Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 101; Jon Hartley Fox interview

Q:

JON: I’ll be an author in a month. Cultural historian because I write about dance also though I know nothing about it, I write about it.

Q:

JON: I soon will be an author, yes. And I live in Sacramento if that matters. Native of Dayton.

Q:

JON: My name is Jon Hartley Fox. J-o-n H-a-r-t-l-e-y F-o-x.

Q:

JON: Well, King was founded in, in the sense of when it made its first records in the fall of 1943. It was legally founded in the summer of ’44. Sid Nathan head of King wanted to wait and see if things were gonna fly but it was officially incorporated in ’44. Why it was in Cincinnati was, that was Sid Nathan’s home town but it was also a perfect place for a label to be because it was sort of the crossroads for people coming up from the South, it was part of the great migration. So, you had real access to both Appalachian and African American communities. It was located near some powerful radio stations, WLW and WCKY in Cincinnati and just industry developments had allowed companies, prior to about the ‘40’s you would had to have gone to New York or Chicago. Technical developments had changed enough so that you could do it virtually anywhere and Sid was in Cincinnati and he had no desire to leave so that’s why it was there. And, by accident as much as anything it turned out to be an ideal location just because of the cross roads aspects of it.

Q:

JON: Yeah, I would say that, that...

RESTATE: Well, the fact that I was a cross roads between North and South and somewhat East and Midwest at least turned out to be really providentially the way that King tried to do or Sid Nathan tried to make King which was an integrated label that drew equally from black traditions and Appalachian traditions. The fact that there were radio stations there and a large population in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky it just facilitated that and they had kind of a boarder town mentality where actually white and black artists could work together. It was neither in the deep South where segregation would have prohibited it or in places where the musicians union would have prohibited it like New York or Los Angeles. The situation in Cincinnati was loose enough so that they could put together black and white bands which were still illegal in many parts of the country. So, the fact that it was at that location I think helped shape the, helped shape both the music that was recorded by the label and what you would call the company culture of King Records in that it was integrated and very much multi-cultural.

Q:

JON: Well, King was unlike most of the independent record companies which usually specialized on one or two kinds, styles of music. King recorded everything except classical music. He would record anything that he thought might sell. They did... they started out as a country label doing country and bluegrass and then branched into black gospel and rhythm and blues and blues but over the years he did everything, polka, bluegrass, Hawaiian music, umm, marching bank music, the University of Miami Band, pop music, they were less successful with pop music but they tried it. But, what they were most successful with was blues, rhythm and blues, black gospel, country and bluegrass and rockabilly where they sort of all came together to create rock and roll.

Q:

JON: Well, many of the musicians on King had come up from the South, so they were... that mix of musical style has kind of reflected real life. Uh, it didn’t reflect the music industry but it did reflect real life where all of these music’s co-existed together and all of the musicians listened to various kinds of music. Black musicians who grew up in the South had no choice but to listen to country music on the radio, so they knew that and a lot of country musicians also liked jazz and blues so they were... it was kind of an inherent sympathy to each others music and they were all on a label that was seen as kind of an outsider label. So, I think that was a bonding experience for the artists on King because they were all a little bit outside the mainstream but they were all doing something new and unusual and they all had the freedom to experiment. So, it was a pretty wide open, pretty wide open atmosphere there where they would... Sid Nathan encouraged musicians to experiment; he really tried to foster black and white partnerships on records. It really didn’t happen very much but he did try to do things like pair Grandpa Jones, a country artist with Bull Moose Jackson, a rhythm and blues singer, cause he thought that would be really cool. He had no idea what it would sound like but he thought well, both of these guys are good as individuals, who knows and he didn’t really see the distinctions between the kinds of music, it was all pretty much the same to Sid. It was just... it was all American music. He called it music for the little man. That was sort of his recurrent motto, was he made music for the little man and in his eyes they were all the blacks in the area, the Appalachians, they were all the little men.

