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Deadric Malone
Don Deadric Robey (November 1, 1903 – June 16, 1975) was an American record label executive, songwriter, and record producer. As the founder of Peacock Records and the eventual owner of Duke Records, he was responsible for developing the careers of many rhythm and blues artists in the 1950s and 1960s. He was the first African American record mogul, 10 years prior to Berry Gordy's Motown label (though the first Black-owned label, Black Swan Records, belonged to Harry Pace in the 1920s). Robey was notorious for his controversial business practices; he reputedly used criminal means, including violence and intimidation, as part of his business model, though he was held in high regard by some of the musicians who worked for him. He was credited with writing or co-writing many of the songs recorded by Duke/Peacock artists, either under his real name, or under the pseudonym of Deadric Malone. However, in many cases, he was merely a publisher and was not involved in the writing. Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Houston
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of Harris County, Texas, Harris County, as well as the principal city of the Greater Houston metropolitan area, the fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the List of Texas metropolitan areas, second-most populous in Texas after Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, Dallas–Fort Worth. With a population of 2,314,157 in 2023, Houston is the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most populous city in the United States after New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and the List of North American cities by population, sixth-most populous city in North America. Houston is the southeast anchor of the greater megaregion known as the Texas Triangle. Comprising a land area of , Houston is the List of United S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Don Albert
Albert Dominique, better known as Don Albert (August 5, 1908, New Orleans – January 1980, San Antonio, Texas) was an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader. Albert's uncle was Natty Dominique. He got his start playing in parade brass bands in New Orleans at the beginning of the 1920s. He toured with the territory band of Alphonse Trent in 1925, then played with Troy Floyd at the Shadowland Ballroom in San Antonio from 1926 to 1929. Albert led his own territory bands out of Texas in the 1930s and 1940s, with sidemen that included Alvin Alcorn, Louis Cottrell, Jr., and Herb Hall. After 1932 he acted more in a manager's capacity than as a performer. His bands played in Mexico and Canada, and won positive reviews from newspapers, but recorded only eight sides. He disbanded this group around 1937 due to economic conditions, and found work in civil service and managing a nightclub called the Keyhole Club in San Antonio in the early and mid-1940s; his club was shut down in 1948 by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Big Mama Thornton
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton (December 11, 1926 – July 25, 1984), was an American singer and songwriter of blues and R&B. The ''Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock and Soul'' described Thornton by saying: "Her booming voice, sometimes 200-pound frame, and exuberant stage manner had audiences stomping their feet and shouting encouragement in R&B theaters from coast to coast from the early 1950s on". Thornton was the first to record Leiber and Stoller's " Hound Dog", in 1952, which was written for her. It became Thornton's biggest hit, selling over 500,000 copies and staying seven weeks at number one on the ''Billboard'' R&B chart in 1953. According to New York University music professor Maureen Mahon, "the song is seen as an important beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument". Thornton's other recordings include her song " Ball and Chain", made famous in the late 1960s by Janis Joplin. Though later recordings of her songs by other artis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Rhythm And Blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to African Americans, at a time when "rocking, jazz based music ... [with a] heavy, insistent beat" was starting to become more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of a piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American history and experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of societal racism, oppression, relationships, economics, and aspirations. The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Aladdin Records
Aladdin Records was a record company and label founded in Los Angeles in 1945 by brothers Eddie and Leo Mesner. It was originally called Philo Records before changing its name in 1946. Philo Records Philo's releases included 78 RPM singles of Illinois Jacquet, Wynonie Harris, Helen Humes with the Bill Doggett Octet, Jay McShann and Lester Young, and an album (set of two 78 RPM records) of Lester Young, Nat King Cole and Red Callender. When the U.S. Patent Office refused to register the label because of the similarity in name with the Philco radio corporation, which produced blanks for the record industry, the dispute was settled when the owners agreed to continue the name as Medlee. On March 2, 1946, the company placed an advertisement in ''Billboard'' magazine, announcing the new trade name. The next week, though, they placed a new ad "correcting their mistake", announcing Aladdin Records. The numbering of the releases was continued, and older Philo releases were reprin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown (April 18, 1924 – September 10, 2005) was an American singer and multi-instrumentalist from Louisiana. He was best-known as a blues music, blues performer, but his music was often eclectic and also touched on genres including country music, country, jazz and rock and roll. Brown won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album in 1983 for his album, ''Alright Again!'' Early life Brown was born in Vinton, Louisiana, Vinton, Louisiana, and raised near Orange, Texas, Orange, Texas. His father was a railroad worker and local musician who taught him several musical instruments, including fiddle by age 5; as well as piano and guitar. He had at least one brother. Career Brown was performing guitar by age ten. He also played drums in swing bands as a teenager. 