operations, as he did when the independent record business was in its infancy. He took advantage of that, and I understand that he had a lot to do with the origin of the slot-car track for kids, those little automated machines. He is a very brave man. He had several artists on the label with Roy Brown.3 There was Annie Laurie, Paul Gayten, sides by the famous Billy Eckstine and his band, and the jazz artists like Benny Carter. However, we had more success with Roy Brown than with any others. Roy happened to be the composer of “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” the very big song that was instrumental in the success of Elvis Presley. Roy had recorded the song himself, but Wynonie Harris’s version of it became the big hit that gave Presley the idea to record it. Presley copied many of the vocal gymnastics of Wynonie Harris as well as the physical gyrations, and he was lucky to pick up the one tune and make it a very big hit. We were restricted with our possibilities of promoting this song into realms beyond where we had it (i.e., the “R&B” market), because it was considered filth. They had a definition in those days of the word “rock” meaning the sex act, rather than having it known as “a good time” as they did later.
Roy Brown, however, did come up with very big records. Like many artists that had a series of things in those days, he sang songs about “Fanny,” “Fanny Mae.” Many songs now refer to “Fanny Mae.” I think this particular origin of the name is in black folklore. They always refer to the hind parts as the “fanny.” It was a sort of tongue-in-cheek description of a woman and perhaps how she looked—her shape or something. He constantly sang songs about “I want my Fanny Brown” and different things. Roy also had a very big boogie record called “Boogie at Midnight” that I wrote with him. We recorded it in New Orleans. The city of New Orleans had quite a bit to do with some of the early rhythm-and-blues artists. The Biharis from the coast with their different artists would come in to New Orleans and record various blues talents, and Roy Brown, Paul Gayten, Dave Bartholomew, and some of the others were instrumental in getting these artists together for these independent manufacturers. I will say that if Roy had been a guitarist, he would be as popular today as B. B. King, because in those days Roy was bigger than B. B. King and people said that B. B. sounded like Roy Brown. But today you play some of the old records by Roy Brown and you’ll say he sounds like B. B. King. He had one very soulful record titled “Hard Luck Blues” that had a tremendous lyric on it. I can’t see why maybe some of the rock groups today who have gone back that far didn’t pick up such a copyright and redo it, because it was so great. Some of the lines in it are fantastic—“Rocks is my pillow” and “Cold, cold ground is my bed…”
Again, I refer to the case of Robert Henry, how authentic these people were in that day, linking that era to the past that I knew something about, the early blues singers. I mentioned earlier, also, that Lonnie Johnson was a legend then. He was quite an old man when he died. I will say that Roy Brown was one of the finest soulful blues singers that I had the pleasure of working with and he is still living. I saw him a couple of years ago. He’s in California. He still sounds good to me, and, I don’t know, any day I may go and record him.
Jack Dupree is one of my very—well, one of my favorites, also. Well, I can say that about all of them. I say some of my best friends sang the blues. Jack and I were very close—he and his wife, Lucille, who he’s written a couple of songs about. In those days we had her name in quite a few of them. In those days many of his songs were directed lyric-wise to her. Jack was an ex-fighter and his early name was Champ Jack Dupree. I understand he wasn’t much of a fighter. He was a better piano player and blues singer. We made many records with Jack, but didn’t have anything very big with him until a record was brought into my office recorded already by the name of “Walking the Blues.” “Walking the Blues” was one of the very first basic, hard country-blues things that went into the pop market, if not the very first.
The content and message was so timely, because, I think that particular year, whatever year it was released, was one of the hottest summers we ever have had.4 Of course the narration, the talking part, in “Walking the Blues” was Jack’s story of walking along with a guy on a hot summer day, and he’s telling him to slow down until he gets to thinking and he starts talking. Now, I don’t know if “Tongue-Tied Blues” came before or after “Walking the Blues,” but it was also another big record with Jack, but it didn’t go into the pop market. In the black folklore they usually refer to speech impediments as a lisp or tongue-tied or tied-tongue and that was, of course, a person who had this particular impediment. Jack made a comedy thing or routine out of it. It was very successful on a couple of records, “Tongue-Tied Blues,” “Stuttering Blues,” and it was always referring to him telling his mother-in-law off, or talking about his wife or talking to her or such. He’s a truly great artist.
Country Paul is an artist I found in New York City. His real name was Paul Howard.5 He was a very sickly young man at the time. I would say he was in his early twenties when I recorded him, and in a couple of years he passed. However, we do have quite a few masters on Country Paul and we just released some with Ralph Willis.
Ralph Willis was one of the early greats, also. He was a guitarist. He played blues—the FM stations are picking this thing up now, Country Paul and Ralph Willis. We call it “Faded Picture Blues.” His big record was “Your Picture Done Faded, You Left Hangin’ on the Wall.” I would say Paul died maybe around 1954.
