A King and A Duke by Rev. Billy C. Wirtz

Syd Nathan of King Records

Don Robey of Duke Records

A King U A Duke

By Reverend Billy C. Wirtz

The story of the blues often centers around colorful performers and great bands, however, the story behind the scenes was every bit as unique and colorful. The record labels that recorded blues, hillbilly and gospel during the latter half of the twentieth century were independent operations, often either run by one man or a family (as in the case of Chess). Unlike later labels like Delmark and Alligator, these labels were often run by tough, old school hustlers who weren’t afraid to pad a few pockets and/or play rough if needed. Two of the most influential and colorful of that era were Syd Nathan of King Records and Don Robey of Duke Records.

King Records

King Records was founded by Syd Nathan, a frustrated drummer and dry goods merchant in Cincinnati, OH. Around 1947, Nathan couldn’t ignore the sales figures in his store’s music department; he was doing a huge business in used records. These “next-to-new” items were bought by transplanted Southerners lured to the factories during World War II. The records being sold were not the mainstream popular ballads and big-band selections produced on the coasts. His customers wanted the music that came from their world. Whites from Kentucky wanted hillbilly, the Blacks wanted blues and they both wanted gospel. Nathan did so well he opened a small record shop in the Black section of town and decided to try his luck making records.

He began in 1947 with a hillbilly record by guitar genius Merle Travis and Grandpa Jones under the name “The Sheppard Brothers.” It didn’t set the world on fire (that would happen shortly), but broke even and then some. Nathan began recording all types of music, much of it aimed at a Black audience.

Rhythm and Blues

In 1946, a White disc jockey named Gene Nobles had begun programming rhythm and blues as it’s now known,

on WLAC 1510 AM in Gallatin, TN. During the day, it had a local area following, but at night it switched to a huge 50,000-watt directional signal. This meant you could hear it all the way from Key West to Canada. Although it was aimed at a Black audience, this jumpin’ and jiving post-war R&B drove teenagers of all colors completely insane, and Mr. Nathan took notice. Beginning with the jump blues of the ’40s, through the group era of the ‘50s, all the way to the birth of soul in the ’60s, King Records sold millions of records to a waiting audience all over the world. When Nathan first began, there were several other independent record labels recording this new music, but the store’s location played a big part, especially in the early days.

Had King Records been in New York or Los Angeles, the legacy might have been far different, and Cincinnati itself was a pretty conservative Midwestern city, but just over the bridge…

My Old Kentucky Whorehouse

Newport, KY, was known as “Sin City, U.S.A.” The small town across the river from the Queen City, had three main industries: sex, whiskey and gambling. Mobsters

from Cleveland ran the nightclubs in the most corrupt and brazenly hedonistic little city in America.

As we’ve seen in numerous documentaries and books, environmental factors often play a huge role in changing popular culture. When Muddy Waters, Elmore James and the rest of the Mississippi players relocated to Chicago, they realized that (among other reasons) the sheer noise level of the city necessitated plugging in their instruments to be heard of above the din. The result: Chicago blues.

Likewise, in Newport around 1947, the casinos, brothels and “dance” clubs all needed music that fit. The patrons of the Newport casinos were almost all vets and working-class Whites and Blacks from the South. They liked their music loud, fast and unrelenting; “Moonlight Serenade” just didn’t cut it in Sodom and Gomorrah. There was no need, nor time, for music to “get acquainted” – you weren’t there to fall in love, you were there to kill pain, kick some ass and engage in back-booth trysts you’d tell the boys about at the VFW 50 years later.

It was a land of screaming tenor players, with names like “Big Jay,” “Red” and “Thin Man,” the designated Pied Pipers of Pleasure. It was walking 50-foot oak-topped bars, wailing “Flyin’ Home” for 20 minutes at a time, playing

between the thighs of the shake dancers, challenging each other to winner-take-all cuttin’ contests, Satan himself, running on no sleep for the last week, cakewalking down in Hell, while casino walls shook to the sounds of jackedup patrons shouting “Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop.” “It” was ignored by, or simply unknown to, polite society, the elected (and well-compensated) officials on both sides of the Ohio River made sure of that. What had once been called “race” music was becoming even more primal and unrefined; many jazz players mocked it, and major record labels barely even acknowledged “it” as “music.”