Q:

JON: Sid Nathan was the found of King Records, he was born in 1904 in Cincinnati and he’s usually described as a short, autocratic, very brash, very bluff, very domineering person. Uh, be very crass and profane, he’s also very sentimental. He was just about every paradox that a person could be but one of the things that carried through Sid’s life was he was very progressive racially. He said more than one time that he was a Jew and he knew what it was like to live outside the mainstream of society and he said as bad as Jews have it blacks have it a 100 times worse. And, he really believed in giving people a break. His philosophy was that we pay for talent at King Records and talent is not restricted to any one religion, racial group, ethnic group. So, the bottom line is everything Sid Nathan did was to make money, you know, so he didn’t do some of this stuff for altruistic reasons, he did it to make money but the way he felt he could make money was to hire the best possible people and the best possible people were often black. So, he had no... when his first key employee was Henry Glover, a black record producer and he was basically second in charge of the label for years. Sid...some people say Sid didn’t know anything about music, some people say he did. I think he had very astute commercial instincts but at the time he started King in the 40’s he had bounced around, he’d been a failure at basically everything he tried business wise except a used records store in Cincinnati which got him interested in the music business and got him interested in making records rather than just selling them. So, when he launched the business he just wanted the best people he could get. And, like I told you earlier, you know, during the war he had I would say the staff at King during World War II was probably half black, he had 10 or 12 Japanese Americans working there which I would think would have been pretty unusual. Umm, on the King application employment they specifically ask, would you have problems working for someone of another race or different gender? But, answering yes didn’t necessarily rule you out. Umm, they would talk to you and they felt that most people if they worked together could get around those and that was the case. They had integrated baseball teams, umm, at King. All the company functions were integrated; all of the departments were integrated.

Q:

JON: Well, the reason... I think the main reason King was so successful and so legendary was the music they recorded obviously. They started out as a country label and launched such folks as Grandpa Jones, Merle Travis and Cowboy Copus, they also had the Delmor Brothers who had been around earlier but had a revival on King. In blues they had such people as Albert King, Freddie King, uh, Champion Jack Dupree, Lonnie Johnson. A little bit later in blues or in rhythm and blues they had Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, Billie Ward and the Dominoes, uh, James Brown of course started at King in 1956 and became their biggest start. They had black gospel was a big area for them where they had the Swan Silvertones and the Spirit of Memphis Quartet and the Intern Quartet. Rockabilly, they had legendary Charlie Feathers, was the main rockabilly artist. Rock and roll they never really, never really captured much of. Pop music they never really captured much of although, Steve Lawrence made his debut on King as a 16 year old singer. He was promptly stolen away by another label.

Q:

JON: Funk, I would say...funk was born at King through the music of James Brown and his band. The emphasis on the One, the One is the key to the funk and James’ band through the years either called the James Brown Bank or the JB’s, including such folks as, you know, Bootsie Collins later on, on the base. They were pretty much the, they were the transition between rhythm and blues and both soul and funk. Funk, uh, the more rhythmic, more instrumentally oriented version, soul the more vocal. But, I would say as much as any label, funk would have started with James Brown, rap would have started with James Brown.

Q:

JON: Okay, well when Phillip Paul was at King the year is ’52 to 1964, country music has become a pretty low priority for King because it has mostly moved to Nashville and King could no longer compete with the major labels so they concentrated more on rhythm and blues which was good for Phillip because he was a drummer and he played on just a ton of King records. Uh, during that time the emphasis would have been on black music, on both rhythm and blues and straight blues with Freddie King which Phillip also played. He tended to play with the rhythm and blues and the blues artists. So, I would say it had and I think the black label or the black gospel music by that point had also waned a little bit so where King was making its money during Phillips years was his bread and butter, the rhythm and blues and the blues. They were very commercially successful. King was probably the leading independent record company at that time. They had national distribution which most independent labels didn’t have and I think it gave those artists, like Phillip Paul, it gave them a national exposure that they wouldn’t have received