The artist of all artists, ha-ha, Willie John. I didn’t consider Willie John in the category of some of the artists I have just referred to, because he was in a class all to himself. He was a really, truly great singer. I would say that blues came so natural to him that he was just a master at that, and no one living during that day could touch him. He had some of the greatest blues gymnastics and voice gyration that you could ever dream of a person having. He was a typical rhythm and blues artist, egoistical. He, of course, became involved in drinking and some of the other vices that go along with the business. It seems as though some of those artists are the ones that perform better. The very nice artists don’t make it. Willie John was a headache … I think his whole short life explained the same. He was involved with a murder and he served time and he died in prison—to commemorate that particular thing, we have an album out now called Free at Last. Both the artists and our art department came up with such a very fine cover, because they had the jail door open and it seems as though, like, whatever the hereafter was for him, his miserable soul was free.
He was going on to wherever guys like Willie John would go. I think his success was just written for him in the cards, like they say. Willie John came into my office, was brought in by a personal manager by the name of Allen. I heard Willie John at 5 o’clock, and I was so impressed with him that at 8 o’clock I had musicians in the studio in New York City and I recorded him. “All Around the World” had just been released that day for the first time and I heard it coming into work. I picked the record up, covered it, and changed the arrangement completely, realized what should have been in that record! At the same session I recorded “Need Your Love So Bad,” which was also a big hit with Willie. After that we had many hit sides until we had the monster of them all with “Fever.” I don’t think, even with the pop versions of it today, it’s very hard to top Willie John’s rendition of “Fever,” or the sound that we got on the musical track in our studio here in Cincinnati, where it was recorded. The bass is so prominent that it sounded like, in those days, a Fender bass. We were able to get all this, what we call modulation, on the record and made it quite effective. It had a lot to do with the sales, because it was a very big record.
Ivory Joe Hunter I knew, because, just as Lonnie Johnson, when I came with the company as a regular employee, Ivory Joe had a hit on the label called “Don’t Fall in Love with Me.” He had several others. We did a R&B version, which was perhaps the first of an R&B artist doing a country song. We did “Jealous Heart” with Ivory Joe and it was a very big hit. Peculiar to that record also, we had a jazz saxophonist, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, play the introduction.
Shortly thereafter we lost Ivory Joe, too, but we had many hits with him. We had a thing called “Waiting in Vain” and “Guess Who?” We had a special sound coming from Ivory Joe Hunter, and I would always make arrangements to catch the Ellington Band and use the men from the band to play behind Ivory Joe, so all of his records had the sound … Russell Procope, who’s a very fine alto saxophonist, played some of the leads. We had Ray Nance backup on some. We had Sonny Greer. We’ve used Tyree Glenn, many of the Ellington musicians. We lost the contract to MGM in 1950, and that’s when he came in with this very big song called “When I Lost My Baby, I Almost Lost My Mind.”
Wynonie Harris, c. 1950.
Wynonie Harris, without a doubt, is one of the greatest blues shouters. Sometimes you have to make distinctions between the sounds and types of blues singers. Now, Wynonie Harris was not a true blues singer, because he couldn’t do all those tricks that Roy Brown or Willie John could do with their voices. However, he could do a shout, a blues shout.
Wynonie passed, I think, a year or two ago. He had songs that bordered on those that were selling in the popular market. We took country things and put them in R&B—like we had one called “Good Morning Judge”—it was an old country song, written by Louis Innis. We had another one with him that was very big called “Bloodshot Eyes,” written by Hank Penny. Hank led a western band in Hollywood. We recorded it with him first, but it didn’t sell. So we recorded it with Wynonie and it sold. Some of Wynonie’s early songs were dealing with black life, Negro life; “Grandma Plays the Numbers” and themes relative to black life … he too used the word “fanny” quite a lot, because he covered a lot of Roy Brown’s songs. They had sort of a friendly feud going with each other because they were both popular at the same time. I do recall in Columbus, Ohio, or someplace, they jumped up on each other’s Cadillacs and banged the hoods off. The two of them, at the time, were making enough money to buy new ones the next day. They both are really great blues singers.
Earl (Connelly) King walked into my office for an audition. His name was Earl King. I think our first records were put out under the name of Earl Connelly, but we felt that the name Connelly was a little hard and you didn’t have it right on your tongue, so we started to put “Connelly” in parentheses until we dropped it completely. It became just Earl King. His very big record was “Don’t Take It So Hard.” He was a very good blues singer based in the church, with which there is, of course, a very close tie. The line of demarcation is so thin that you can almost say that they are the same when it comes down to the soul part of a hymn. Earl was an artist like this. I had another artist at the time that was of the same class. A girl by the name of Lula Reed. I had many big hits with her.