But, night after night on Newport’s bandstands, something was changing. The old songs were being played with a raw, brash attitude and new songs were being written. Drivethru brothels, amphetamines and 24-hour gambling weren’t spawning tunes with titles like “How Much Is that Doggie in the Window?” Even the music from five years before was too square. The tunesmiths and musicians knew that if they wanted to keep their gigs, it was time to move on from the relatively harmless and fun picture painted by songs like “Saturday Night Fish Fry,” to the music being recorded by a cigar-smoking, asthmatic record dealer named Nathan in an old warehouse in Cincinnati.

Raunch and Roll

King Records and Syd Nathan stepped up to the plate, supplying Newport (and the rest of the country) with the best and raunchiest records of the era... Wynonie Harris, The Dominoes, The Swallows, Bullmoose Jackson and others specialized in R-rated classics with titles like “Big Ten Inch (Record of the Blues),” “Keep On Churnin’ Till the Butter Comes,” “Rocket 69,” “It Ain’t The Meat, It’s The Motion” and “Big Long Slidin’ Thing.” Recorded in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, they flew under the radar and, along with country music, became the roots of rock ‘n roll.

Secret Weapons

Mr. Nathan also had a couple of secret weapons. Unlike the other independent labels, he ran a full-service operation. While other companies kept their offices, recording studios, pressing plants and distribution centers in separate parts of the country, Nathan ran all of them out of one building. He could record a song in the morning and within a matter of hours, have it mastered, pressed and shipped to DJs across the country.

The other ace up his sleeve: Henry Glover. Henry Glover did it all. He produced, arranged and wrote milliondollar sellers and even built the studios. The one-man hit machine wrote for The Delmore Brothers, and produced sessions for Moon Mullican and others for the hillbilly market. On the R&B side, he wrote and produced mega hits for Hank Ballard and The Midnighters, James Brown, Little Willie John and Bill Doggett, and became the first African American executive in the record business.

End of an Era

During the ’50s, King Records had phenomenal power in the music world, giving us “The Twist” by Hank Ballard, hit after hit on the R&B charts, country, rockabilly, gospel, spoken word, polka and, of course, James Brown. Soul Brother Number One would change music history, and by the ‘60s, he was paying the electric bill for Syd Nathan. As times and tastes changed, many of the older artists were no longer selling, Motown and Stax were now the power brokers in Black music. Nathan passed in Miami in 1968 at the age of 64, and shortly thereafter, King Records went out of business and was sold.

Down the Road in Houston, TX

Don Robey looked more like a driver’s education teacher than a well-connected record mogul. He was the biracial son of a chef and a laborer and used to brag “I’m half Black and half White, I’m smarter than you and I can kick your ass.” He was indeed smart when it came to signing artists, and not shy about practicing the ass-kicking part of the statement.

In 1944, he opened the Bronze Peacock Dinner Club in Houston, TX. The Peacock was the Copacabana of Black society in the Lonestar State. His #1 attraction was flashy guitarist T-Bone Walker, who became a target for a tsunami of room keys and panties nightly tossed onstage.

Robey wanted in on this phenomenon and produced the first records by another guitarist, a young upstart named Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. Brown was his first artist, and although he hung on for a few lean years, Robey wouldn’t hit real paydirt till 1954. That year “Pledging My Love” by Johnny Ace crossed over and hit #1 on the pop charts. The soulful ballad would be the first R&B song to crossover onto the pop charts, opening a huge door that had been previously closed to Black artists.

