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Specialty Records
Specialty Records was an American record label founded in Los Angeles in 1945 by Art Rupe. It was known for rhythm and blues, gospel, and early rock and roll, and recorded artists such as Little Richard, Guitar Slim, Percy Mayfield, and Lloyd Price. Rupe established the company under the name Juke Box Records but changed it to Specialty in 1946 when he parted company with a couple of his original partners. Rupe's daughter, Beverly, restarted the label in the 1980s. The major producers for the label were Rupe, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, Johnny Vincent and J. W. Alexander. Rupe was known for hating the practice of payola, but by 1953, "the only way for Specialty to remain competitive was to pay like everybody else." Specialty owned music publishing companies: Venice Music for BMI-licensed songs, and Greenwich Music for ASCAP-licensed songs. The record label was sold to Fantasy Records in 1991 and is now part of the Concord Music Group. The music publishing unit was sold to So ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concord Bicycle Music
Concord Music Group was an American independent music company based in Beverly Hills, California, with worldwide (including the U.S.) distribution through Universal Music Group. The company specialized in recordings ( Fearless Records, Concord Records, Fantasy Records, Rounder Records, Loma Vista Recordings, Craft Recordings) and music publishing. History In 2004, Concord Records acquired Fantasy, Inc., owner of the Prestige, Fantasy, Milestone, Riverside, Specialty, and the post-Atlantic Stax catalog. Concord then combined with Fantasy to form the independent Concord Music Group (CMG). Also in 2004, CMG partnered with Starbucks to release the Ray Charles album ''Genius Loves Company'', which won eight GRAMMY Awards, including Album of the Year. In 2005, CMG bought Telarc. On December 18, 2006, CMG announced the re-launch of the soul label Stax; rights to the name were formerly held by Fantasy. New singers included Isaac Hayes and Angie Stone. On March 12, 2007, Concord Music ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadcast Music, Inc
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) is a performance rights organization in the United States. It collects blanket license fees from businesses that use music, entitling those businesses to play or sync any songs from BMI's repertoire of over 20.6 million musical works. On a quarterly basis, BMI distributes the money to songwriters, composers, and music publishers as royalties to those members whose works have been performed. In FY 2022, BMI collected $1.573 billion in revenues and distributed $1.471 billion in royalties. BMI's repertoire includes over 1.3 million songwriters and 20.6 million compositions. BMI is the biggest performing rights organization in the United States and is one of the largest such organizations in the world. BMI songwriters create music in virtually every genre. BMI represents artists such as Patti LaBelle, Selena, Miley Cyrus, Lil Wayne, Lil Nas X, Birdman, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Eminem, Rihanna, Shakira, Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion, Ed Sheeran, Kar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roddy Jackson
George Rodrick Jackson (April 9, 1942 – December 7, 2022) was an American rockabilly and rock and roll singer, songwriter, pianist and saxophonist, who recorded for Specialty Records in the 1950s. Life and career Early life Roddy Jackson was born in Fresno, California, moving to Merced as a child. His father was a singer and pianist who toured with The Sons of the Pioneers. Jackson learned to play drums and piano, forming his first group, The Dreamers, when aged 12 in 1954, and began performing on radio station KYOS. He also learned to play clarinet, trumpet and trombone, but concentrated on the alto saxophone and later tenor sax. However, the record failed to chart, a fate also suffered by his third Specialty single, "Any Old Town" / "Gloria", recorded in March 1959 with Hall, Palmer, and saxophonist Lee Allen. According to writer Steve Leggett, "Jackson was the real deal, an exciting performer who shouted out his material with explosive force, pummelling the piano like it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camille Howard
Camille Howard (March 29, 1914 – March 10, 1993) was an American rhythm and blues pianist and singer, who first came to prominence in Roy Milton's Solid Senders in the 1940s. Her most successful recordings included "R. M. Blues" (as Milton's pianist, 1945), "Thrill Me" (as singer with Milton, 1947), and her own "X-Temporaneous Boogie" (1948). Life and career She was born in Galveston, Texas, the daughter of Cecilia ( Hines) and Samuel Browning. Her birth was registered as Deasy Browning, but she grew up using the name Camille Agnes Browning. She learned piano and, during her teens, was a member of a local group, the Cotton Tavern Trio. J. C. Marion, "Camille Howard", ''Jamm Up'' . Retrieved November 29, 2016 By 1935 she was performing as a club musician in Galveston, as Camille Browning. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie. Hooker was ranked 35 in ''Rolling Stone''s 2015 list of 100 greatest guitarists. Some of his best known songs include "Boogie Chillen'" (1948), "Crawling King Snake" (1949), "Dimples" (1956), " Boom Boom" (1962), and "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" (1966). Several of his later albums, including '' The Healer'' (1989), '' Mr. Lucky'' (1991), ''Chill Out'' (1995), and '' Don't Look Back'' (1997), were album chart successes in the U.S. and UK. ''The Healer'' (for the song "I'm In The Mood") and ''Chill Out'' (for the album) both e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam Cooke
