Baton Records was an American,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

based independent record label, launched in 1954 by

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure. Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

Sol Rabinowitz Saul "Sol" Rabinowitz (April 26, 1924 – March 16, 2013) was an American music business executive. He was the founder and lead producer of Baton Records, an independent record label that recorded rhythm and blues music in New York City during ...

, mainly to record and release

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...

music. Baton's first record, and subsequent hit, was "A Thousand Stars" by the R&B group the Rivileers. The label's most enduring hit is arguably "

Got My Mojo Working "Got My Mojo Working" is a blues song written by Preston "Red" Foster and first recorded by R&B singer Ann Cole in 1956. Foster's lyrics describe several amulets or talismans, called ''mojo'', which are associated with hoodoo, an early African ...

" written by

Preston Foster Preston Stratton Foster (August 24, 1900 – July 14, 1970), was an American actor of stage, film, radio, and television, whose career spanned nearly four decades. He also had a career as a vocalist. Early life Born in Ocean City, New Jersey ...

and first recorded by singer

Ann Cole Ann Cole (born Cynthia Coleman; January 24 or 29, 1934 – November 1986) was an American R&B and gospel singer who has been described as "a genuinely great soul singer who had the misfortune to be too far ahead of her time". She had several m ...

in 1957.

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago ...

claimed to have written the song and put out a recording of it on Chess Records ,the same week as Cole's record was released on Baton. Waters had heard Cole sing the song while they were on tour together and adopted it as his own. A court later ruled that the song was indeed written by Foster, who s of 1998is still receiving royalties for "Mojo". Rabinowitz wound up the Baton label in 1959.John Broven with Richard Tapp, ''Sol Rabinowitz's Baton Records'', ''

Juke Blues ''Juke Blues'' is a British magazine covering blues, R&B, gospel, soul, zydeco and jazz. It was established in 1985 in London by Cilla Huggins, John Broven and Bez Turner, and is now published in Bath, Somerset, England. Cilla Huggins has been so ...

'' no. 72, 2012, pp. 12-22

References

External links

Baton Records
on the Internet Archive'
Great 78 Project
* ttp://www.daremusic.com/mojo.htm ''Songs of Sol - Mojo Fighting'', by David Menconi {{Authority control Defunct record labels of the United States American independent record labels Rhythm and blues record labels