The Gospel According to Robey

In 1952, Robey bought out Duke Records, and Peacock Records became his gospel label. Gospel had been virtually ignored by the big labels. Not only did he scoop up groups like the Dixie Hummingbirds, he changed the basic sound of commercial gospel. Before him, the groups recorded acapella or with minimal accompaniment. Beginning with the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, he began using rhythm sections. He made gospel records in Chicago with Willie Dixon and the same musicians that played on blues records, blurring the line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

The old school church crowd turned its back on him at first, calling the new sound demonic and blasphemous. Oh well, their loss. Robey’s style of gospel took off and began to outsell even secular music. The driving beat, and even the songs of the Five Blind Boys and the Dixie Hummingbirds – later modified by Ray Charles, Hank Ballard, Jackie Wilson and countless others – all began with Don Robey.

The Peacock label turned gospel artists out as fast as they could record them, and then sent them on the road in package shows to churches and meeting halls across the South, giving the light-skinned boss a virtual lock on the Gospel Highway and its performers.

Meanwhile, Duke, and another of his labels, Back Beat, cranked out legendary R&B talents like Bobby Bland, OV Wright and Junior Parker. Robey ran his show with an iron fist and a loaded gun, but he got the job done. He also had a couple of secret weapons.

The first was Evelyn Johnson. Behind all the bluster, Ms. Johnson ran the show, bragging that Don Robey didn’t know a good record from a hubcap. In truth, she kept the books and did the bookings. Along the Chitlin’ Circuit and the Gospel Highway, she kept strict control over how shows were promoted, how many tickets were sold and who was turning the profit.

A Touch of Class

Robey’s other ace card was Joe Scott. Trumpeter Joe Scott arranged the music for some of Duke’s greatest records. Much like how Newport influenced the raunch of King Records, Joe Scott added horns and strings to give a big band, Bronze Peacock feel to the blues and R&B. He added breathtaking and dramatic solos to such Bobby Bland classics as “Turn on Your Lovelight” and “36-22-36.” Scott produced Bland’s masterpiece album Two Steps from the Blues, which remains the gold standard of blues albums to this day. This sophisticated sound would become known as “soul blues,” favored by B.B. King, Little Milton and others and sustain Bobby “Blue” Bland’s career into the early ’70s.

Robey ran his empire until 1973, when he sold the label to ABC Dunhill and stayed on as a consultant. He passed away in 1975 from a heart attack, at the age of 71.

Legacy

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame says this about Syd Nathan: “In the process of working with Black R&B artists and White country artists, Nathan helped effect a cross pollination of two worlds, thereby helping lay the groundwork for the musical hybrid known as rock ‘n roll.” He also gave us such diverse talent as James Brown, Hank Ballard and Grandpa Jones.

Don Robey’s controversial methods often overshadowed his musical legacy, especially in the gospel world. His addition of a rhythm section (drums and bass guitar) to the quartets laid the groundwork for artists like Ray Charles, Jackie Wilson and eventually an entire Motown sound. Along with gospel, he gave us Bobby “Blue” Bland, Jr. Parker and a host of other R&B giants.

The King and Duke labels presented music and artists that changed the landscape of music. Without them, we would not have experienced it in quite the same way. For instance, there was King artist Hank Ballard, who saw some kids dancing and asked what they were doing. They replied, “We’re twistin’ it, Daddy!” He went back upstairs and wrote “The Twist” – a song that would spark an entire new style of dance in the ‘60s.

Then there was Bobby “Blue” Bland onstage at Ruthie’s Inn in Oakland, CA, in 1975, kneeling on his white monogrammed handkerchief to protect his lemon-colored suit, whispering, “Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy on me,” as the audience fell apart.

Years later, a young Texan guitarist titled his first album after an obscure 1958 blues song by Duke artist Larry Davis. His 1983 album Texas Flood would go “Double-Platinum,” launching the career of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

As a fan, I thank Mr. Nathan and Mr. Robey for bringing these artists and their music to the world.

Rev. Billy C. Wirtz lives in Ocala, FL, with his wife Linda, 10 cats and a horse. For more information, he can be reached at revbilly88@aol.com or at facebook.com/revbilly88.

All original artwork by Matt O’Brien. Check him out on Instagram @skullface_project

Bobby “Blue” Bland