Hy-Tone was an influential

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

that issued

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 ...

records between 1946 and 1948.

History

It was originally set up in March 1946 as the Melody Lane label by guitarist, bandleader and

record store A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells recorded music. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, record shops only sold gramophone records, but over the 20th century, record shops sold the new formats that were ...

owner Freddie Williams (1898-1955), but soon changed its name to Hy-Tone when

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n-born

juke box A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media. The classic jukebox has buttons, with letters and numbers on them, which are used to selec ...

operator Nathan Rothner (1912-2003) became involved. The label recorded musicians mainly from the

South Side of Chicago The South Side is an area of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. It lies south of the city's Loop area in the downtown. Geographically, it is the largest of the three sides of the city that radiate from downtown, with the other two being the north and we ...

, and issued early recordings by

Memphis Slim John Len Chatman (September 3, 1915 – February 24, 1988), known professionally as Memphis Slim, was an American blues pianist, singer, and composer. He led a series of bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump blues, included saxopho ...

, Crown Prince Waterford,

Jo Jo Adams Joel Adams (c. 1918 – February 27, 1988), sometimes credited as Doctor Jo Jo Adams, was an American jump blues singer, comedian, dancer, and MC, who recorded in the 1940s and 1950s. Career He was born in a rural area of Alabama, an ...

Sunnyland Slim Albert Luandrew (September 5, 1906March 17, 1995), "Blues pianist and singer Sunnyland Slim was born Albert Luandrew in Vance, Mississippi, September 5, 1906 (most sources say 1907, but the Social Security Death Index and 1920 census data give t ...

, guitarist

Floyd Smith Floyd Robert Donald Smith (born May 16, 1935, in Perth, Ontario) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey centre and coach. Biography Smith grew up in Galt, Ontario, playing junior hockey with the Galt Black Hawks. He made his National Ho ...

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

singer R. L. Knowles, Freddie Williams' own band, and others. Robert Pruter, "Hy-Tone", in Edward Komara (ed.), ''Encyclopedia of the Blues'', Psychology Press, 2005, p.483
/ref> The label is credited with helping to establish Chicago as a recording venue for R&B music after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It closed in 1948 after King Records in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

bought some of the Hi-Tone

master recording Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master), the source from which all copies will be produced (via met ...

s from Rothner. Robert Pruter, Robert L. Campbell, and Tom Kelly, "The Hy-Tone Label"
. Retrieved 31 March 2014

Other labels

The name Hy-Tone, Hytone, or Hi-Tone has been used for several other, unrelated, record labels. These include: *Hytone, set up by the Indestructible Phonograph Company in 1921 *Hi-Tone, set up in New York in 1949 as a subsidiary of

Bob Thiele Bob, BOB, or B.O.B. may refer to: Places *Mount Bob, New York, United States *Bob Island, Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica People, fictional characters, and named animals *Bob (given name), a list of people and fictional characters *Bob (surname) ...

Signature Records Signature Records was a jazz record company and label founded in 1939 by Bob Thiele when he was 17 years old. Its roster included Coleman Hawkins, Earl Hines, Erroll Garner, and Lester Young. At age 14, Thiele was a disc jockey for his own jazz r ...

*Hy-Tone, set up in New York in 1957 *Hy-Tone, which issued gospel records in California in the 1960s.

References

External links

Hy-Tone Records
on the Internet Archive'
Great 78 Project
American independent record labels American companies established in 1946 {{US-record-label-stub