in its business practices; they had their own distribution and their own pressing plant. So, during those years King would have been a very bustling place where you could literally walk in the morning with an idea for a song and walk out that evening with a finished record in your hand. So, the King session musicians of which Phillip was one had work very quickly, they had to be ready to do, on any given day they had to be ready to do, Hank Ballard and Midnighters or Freddie King or Smokie Smothers which is even more down home blues, had to be ready for anything and that was one of the things that being a session musician entailed. You had to know a variety of music, you had to be adept at a variety of music and you had to be flexible enough to do a rhythm and blues session in the morning, a blues session in the afternoon and maybe a gospel session at night. So, the musicians who worked at King in that era were exceptionally well rounded, exceptionally skillful and I think exceptionally resourceful because they just, they had to create arrangements on the fly. Early on there was no over dubbing so they just worked out there working on more regionally limited independent labels. King, King was very innovative arrangements and played it live in the studio and played it live until they got it right. So, it, uh, it created monster musicians of which Phillip was one. These guys could play anything, they could play everything and they could play it at the drop of a hat.

Q:

JON: Working for King as either a recording artist or a session musician was like being in a family with all the good and all the bad that, that entails. There was comradery, there was a definite King spirit. I think every artist that was ever on King Records fought bitterly with Sid Nathan. They knocked heads on just about everything. James Brown knocked heads with Sid Nathan on everything because Sid hated his music but they were best friends. James Brown was a pal bearer at Sid Nathans wedding or funeral.

RESTATE

James Brown was a pal bearer at Sid Nathans funeral as was Governor James Rhoades. Probably the only two things that you could... James Rhodes and James Brown forever tied together. King was or, uh, Sid Nathan was very abusive, he was very profane, loud, not tactful at all, he demanded a lot of his musicians and he would dress them down frequently but when I was interviewing musicians for my book I never found a single one that didn’t like King or that didn’t like Sid Nathan, that didn’t respect Sid Nathan and that ultimately felt that Sid was very honest and treated them as good as anybody at another record company ever did. Sid was a hard businessman who would try to beat them in deal making but he always lived up to a contract. I’ve never heard any musician say that Sid cheated them. Some feel that he snookered them but not cheated them. And, Sid, Sid was kind of a crazy wild man especially in the studio but to a little degree there was a method to his madness in that he would often get his artists to the point of angry energy that would get a great performance from them. And, I think some of that must have been calculated on Sid’s part but people talk about in the studio that they thought he was going to have a stroke because he would just get red... his face would get red, he’s start yelling. He was in bad health most of his life so everybody sort of thought he would just blow up one day. But, it’s funny that you hear lots and lots of stories of everybody fighting with King or with Sid Nathan, everybody arguing with Sid over every project but years later everybody like Sid, everybody respected him and everybody had Sid stories to tell. So, I think at bottom they respected what he did and they respected that he gave them the chance.

Q:

JON: Well, I’m not the most un-biased person but I agree that, I think that King was the most important independent record company in America in the 20th Century and I think the reason they were, there were two reasons; musically they recorded just about every kind of vernacular American music, so they were across the board musically but as a company they were very innovative in their business practices. They were the only, first independent record company that had its own pressing plant to make records, had...they were the first to have an in-house recording studio so they could make records there. They were one of the first to have a nationwide distribution system. So, most of the independent record companies that followed them modeled their business after King Records. So, I think that’s a part that they don’t often get credit for, that they kind of invented the modern independent label. And, I think why they were so successful was just they were really good at picking artists that would sell and then gave them the freedom to do the music they wanted to do and they just...they were... they gave people the chance and most of the people rose to the occasion.

Q:

JON: Well, Sid Nathan died in 1968 and by that time King Records was basically James Brown. He was the only artist on King who was still selling. They were still doing some rhythm and blues records but it was essentially James Brown that was keeping King afloat. Sid died in 1968 and there was no heir apparent to take over the company, so the company was sold in ’68, it was sold to Star Day Records and independent country label in Nashville and in the package of Star Day and King together was sold to a company called Lynn Broadcasting. Through a couple more permutations it ended up in Nashville, it’s owned by a company called International Marketing Group, Gusto Records. They own both King and Star Day now and they re-issue the material or license it to other re- issues. King actually limped along as a distinct business entity until around 1971 but after Sid Nathan died in ’68 it was a ship without a captain and he was King Records so much to the extent that when he wasn’t there, there was no center left and most of the artists had drifted away by them. And, so I date the end of King at ’68 when Sid died. Technically that’s not true, it existed as an independent name plate until about ’71 and King Records have been mostly in print since then but for me King Records died when Sid did in 1968.

