2 - 8 - Rhythm Blues (Post 1945) (1125)

8/12/2019 2 - 8 - Rhythm Blues (Post 1945) (1125)

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Well now we turn to Rhythm & Blues, andthe period after 1945, closing in on1955, and our at least provisional datefor the birth of rock music.One of the things that we have to keep inmind as we think about how this musicoriginally associated with, R&B culturestarts, or black culture, starts to makeits way into urban areas.Is the migration occurred in this countryfrom the rural South to the urban North.The idea that, that, that blacks who wereliv, working in rural environments, infields and doing farm work and that kindof thing.Would get on the train and go to the endof the stop, wherever it landed north,and that place north might be Chicago, itmight be Detroit, it might be Baltimore,it might be New York.But whatever, they wanted to get out ofthat kind of life, and into theincreasingly available faculty or factory

and service jobs that were available inthe big cities, and this was especiallythe case during the second World War.Where everybody was being pulled togetherto, to to build the things that we neededto compete in that war.So, there was a giant migration into thecities.we're still talking about a time wherethings are pretty segregated, so peopleare moving up from the south into thecities.But still staying together in their own

neighborhoods, and that plays a big rolein how it is that R&B is able to becomesuch an important force.Well, once these people are all in theseareas, there are independant labels, andnow we start to talk about indie labelsIndependent labels that start to takeadvantage of this.These people are here, they want to hearmusic, we will put out records that theywill perhaps buy and and this is how youget these independent labels which aremostly regional, mostly, in certain

cities.So, we can talk about places like Chicagoand New York and Memphis and Los Angelesand, and these kinds of places,Baltimore, you name it.in addition to talking about indielabels, which we'll have to do, we'llalso need to talk about Regional Radio.Now, a couple of, several lectures ago, Italked about how when the radio audience



migrated from radio to television.It left a lot of openings in radio,because the, the syndicated programmingthat those stations were using didn'tdisappear immediately.But it was clear that everyone wasputting their money into television,because that's what the next big thingwas.And so there were real opportunities inradio.People who had these stations startedchanging their orientation.Rather than being a local affiliate for anational network, they started to thinkregionally.They started to think, well, if I'm goingto sell advertising, how can I sell thatto some kind of a group right herelocally.And it turned out that one of thosegroups they could sell advertising to wasthe black community.and that's, that's a fantastic story of

this chain, of this moving to television,making opportunities for radio stationsthat could now focus on rhythm and bluesmusic.So, we'll talk about that in just aminute.For now, let's go through the, the storywith indie labels and the rise of R&B.There are, at least, well there, thereare probably dozens of independent labelswe could talk about, that have to do withrhythm & blues.But there are some that are really

important, that we have to, that we haveto take some time thinking about.Let's first start with Chess Records,which was formed by Phil and LeonardChess in Chicago In 1947.Chess Records is mostly associated withthe style of Chicago electric blues thatwe hear in artists like Bo Diddley, MuddyWaters, Howlin' Wolf.And also the first records of ChuckBerry, which aren't so much Chicagoelectric blues, but Chess was the labelthat Chuck Berry was on.

Of course he made an awful lot Of moneyfrom them, but Chess did more than that.They had other black artists on theirlabel who were doing things that weren'tjust Chicago electric blues, they haddoo-wop and other kinds of things.But what they become, have become knownfor, is the Chicago electric blues of the1950's.And when you think about an independent



label like Chess Records, you have tofigure that Chess Records consists ofPhil and Leonard Chess, and maybe asecretary who answers the phone and doesall of their paperwork for them.They maybe got a couple of rooms ofoffices, and so, they do their, theiroffice work by day, and then at 5 o'clockthey clear all the desks away and createa space.And then somebody comes in with a taperecorder, and they actually do theirrecordings there.And now as they're sort of making moremoney, they will be getting increasinglybetter facilities.But these, these independent labels, Imean they are really just living on ashoestring here.They're having their records pressed inorder to get them to dis, distributed.You basically are going around to recordstores yourselves with the, with therecords in the trunk of your car,

distributing yourself.So, there's certain limits to how muchbusiness you can actually do if the wayyour doing it is this very limitedcircumstances.And so this indie status had a way ofsort of keeping indie labels small.In fact there's a certain kind of penaltythat can come to you, if you actuallyhave a record that gets too big, toofast, but we'll talk about that a littlebit later.Now in distinction to Chess Records,

which was, those Chess recordings areusually appreciated, because they have akind of rawness to them.There's a certain kind of unbuttonedruggedness to the way the record sound,and that's what people like the earlyBritish blues rocker from the 1960's.They loved that aspect of what was goingon with Chess Records.And to a certain extent, I'm not sure theguys at Chess wanted them to sound quitelike that, but that's what they hadavailable to them and that's just the way

