Shelby Singleton, RIP

[GA Russell]

I guess that Shelby Singleton was a self-promoter, because I remember very well his obtaining the Sun Records catalogue in the very early 70s, and releasing a number of Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis LPs. Prior to that, I believe that the catalogue was out of print. It was certainly never seen in the stores.

He made money on it till the end. This spring I bought a 4 CD box of Sun recordings, and I've really enjoyed them.

Here's his LA Times obituary.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...0,4187635.story

Shelby Singleton dies at 77; maverick country music mogul

The talent scout also launched the careers of Roger Miller and Ray Stevens, and resuscitated Sun Records.

By Randy Lewis October 9, 2009

Shelby Singleton, a maverick country music mogul and talent scout who launched the careers of Roger Miller and Ray Stevens before resuscitating the fabled Sun Records label to give new life to recordings by 1950s Sun discoveries including Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis, has died. He was 77.

Singleton died Wednesday in Nashville following a battle with brain cancer. He had been admitted to St. Thomas Hospital a week earlier after suffering a seizure, his longtime friend and associate Jerry Kennedy said Thursday.

Singleton experienced literal overnight success in 1968 when he put then-unknown singer Jeanne Carolyn Stephenson into a recording studio with a Tom T. Hall song about small-town backbiting. "Harper Valley P.T.A." gave Jeannie C. Riley, Stephenson's stage name, a No. 1 hit not only on country radio but on the pop singles chart as well.

"We did that at a 6 p.m. session on a Thursday night, I think," said Kennedy, who played the dobro prominently featured on the track. "I was going to Gatlinburg in eastern Tennessee for a long weekend, and when I was driving back, I started hearing it on the radio. Shelby had cut acetates and got them to radio stations all over the place. He took one to Ralph Emery on WSM . . . and he played it immediately, just a few hours after we had recorded it."

With the profits from that million-seller, Singleton bought rights to the Sun Records name and thousands of master recordings made by the label's visionary founder, Sam Phillips, who had discovered Elvis Presley, Lewis, Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and dozens of other rockabilly, blues and R&B acts.

Phillips had famously sold Presley's contract, and master recordings, in 1955 to RCA Records for $35,000, but Singleton wound up owning what's considered one of the seminal catalogs of early rock 'n' roll. In the 1970s he reissued many of those recordings, helping spur interest among new generations of listeners in the pivotal records of some of rock's greatest figures.

He also launched the careers of some of country music's most colorful artists of the '60s, including Miller, Stevens and Jerry Reed, after quickly rising at Mercury Records to head of artists and repertoire, the talent scouting and development side of the record business.

Shelby Sumpter Singleton Jr. was born Dec. 16, 1931, in Waskom, Texas. He grew up in Shreveport, La., and joined the Marines after high school. Upon discharge, he worked as an engineer for Remington Rand, the maker of the early Univac computer.

In the late '50s he became Mercury Records' Southeast promotion man. Within about three years, he had risen to head of A&R, prompting his move to Nashville, which also aided the career of his first wife, country singer Margie Singleton.

Long before he acquired the prestigious Sun Records catalog, Singleton snagged one of its cornerstone artists, Jerry Lee Lewis, whom he signed in 1963 when Lewis' career was at a low ebb. Within a few years, with Kennedy producing, Lewis became one of the most consistent country hit-makers of the late '60s and '70s.

"He was one of the best all-around record men I've ever been in touch with," Kennedy said. "He did so much and did it so well: promotion, marketing, production. He was even involved in publishing and merchandising. He did it all."

Singleton is survived by his fourth wife, Mary; sons Sidney, Steve and Stuart; daughter Shana; several grandchildren; and his younger brother, John, with whom he continued to work in recent years with the Sun catalog that he bought four decades ago.

[medjuck]

I didn't understand something in that obit: was he working for Mercury when he did Harper Valley PTA? If so how did her make enough profit to buy Sun?

[GA Russell]

medjuck, since ole Shelby was a self-promoter, I had a hunch that he had written a bio of himself for Wikipedia. Sure enough, he's there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_Singleton

The short answer to your question is that he left Mercury in '66. Harper Valley PTA was on a label he formed called Plantation Records in '68. He used the money from that to purchase the Sun catalogue in '69.

I am surprised to see that Sun now controls the Red Bird/Blue Cat catalogue, which includes the Shangri-Las and the Dixie Cups.

One question Wikipedia doesn't answer is how much Singleton paid for the Sun catalogue. I suspect that it wasn't a great deal. I think I read once that Sun did not have a hit after 1959, and did not issue any new records after 1964. My recollection as a consumer is that the Sun catalogue was DOA when Singleton bought it, and that he raised it from the dead.

As I recall, he used contemporary photos of Cash and Lewis on their albums rather than the 1950s photos, which seemed dowdy. In addition, he did not re-issue albums. Instead he made new compilations. For example, he collected a dozen songs Johnny Cash sang about trains (such as Hey Porter) and issued them together. I'm pretty sure that for both Cash and Lewis there were two volumes of Greatest Hits albums.

Anyway, there was something about the artwork of his releases that made them seem cool and vital rather than yesterday's news and obsolete. So I give him props for that.

And by the way, the fidelity was quite satisfactory. I had one of the Lewis albums, and gave my brother-in-law for Christmas one of the Cash albums, and there was no sense while listening to them that the recordings were old. Of course, maybe Sam Phillips should get some of the credit for that.

[medjuck]

medjuck, since ole Shelby was a self-promoter, I had a hunch that he had written a bio of himself for Wikipedia. Sure enough, he's there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_Singleton

I am surprised to see that Sun now controls the Red Bird/Blue Cat catalogue, which includes the Shangri-Las and the Dixie Cups.

Lieber and Stoller sold their 2/3 share of Red Bird to their partner for $1 when they realized that he had lost his share to the mob who were now their partners. I'm not surprised

that it was up for grabs a few years later.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

He had an R&B label in the late sixties, too: SSSInternational. Johnny Adams had several hits on that label. Also Peggy Scott & Jojo Benson were very successful as well. I've got one LP on the label by Sil Austin - lots of strings on contemporary pop songs, like a less talented version of Stanley's "The look of love" but Sil's sound is ravishing.

MG