Q:

JON: Well, King produced a lot of the classic songs of the 40’s and 50’s starting with Good Rocking Tonight by Wynonie Harris, which a lot of people including myself view as the first rock and roll record. Hank Ballard and the Midnighters did The Twist. Well, they recorded it twice, it was revived in 1960 and Chubby Checker covered it to have the hit with it. Bill Doggett and organist wrote a song called Honkey Tonk at a skating rink in Lima, Ohio, they just wrote it during a gig and it became the best selling rhythm and blues instrumental of all time. The Stanley Brothers were on King, they did a lot of blue grass, uh, several of the songs that they recorded for King have become blue grass standards. Uh, King was known also for dirty songs and a lot of those have become standards, umm, Work With Me Annie, by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, one of the classic songs of the 50’s. Umm, and a lot of the songs, you know, King quit having...King Records quit having hits in the 60’s so a lot of the songs have lived on, uh, The Twist has been revived numerous times, James Brown songs have been covered. A lot of modern day artists... James Brown is probably the most sampled artists in history in terms of hip hop and rap records. I mean, you couldn’t... I don’t think hip hop and rap could have existed with out James Browns King Records. They made lots of hit songs, they had from the late 40’s they had probably the three or four most popular R&B songs of the era. Good Rocking Tonight, Tomorrow Night by Lonnie Johnson, umm, I Love You, Yes I Do by Bull Moose Jackson. And, they just, uh, they had good relations with radio, so they were able to create hits.

Q:

JON: And one of the other hits was Fever a song that Little Willy John did early on in his career and it’s been I suppose the biggest hit was Peggy Lee but Elvis Presley recorded it, I think several hundred artists have recorded Fever but it was a Little Willy John original... he didn’t write it but he did the first recording and I think the best recording. I think his version cuts Peggy Lee’s to ribbons but she’s the one who has the famous version but it you ever listen to Little Willy John’s you’ll never want to hear Peggy Lee again.

Q:

JON: One thing I think that is lacking in the whole King Records story is official recognition by the city of Cincinnati. Memphis has made a big deal out of Chess Records; Detroit has made a big deal about Motown Records. Cincinnati should make a huge deal out of King Records not just for musical grounds but for social grounds. Umm, integration was working in Cincinnati, not city wide but at King Records. It was working at King as early as 1946 and in addition to all of the classic hits that were recorded there, the pioneering record industry methods that were pioneered there. It really is, was a national treasure and Cincinnati should be much prouder of that then they are. Umm, people connect with the label, have always felt that because they did the music of the little man, blacks and Appalachians that the city didn’t felt... didn’t feel that King really fit the civic image that they wanted but in terms of fitting Cincinnati as it really existed, King couldn’t have done a better job. They captured the reality and I think it should be one of the leading tourist attractions in Cincinnati or at least a part of Cincinnati historical heritage that is celebrated, that is talked about and that more people in Cincinnati know about. They have really something to be proud of there and it’s just a shame, uh, people all over the world... I get correspondence from all over the world, people are interested in King Records and there’s probably as many people in England interested in King Records as there are in Cincinnati and those folks can not understand why it’s not a big deal in Cincinnati. To everybody else in the world, it’s a huge deal and that’s what it should be in Cincinnati.

Q: Question regarding Chess versus Sun

JON: Some of the other independent labels, uh, Sun Records in Memphis, Chess in Chicago, Motown in Detroit, all of those cities have integrated those record companies and their histories into their cultural package and it’s a point of pride for those companies and King on some levels is more important than any of those companies and is way under recognized.

Q:

JON: My top five King recordings, that’s extremely hard. The discography of King Records is a two volume set of about 700 pages so they recorded tens of thousands of records but that said, my top five would include; Honkey Tonk by Bill Doggett, Hideaway by Freddie King, Cold Sweat by James Brown, Uh, The Delmor Brothers, Blues Stay Away From Me by the Delmor Brothers and probably just a personal favorite something by the Swan Silvertone Singers, my favorite all time gospel group led by Claude Geeter. So, probably anything that Claude Geeter sang would be in my top five.

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