1940s and 1950s Brown served in the military during World War II. His professional music career began in 1945, playing drums in San Antonio, Texas. He was given the nickname "Gatemouth" by a high ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballad (music), ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the Call and response (music), call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in Pitch (music), pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffle note, shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove (popular music), groove. Blues music is characterized by its lyrics, Bassline, bass lines, and Instrumentation (music), instrumen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
T-Bone Walker
Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker (May 28, 1910 – March 16, 1975) was an American blues musician, composer, songwriter and bandleader, who was a pioneer and innovator of the jump blues, West Coast blues, and electric blues sounds. In 2018 ''Rolling Stone'' magazine ranked him number 67 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Biography 1910–1941: early years Aaron Thibeaux Walker was born in Linden, Texas. His parents, Movelia Jimerson and Rance Walker, were both musicians. His stepfather, Marco Washington (a member of the Dallas String Band), taught him to play the guitar, ukulele, banjo, violin, mandolin, and piano. Walker began his career as a teenager in Dallas in the 1920s. His mother and stepfather were musicians, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, a family friend, sometimes came over for dinner. Walker left school at the age of 10, and by 15, he was a professional performer on the blues circuit. Initially, he was Jefferson's protégé and would guide hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, percussionist, and bandleader. He worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, and Quincy Jones. In 1992, he was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1996. Hampton was a member of the executive committee of the Writers and Artists for Peace in the Middle East, a pro-Israel group. In 1984, he signed a letter protesting German arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Biography Early life Lionel Hampton was born in 1908 in Louisville, Kentucky, and was raised by his mother. Shortly after he was born, he and his mother moved to her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. He spent his early childhood in Kenosha, Wisconsin, before he and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1916. As a youth, Hampton was a member of the Bud Billiken Club, an alternative to the Boy Scouts of Ameri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan (July 8, 1908 – February 4, 1975) was an American saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and bandleader who was popular from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "Honorific nicknames in popular music, the King of the Jukebox", he earned his highest profile towards the end of the swing era. Specializing in the alto saxophone, alto sax, Jordan played all forms of the saxophone, as well as piano and clarinet. He also was a talented singer with great comedic flair, and fronted his own band for more than twenty years. He duetted with some of the biggest solo singing stars of his time, including Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Jordan began his career in big-band swing jazz in the 1930s coming to the public's attention as part of Chick Webb's hard swinging band, though he became better known as an innovative popularizer of jump blues—a swinging, up-tempo, dance-oriented hybrid of jazz, blues and boogie-woogie. Typically performed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ruth Brown
Ruth Alston Brown (; January 12, 1928 – November 17, 2006) was an American singer-songwriter and actress, sometimes referred to as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of R&B". She was noted for bringing a popular music, pop music style to rhythm and blues, R&B music in a series of hit songs for Atlantic Records in the 1950s, such as "So Long (Russ Morgan Song), So Long", "Teardrops from My Eyes" and "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean". For these contributions, Atlantic became known as "the house that Ruth built" (alluding to the popular nickname for the old Yankee Stadium). Brown was a 1993 inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Following a resurgence that began in the mid-1970s and peaked in the 1980s, Brown used her influence to press for musicians' rights regarding royalties and contracts; these efforts led to the founding of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. Her performances in the Broadway musical ''Black and Blue (musical), Black and Blue'' earned Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Guinness Publishing
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, listing world records both of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. Hugh Beaver, Sir Hugh Beaver created the concept, and twin brothers Norris McWhirter, Norris and Ross McWhirter co-founded the book in London in August 1955. The first edition topped the bestseller list in the United Kingdom by Christmas 1955. The following year the book was launched internationally, and as of the 2025 edition, it is now in its 70th year of publication, published in 100 countries and 40 languages, and maintains over 53,000 records in its database. The international Franchising, franchise has extended beyond print to include television series and museums. The popularity of the franchise has resulted in ''Guinness World Records'' becoming the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