they sounded.But it became the mark of what a Chessblues record would sound like.Now in distinction and sort of contrastto that, we turn to Atlantic Recordswhich was formed just a year later in NewYork.By Ahmet Ertegun, who would become one ofthe most important people in the musicbusiness in the second half of the 20th



century.and Herb Abramson, that was a slicker,more traditional approach to R&B.Traditional in the sense that there wouldbe arrangements done for tunes.So, the artists would come in readingcharts, there would be professionalsession musicians who would do these,these these sessions.Where as opposed to, to Chicago withChess Records if it would show up for thesession.They'd kind of make stuff up as they wentalong.And this was really a kind of imitationof what main, of how a mainstream poprecording session would go.And the people at Atlantic Records triedto get the best possible sound they couldout of their recordings.They didn't want them sounding rugged,they didn't want anybody to say, what afantastic, raw sound.Of course, they liked a kind of a raw

performance, but the actual sound of therecording they were very particularabout.And Atlantic had a guy by the name of TomDowd doing all of the engineering.Tom Dowd has become one of theselegendary figures in the history of ofrock music, for being one of the firstguys to really master the recordingstudio and get some great sounds.In fact, we talked before about Les Pauland that first eight track recordingmachine that he got, that he called the

octopus, that he got thanks to BingCrosby.Well the second one that was made wasmade for Atlantic Records.And Tom Dowd had that machine, and soAtlantic was making recordings on eighttrack, oh, 15 years before the Beatles,Sergeant Pepper.so they were really concerned about soundquality.Some of the artists they had in theperiod before rock and roll were RuthBrown, who was really kind of their go to

artist.Ray Charles was on the was on the labelat that time.Big Joe Turner, and The Drifters, all hadhad hits on the R&B charts for AtlanticRecords.The other important Indie that wedefinitely need to spend a little bit oftime on is Sun Records from Memphis,Tennessee founded by Sam Phillips in



1953.Now, Sam Phillips didn't start in themusic business in 1953, he had been anindependent recording guy.His thing was he would go out and recordall kinds of things, usually he'd berecording you know, choirs that sang,church music and that kind of thing.But on the side he was recording a lot ofAfrican American musicians because thatwas the kind of music he liked.In fact, before Elvis Presley came in tohis studio and recorded in 1954.Sam Phillips was recording and releasingalmost exclusively black artists.In fact, an important record, Rocket 88,which was the number one R&B hit in 1951for Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats,interestingly enough with Ike Turner,later of Ike and Tina Turner Review onpiano.that record was actually by Sam Phillipsin his, in his studios in Sun, but thenleased to Chess Records who released it

in 1951 on the Chess label, they boughtthe rights to the recording from SamPhillips.So, he was involved in doing a certainamount of that.But when he got his own artist, maybe hisbiggest artist early on was Rufus Thomas,who had a some hits from an R&B charts.But then he was famous for having havingsigned Elvis Presley in 1954 and thenhaving sold Elvis' contract to RCA.Other artists he had later in the 50'sJerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny

Cash, was also and Roy Orbison, were alsoon the Sun label in the second half ofthe 1950's.But that gets ahead of our story.Other important indie labels in R&B,Specialty Records in Los Angeles, startedby Art Rupe in 1945, he would laterrelease all of his singles by LittleRichard.Imperial Records also in Los Angeles,started in 1947 by Lew Chudd.He would release all those Fats Domino'srecords, although all the Fats Domino's

records were recorded by Dave Bartholomewdown in New Orleans.And then interestingly, Dot Records inTennessee, run by Randy Wood, it startedin 1951, which released the records ofPat Boone, of all people.Interestingly, the story about Pat Booneis that we like to think about him asbeing exclusive appealing to whiteartists, but Pat Boone actually had a



bunch of hits on the R&B charts.Now we want to, we want to just take aminute to contrast those indie labels,Chess, Atlantic, Sun, Specialty,Imperial, and Dot with what would havebeen the major labels in the 1950s, andthose, those labels were.And this line will come up and you'll seethese as they go by.Decca, which was started in the UK in1937.Mercury, out of Chicago.RCA-Victor out on New York.Columbia out on New York.MGM, affiliated with the HollywoodStudios out there.And Los Angeles, also Capital in LosAngeles which was taken over by EMI.The Americ, the British label in 1956.You can see the artists that areaffiliated with each of those majorlabels.Those labels, when they release a record,could get it into national distribution

almost immediately.The indie labels were regional, it wasvery difficult for them to releaseanything nationally.And so you had these fantastic majorlabels that were focusing almost entirelyon mainstream pop.And that left room for these independentlabels to focus on R&B.Mostly not bothered too much or harassedin any way by the major labels.Until rock and roll hit, and until theseR&B labels started to sell big numbers of

records.Then all of a sudden, the majors tooknotice, and they were going to startfighting back.But that get's ahead of our story.In the next video, let's talk about therole of radio and the rise of R&B.

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2 - 8 - Rhythm Blues (Post 1945) (1125)