There were not many unusual things happened at recording sessions, because I had a manner about me whereas that it was business and I conducted it as a business. There were musicians in those days who gave me more respect than they did other recording people, because I had a good musical knowledge that they respected. I was of a certain character that they were given respect by me and they gave me respect, also. I didn’t allow drinking in the studio. Of course, today it’s just so opposite. When you go in the studios everybody’s smoking pot—every day, ha ha! In those days we ran a pretty tight ship to keep people as straight as possible at the studio. I felt that the creative mind sober was greater than when it was soaked with alcohol, or any of the other type of stimulants I hear about today. I guess that’s why I place more value on some of the things created years ago. Today you run into the studio and you are taking a chance on the law of averages. It’s not working out too much. It’s taking the overall picture of the profit of music and trying to get something with an artist. To get an artist started just don’t happen like it did before. No one is concentrating like we did in those days. So when you say a session, as I remember it, I can perhaps recall every session that I ever did—can almost name the musicians on the date. I even kept a format going whereas I would only use a certain sound for one artist and never duplicate in connection with another.
I find that that is one of the evils of today’s recording. Too many producers feel that they can go into a studio with the same number, the same men on every artist, and create good records. They don’t, because it’s a oneness that goes along with the continual use of musicians and you cannot get away from it. It really puts the overall sound, the image of your recorded product, in a rut.
I remember, I can recall the first date that I did for Syd, for the company as an employee, as the recording director (1949). It was with Todd Rhodes, a piano player from Detroit. He had had a couple of records like “Page Boy Shuffle,” but I came in and did a couple of instrumentals, “Teardrops,” “Pot Likker.” I was impressed with Todd’s band because he had a couple of very fine musicians in it. This band read and, of course, I was just out of a band that read, and I could get more out of it than I could some of the others.
Country Paul would come into New York and I would record him at a studio called Rose. I think Tom Rose is still living. He was the son of the old man during the time we were on Broadway and 52nd Street. Country Paul was, like I said, sickly and he was very conscientious, however. He gave out with whatever he could do for you. ’Course, during the same time I had the idea going about the foot. Also, I had a microphone on a board or something and many of the record engineers in those days would laugh at some of the requests that I would make regarding something for him to pat his foot on, because it just wasn’t being done. However, they would get it for me. As I was saying, one of the tunes that he did is his description of looking out the window on Broadway. Some of his lines that he sang that were sort of extemporaneous. He said, like, “Look at that old boy sittin’ in the street” … just something to say. Whatever came up to him when he was playing. Of course today even James Brown uses that where he has a good instrumental thing and he has some talking that he will do along with it, to carry the interest on, you know, regarding the music and the beat.
I have many friends, and if they would wander into a club someplace and some of them would hear a group singing or an artist, they would call me and say I should go by there. That was the way Joe Tex was brought to me. I was in Miami for a convention and someone said I should go to a club called 12 of Hearts and listen to these two guys sing. I didn’t know it was Sammy and Dave [Sam & Dave of Stax records fame]. Of course I had them with Roulette, not with King. The gentleman who just walked in was with Otis Williams and the Charms. I heard the Charms [for the] first time outside my window in the Mance [Hotel] in Cincinnati. They serenaded out the window for about four or five weeks, and finally (laughs) Henry Stone came to town and heard about that. I was so busy doing other things that I didn’t have a chance to record them. He signed them up on a label called Chart and I recorded them for him. The very first record they did was a big hit; it was “Hearts of Stone.”
I recall that night in the studio I used the same gimmick that I did in the case of Willie John. I had just heard about a record that had come out in California that was a hit. I can’t even think of the group’s name, but it was a thing called “Hearts of Stone.” I had the record into Cincinnati so fast no one ever heard of the other group. We got the record out on the street before they ever got it distributed. Of course, the Charms had the big hit on “Hearts of Stone.”
Every artist that I ever recorded had to be a favorite, otherwise I didn’t record him. All of them were my favorites. We had various labels, of course. We had King … Federal … De Luxe, and even earlier, before we had King, we had Queen. There was a jazz label called Bethlehem. That was about all Syd was working with in those days. Later, of course, there came some others. Henry Stone had a label called Crystal, which later became De Luxe. We had some gospel labels. We had Glory and a couple of others. It was a matter of just printing the label for a record that was a hit. In those days all it had to do was just be a hit. We didn’t care what label it carried.
Of course, I think I told you how I found talent. You know, someone would call it to my attention and I would pick it up. Sign it up myself. I had a batch of contracts in my briefcase at all times, which I don’t do now. We pay lawyers who ponder over them for six or seven months and that’s why we lose them. In those days you would just get a contract out of your briefcase and get it signed. If you got an artist, you recorded the next day. Today if you want an artist, you have to go through all the courts and the families and everything else (laughs), and it’s best just not to fool with them.
