Cincinatti Officially/Finally Recognizes King Records

[JSngry]

Found here: http://blog.allmusic.com/2008/11/26/have-y...y-gets-its-due/

To getcha started:

Have You Heard the News? Cincinnati’s King Records Finally Gets Its Due

November 26th, 2008 | 4:00 pm est | Uncle Dave Lewis

It is an old, nondescript industrial building in Evanston, a struggling, mostly black suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. Clearly visible from along I-71, the former icehouse is tagged here and there with graffiti and looks like any of the hundreds of similar ancient, non-residential structures located in the town Longfellow once called “The Queen City of the West,” but between 1943 and 1971, it was home to a “King.” King Records specialized in markets the major labels weren’t interested in — country and western, rhythm & blues, gospel, and more. The label launched a slew of artists and records that had intractable impact on American music, ranging from Homer and Jethro to Jackie Wilson to James Brown to the original version of “The Twist” by Hank Ballard. King Records closed its doors in 1971, and since then, the old King building at 1540 Brewster Ave. either sat empty or used for storage. For quite some time, there has been a frustrating effort on the part of Cincinnati’s music lovers to install a plaque on the King building, without much interest from civic leaders. However, on Sunday, November 23, a large group of musicians, volunteers, educators, reporters, and prominent Cincinnati citizens converged in front of the old icehouse to join Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum president Terry Stewart in unveiling a plaque designated to honor King Records.

King was founded by ex-record store owner Sydney Nathan to exploit the popularity of honky tonk, hillbilly, and later bluegrass music, then burning up the airwaves on regional, Cincinnati-based radio stations such as WLW and WCKY, but being recorded by practically no one for public consumption; Louis “Grandpa” Jones was King’s first artist. By 1945, Nathan had identified rhythm & blues as another niche market to address, and these records proved so important to his business that he hired African-American arranger and composer Henry Glover as his chief of A&R in 1947. In 1949, King Records officially adopted an interracial workplace as a core value of the company, initially to combine the then customary two segregated company picnics. This led not only to a happy workplace, but fostered a creative environment where black R&B artists were constantly intersecting with white cowboy singers and often sharing the same backup band. The resultant balance of friction and cooperation played a major role in the development of rock ‘n’ roll; beyond that, King’s passionate advocacy of James Brown led to the funk revolution of the 1960s. By 1960, King was the sixth-largest record company in the world, and unique to the business, as all of its operation was in-house; according to Darren Blase, proprietor of Shake It Records in Cincinnati and an early booster for the drive to place a marker at 1540 Brewster Ave., “They made everything in this building except for the shipping boxes.”

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Good!

Thanks Jim.

MG

[Chalupa]

Thanks for posting this story.

So I wonder who owns the King catalog now?? Rhino? I have the Little Willie John compilation that they put out a few years ago, which is just fantastic.

[BruceH]

Happy to read this!! About time!

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

I WONDER IF THERES A LEFTOVER BOX OF ACETATES OR METAL PARTS IN A CORNER SOMEWHERE THEY FORGOT ABOUT.

[AllenLowe]

every time I meet someone from Cincinnatti (and sometimes Cleveland) I ask if they know how important that label was and I invariably get a blank stare, or a look like I'm some crazy antiquarian record collector; amazing label, all the more so when one considers what a strange cat Sid Nathan was - for more on him there is a memorable profile in one of Colin Escott's books. Ace, by the way, owns (please note Ace as a singular noun; I HATE the way the friggin' Brits use the plural with things like this, as in "Ace own." Time to grow up boys, we won the war) a lot of that catalog now, I believe, and has done some good work on reissues.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

every time I meet someone from Cincinnatti (and sometimes Cleveland) I ask if they know how important that label was and I invariably get a blank stare, or a look like I'm some crazy antiquarian record collector; amazing label, all the more so when one considers what a strange cat Sid Nathan was - for more on him there is a memorable profile in one of Colin Escott's books. Ace, by the way, owns (please note Ace as a singular noun; I HATE the way the friggin' Brits use the plural with things like this, as in "Ace own." Time to grow up boys, we won the war) a lot of that catalog now, I believe, and has done some good work on reissues.