Samuel Cook (January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964), known professionally as Sam Cooke, was an American singer and songwriter. Considered to be a pioneer and one of the most influential soul artists of all time, Cooke is commonly referred to as the " King of Soul" for his distinctive vocals, notable contributions to the genre and significance in popular music. Cooke was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi and later relocated to Chicago with his family at a young age, where he began singing as a child and joined the Soul Stirrers as lead singer in the 1950s. Going solo in 1957, Cooke released a string of hit songs, including "You Send Me", " A Change Is Gonna Come", "Cupid", " Wonderful World", " Chain Gang", "Twistin' the Night Away", " Bring It On Home to Me", and "Good Times". During his eight-year career, Cooke released 29 singles that charted in the Top 40 of the ''Billboard'' Pop Singles chart, as well as 20 singles in the Top Ten of ''Billboard'' Black Singles chart. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorothy Love Coates
Dorothy Love Coates (January 30, 1928 – April 9, 2002) was an American gospel singer. '''', April 9, 2002. Biography Early years Born Dorothy McGriff in , her early years were hard, (she later described them as "the same old thing"). Her minister father left the family when she was six, divorcing her mother thereafter. Dorothy began playing piano in ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugene Church
Eugene Church (January 22, 1938 – April 3, 1993) was an American Rhythm and blues, R&B singing, singer and songwriter. Church was born in St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri. In the 1950s, he collaborated with Jesse Belvin releasing single (music), singles on Modern Records as The Cliques. Their 1956 single, "The Girl in My Dreams" b/w "I Wanna Know Why", peaked at #45 on the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Late in the 1950s, he released four singles of his own, as Eugene Church & the Fellows. The first two were United States, U.S. hit record, hits: "Pretty Girls Everywhere" went No. 6 R&B, No. 36 Billboard Hot 100, Pop, and "Miami" hit No. 14 R&B and No. 67 Pop. They were followed by "Good News" and "Mind Your Own Business", neither of which charted. Church later pursued a career in gospel music in Dallas, Texas, and returned to secular music in the 1990s in doo-wop revues.[ Biography], Allmusic.com Church died from cancer in Los Angeles, California in April 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clifton Chenier
Clifton Chenier (June 25, 1925 – December 12, 1987), was an American Creole musician known as a pioneer of zydeco, a style of music which arose from Creole music, with rhythm and blues, R&B, blues, and Cajun music, Cajun influences. He sang and played the accordion and won a Grammy Award in 1983. He was known as the King of Zydeco, and also billed as the King of the South. Biography Chenier was a native of Leonville, Louisiana, near Opelousas, Louisiana, Opelousas. He spoke Louisiana French as a first language. Chenier began his recording career in 1954, when he signed with Elko Records and released ''Cliston's Blues'' [sic], a regional success. In 1955 he signed with Specialty Records and garnered his first national hit with his label debut "Ay-Tete Fi" (Hey, Little Girl) (a cover version, cover of Professor Longhair's song). The national success of the release led to numerous tours with popular rhythm and blues performers such as Ray Charles, Etta James, and Lowell Fulso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wynona Carr
Wynona Merceris Carr (August 23, 1923 – May 11, 1976) was an American gospel, R&B and rock and roll singer-songwriter, who recorded as Sister Wynona Carr when performing gospel material. Biography Carr was born in Cleveland, Ohio, where she started out as a gospel singer, forming her own five-piece group The Carr Singers around 1945 and touring the Cleveland/Detroit area. Being tipped by the Pilgrim Travelers, who shared a bill with Carr in the late 1940s, Art Rupe signed her to his Specialty label, giving Carr her new stage name "Sister" Wynona Carr (modelled after pioneering gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe) and cutting some twenty sides with her from 1949 to 1954, including a couple of duets with Specialty's biggest gospel star at the time, Brother Joe May. Not having too much success on the charts (except for "The Ball Game" 952 which became one of Specialty's best selling gospel records and most recently featured in the movie '' 42''), Carr grew increasingly unhapp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alex Bradford
Alex Bradford (January 23, 1927 – February 15, 1978) (professionally known as Professor Alex Bradford) was a multi-talented Gospel music, gospel composer, singer, arranger and choir director, who was an influence on artists such as Little Richard, Bob Marley and Ray Charles, and who helped bring about the modern mass choir movement in gospel. Biography Born in Bessemer, Alabama, United States, he first appeared on stage at the age of four, then joined a children's gospel group at the age of 13, soon obtaining his own radio show. He organized another group after his mother sent him to New York City following a racial incident; he continued singing after returning to attend the Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Institute, Snow Hill Institute in Snow Hill, Alabama, where he acquired the title "Professor" while teaching as a student. He moved to Chicago, Illinois, Chicago in 1947, where he worked briefly with Roberta Martin and toured with Mahalia Jackson, then struck out on his own ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Blind Boys Of Alabama
The Blind Boys of Alabama, also billed as The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, and Clarence Fountain and the Blind Boys of Alabama, is an American gospel group. The group was founded in 1939 in Talladega, Alabama, and has featured a changing roster of musicians over its history, the majority of whom are or were vision impaired. The Blind Boys found mainstream success following their appearance in the 1983 Obie Award-winning musical ''The Gospel at Colonus''. Since then, the group has toured internationally and has performed and recorded with such artists as Prince, Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Bonnie Raitt, Ben Harper, Bon Iver, and Amadou & Mariam. The group's cover of the Tom Waits song "Way Down in the Hole" was used as the theme song for the first season of the HBO series ''The Wire''. The Blind Boys have won five Grammy Awards in addition to being presented with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009. They were endowed with a National Heritage Fellowship from the Nation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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