King’s plans for the future? Well, it’s to continue to be in business. I am vice president of the company now, and of course we are aiming in the direction of audiovisual product (videotape). There are certain things about that that I wouldn’t want to make any disclosures about, but we will be very big in the direction of audiovisual. We have physical plant facilities that will accommodate any area that we like to go into. It’s a must. It’s here. There’s no need of people saying it’s around the corner, because it is here. We have built at Nashville in the Starday studio, a very fine board that is compatible to the new quadraphonic sound, and we will be doing quad cutting here in Cincinnati and Nashville. We have a very fine engineer, Dave Harrison, in Nashville that built a board with the help of a genius down in Florida by the name of Geep Harnett. Many of our electronics that we have in both studios were purchased from Geep. We are also acting as distributor for his products. He is even going into manufacturing of tape decks and equipment to go with tapes that is made by Ampex and some of the other companies.
We have given big interest to the company going pop. Whether you go into what we call middle-of-the-road, whether you go into underground, whether you go into acid music, there is just so many different categories that it’s hard and maybe not right for me to describe it as such, but I still believe it’s going back to nothing but white music or black music. People who are black are going to buy black music. Many of the black artists ridicule white radio stations for not playing their product in order for them to get in the pop field. However, on many of the black stations you never hear any white records. I can’t take sides with either case. I’m in the middle. I do believe it will always remain as it has in the past, where black people will buy black records and white people will buy white records. It is unfortunate that some of the mechanics of big publishing and the conglomerate domination of the business has caused certain black artists to have a different taste of what they record and such. In many cases there have been criticisms of the people in the black industry that are related to music or to the industry.
[There is] criticism about the black artist having to record Beatles’ songs or other famous white writers’ songs in order to get them played on the air. I heard the very comical description of that, saying that a girl like Aretha Franklin shouldn’t be singing a tune like “Eleanor Rigby,” because it doesn’t have anything to do with the perpetuation of the black scene or black life or some of the other things that these people are striving for. Many black writers in New York are coming under these things because they have dominated the music business of their people for many years. The pop market, or, like, you might as well refer to it as the white, have taken the stronger things from it and used it over into their business.
But they weren’t forced on it. I mean they didn’t force their music on the white artist, but some of the writers, they feel that “Hey, Jude” is being forced on a guy like Wilson Pickett, because it’s not his type of thing to be doing. I heard various descriptions of why the black writer, black producer is not at his very best today, because they don’t know how to go for his message or material. They don’t know what to write about. Years ago there were pains, agonies, trials and tribulations that were very easy to describe and write about. Today any rock group that you hear on the radio has explained the black man’s problem in such an eloquent way that it isn’t necessary for the black man to sit down and tell it. Just this morning I heard a thing called “Southern Whiteman” by Neil somebody [“Southern Man” by Neil Young]. Anyway, the rock artists have taken the problem of the black man and part of his music and he is protesting. Whereas before the black man just sang about it. It wasn’t complaining, it was just part of his living.
Other very fine descriptions of what has happened in music is that I have seen kids from white affluent families become the very best country blues guitarists, and to the blacks it’s a lost art. One in particular, John Hammond at Columbia Records, is an heir to the Hammond Organ people and he has a son who plays the countriest, funkiest black blues that I’ve ever heard in my life.
Another comical expression that I’ve heard is that the rock artists are white artists taking dope and absorbing themselves into the problems of those things that have been a matter of course for the black man. Someone said, like, the guy has to go on a trip to play that kind of music or get those kind of ideas. The black man has been on a trip all his life with his trials and tribulations.
I don’t know what I just said has to do with, but I get wound up when I start talking. It’s just things I hear and it may be interesting if you want to copy this off and read it.
1. In 1945 Lucky Millinder was under contract to Decca; however, several vocalists and musicians associated with his show-band recorded under their own names for Nathan. Millinder did not officially join King until 1950.
2. “The Honeydripper” was the first Queen/King release (no. 4100). Benjamin Jackson was born at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1919 and formed his own band in Buffalo after working with Freddie Webster. He joined Millinder in 1945 as tenor player and occasional vocalist.
3. Roy Brown, from New Orleans, joined De Luxe in 1947. He became one of the most successful and influential singers of the forties. De Luxe was based in Linden.
4. “Walking the Blues” was a 1955 hit and a cover of the same song by Willie Dixon on Checker.
5. “Country Paul” was actually Carolina Slim. His real name was Eddie Harris. Maybe Mr. Glover has confused him with a King hillbilly artist called Paul Howard.