Thank you, Allen. I didn't know Ace owned this stuff.

Usage is a wonderful thing. Ace is a singular noun encompassing a plural; a bit similar to saying "a number (singular noun) of people have done such and such", rather than "has". Which formulaton would you use?

In fact, "a number of people" is a noun phrase and plural, so you're strictly speaking correct. But you're wrong because language is what people use. And over here, where we don't speak American, but only several varieties of English, we use the name of an organisation as if it represented the organisation as a whole, which is how we think of it - and probably how you think of it over there.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

amazing label, all the more so when one considers what a strange cat Sid Nathan was - for more on him there is a memorable profile in one of Colin Escott's books.

There's a good bit on Nathan and King in "Little labels - big sound" by Rick Kennedy & Randy McNutt. What it didn't mention, and which was a revelation to me when I read the article posted earlier, was that, from the fifties, Nathan ran a racially integrated operation. That seems to have been a bit exceptional in that period, even in the north.

MG

[BruceH]

every time I meet someone from Cincinnatti (and sometimes Cleveland) I ask if they know how important that label was and I invariably get a blank stare, or a look like I'm some crazy antiquarian record collector; amazing label, all the more so when one considers what a strange cat Sid Nathan was - for more on him there is a memorable profile in one of Colin Escott's books. Ace, by the way, owns (please note Ace as a singular noun; I HATE the way the friggin' Brits use the plural with things like this, as in "Ace own." Time to grow up boys, we won the war) a lot of that catalog now, I believe, and has done some good work on reissues.

Thank you, Allen. I didn't know Ace owned this stuff.

Usage is a wonderful thing. Ace is a singular noun encompassing a plural; a bit similar to saying "a number (singular noun) of people have done such and such", rather than "has". Which formulaton would you use?

I'd use "have" for the "number of people," and "has" for "Ace" (the company.) But I'd be a lot calmer about it, hopefully.

[AllenLowe]

well, what happens is that I read a lot of blues things written by Brits and it does make me crazy because in my head I have to always say it twice because the first time it doesn't make sense - and I've got so many other things rattling around up there that sometimes I don't hear it back for about a week, which slows me down terribly - which is why I get so emotional.

I figure I've only got about 20 productive years left - don't want to spend 10 of them translating from English to English -

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

well, what happens is that I read a lot of blues things written by Brits and it does make me crazy because in my head I have to always say it twice because the first time it doesn't make sense - and I've got so many other things rattling around up there that sometimes I don't hear it back for about a week, which slows me down terribly - which is why I get so emotional.

I figure I've only got about 20 productive years left - don't want to spend 10 of them translating from English to English -

My 'art bleeds.

MG

[AllenLowe]

where's Henry Higgins when I need him?

[Chuck Nessa]

where's Henry Higgins when I need him?

I believe Ace have him.

[JSngry]

What it didn't mention, and which was a revelation to me when I read the article posted earlier, was that, from the fifties, Nathan ran a racially integrated operation. That seems to have been a bit exceptional in that period, even in the north.

Cincinnati is at best "midwest" instead of "north", and if you look at the map & see its relative proximity to Kentucky, you'll see that not for nothing does it have a bit or more of "southern"-ness to its culture.

Pretty "rough" town, really. "Sophisticated" might not be the first word that comes to mind when describing it...

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

its time to own up boys, we won the war?!?!?!? if it wasn't for churchill, we would all be pleadging alligence to the german flag

[AllenLowe]

re-Jim's point above, Cincinatti was a main stop on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, and so had a significant African American population and related music - there was an amazing writer named Lafcadio Hearn, white, foreign born, but a journalist in that city in the 19th century (also married a black woman). He wrote some fascinating pieces on the early music of the black roustabouts and general population, some of the most impressive witnessing we have of early African American vernacular music, so it's definitely no accident that so much music happened there.

[JSngry]

If you had to say who better defines Cincinnati, Syd Nathan or Marge Schott....

[AllenLowe]

I think they make a GREAT couple - the facist and the goniff -