|
|
Rip
It Up: The Specialty Records Story |
|
Recently, singer, songwriter, musician, author and Grammy Award winner
Billy Vera sat down with me to talk about his new book
Rip It Up: The Specialty Records
Story. Vera tells us how the book came about.
“BMG contacted me. They initiated a series of books with each one being
about a different independent record label, either an old one or a new
one. They knew I worked for Specialty years ago and that I knew the
founder Art Rupe, so they figured I was the guy to do the Specialty
(book). They gave me the outline and they said we want roughly 50,000
words. Each book is in a seven by seven format, which is the size of an
old 45 rpm record.
I have known Art for thirty years. I had Xerox copies of correspondence
between artists and Art, recording session sheets and union contracts
from my days at Specialty. I produced over fifty CDs of Specialty music.
I was also very familiar with the history of the label and of Art’s
history. Whenever I had a question I just called him up. I wrote the
book in about three weeks.
Art is 102 years old and he is sharper than you and I put together. He
still goes to work every day. In fact, later in the day after he
finished with us (doing a video with him), he had a board meeting. He
runs a charitable foundation that gives away tons and tons of money to
various things that he is interested in. He is an incredible man. He is
an amazing man,” he says.
Art Rupe penned the foreword to the book.
Billy Vera’s association with the kind of music that Specialty Records
produced goes back to 1954 when he was twelve years old. He explains,
“My neighbor Frankie Falcone drove up in his 1954 Mercury Monterey,
chopped and channeled. Out of the window of his car I could hear this
voice like no other voice I had ever heard singing, “Gonna' have some
fun tonight / Gonna’ have some fun tonight, woo!” I thought who the hell
is that? Frankie drove on.
A few nights later I heard the same voice on Alan Freed’s show and Alan
Freed told us it was Little Richard. The record was “Long, Tall Sally,”
and I went out to the record store to buy a copy. The first thing I
noticed was the label was yellow,
Chapter one of Rip It Up: The
Specialty Records Story provides the reader with the backstory for
Art Rupe, a man born in the small town of Greensburg, western
Pennsylvania, not far from Pittsburgh.
Billy Vera picks up the story, “His parents were poor Polish Jews. His
father worked in a secondhand furniture store scraping out a living.
Every Sunday Art would sit on the curb in front of the local black
Baptist church, just to listen to that music. He fell in love with that
soul and that feeling. Before anybody was using the word Soul he called
it Soul. He became attracted to show business. He worked in a carnival
as a young boy.”
Continuing Vera says, “Art’s mother played piano, not well and his
father made a feeble attempt at the violin, but he probably played more
like Jack Benny than a real violinist. He had two brothers and a sister,
none of whom were interested in music, although when he became
successful he financed both of his brothers and his sister’s husband in
record distributorships. I guess it was a pretty good idea to keep it in
the family and with people you could trust.
Art was the one who loved music. He loved show business in general. He
made his way to Los Angeles, because he wanted to write for movies or
for radio. There wasn’t any television at that time. It was before World
War II. He found that end of the business to be a bit too “clubby.”
(Due to) the war there was a shortage of shellac (editor’s
note: records were made of
shellac). Most of the shellac came from China and Asia and the
Japanese had control of that, so a lot of the big companies were cutting
back on the artists and only putting out records by their top stars due
to the lack of shellac. Art found that the specialty markets like black
music or hillbilly music weren’t being serviced now that there was a
shortage. He thought I like black music, maybe I can make records that
are certainly as good as some of the ones that I hear. He went down to
south central Los Angeles, which was the black part of town and he
bought a ton of records. He listened to the good ones and the bad ones.
He got a metronome and a stop watch. He counted the number of bars and
he figured out what the ingredients were to the good records and what
the ingredients were that made the bad records bad. He (came up) with a
formula for making records that he thought people would buy and that
mainly black people would buy.
He didn’t have much money, so he went to the after-hours clubs and he
found a little trio and then he needed a reed instrument, so he found a
guy who played saxophone and they made a record. He also noticed that
many of the hit records of the day had the word boogie in the title. He
also learned that the jukebox distributors were an important factor in
selling records, so he named his first label Jukebox Records and the
first record out was called Boogie # 1, by The Sepia Tones. He managed
to sell about 70,000 records. That gave him the working capital to
continue.
He started looking
for more talent and he found three artists, one of whom was Roy Milton.“
Art’s journey to success was much like traveling down a crooked road,
“He loved show business and he wanted to be in show business. He tried
selling jokes to people like Bob Hope and to radio. He failed there. He
tried a number of things and he wanted to be a success.
He told me (recently) that he used to read the Billboard Magazine every
week. He would read the classified ads and everything. There was this
company that would rent people 16 mm versions of sixty or seventy
minutes B movies or features. Most movies are 35 mm. He got a 16 mm
projector and he rented one movie a week and each night he would take it
to a different town. He would rent out a school hall or a church hall.
He would show the movie and he would charge people. He said he would get
the prettiest girl in the school and she would be the ticket taker and
he would let some kid in for free and he would be the usher. For six or
seven days each week he would show these movies. He was entrepreneurial
from a very young age. It was the low end of show business, but it was a
start. It shows his creativity. They would be your sixty to seventy
minute B movies or they would be main features.”
At Jukebox Records he had a partner named Al Middleman who owned a label
called Sterling Records, which later became the first label for which
Hank Williams recorded. That was before MGM gobbled him up. Art suddenly
found in the course of business that with Jukebox he made two hit
records, one by Roy Milton and one by somebody called Blues Woman, who
was really a woman named Marion Abernathy. When the time to collect the
money came, Art didn’t feel that he was getting his share and also there
was a third partner that Art knew nothing about, named Eli Oberstein
whose main gig was being an A & R man for RCA Victor Records. If RCA had
known they wouldn’t have been very happy about that. There was something
fishy going on, so Art took the masters for Roy Milton and Marion
Abernathy and he went out on his own. That is when he started the
Specialty label.
For the first year or so it was mainly Roy Milton. Roy had a wonderful
female piano player who also sang (and her name was) Camille Howard. He
was able to put out records of either Roy singing or Camille singing.
She became a very important part of the group.
That was pretty
much enough for Art for that first year or two, because Roy was selling
a lot of records. Art was running a one man operation. He learned about
pressing records by climbing up the fire escapes of pressing plants and
looking in the windows to see how the machines worked. He was a
brilliant man.
In 1947 he was
approached by a fellow named Jimmy Liggins who was the younger brother
of Joe Liggins who was very successful for another company. Joe had a
huge seller called “The Honeydripper Parts 1 & 2 and another one called
“I Got A Right to Cry.” Jimmy was working as his brother’s driver and in
seeing how much success Joe was having he started writing songs too. He
brought the songs to Art and Art sent him back for rewrites about three
times. The results were worth the efforts, because Jimmy had a couple of
hits. For 1947 Jimmy Liggins’ records had wildness to them and madness
to them that you didn’t hear in anybody else’s records of that time.
Louis Jordan’s records were
clean sounding and almost polite compared to Jimmy Liggins. Jimmy’s
records were out of control. He had a wonderful tenor saxophonist in his
band, a guy named Harold Land, who eventually would become one of the
top two Jazz saxophonists in Los Angeles.
I tracked down Harold when I was doing a Jimmy Liggins CD some years ago
and I said what can you tell me about Jimmy? Most of these artists were
dead by the time that I started writing about them. He said I will tell
you this about Jimmy; he was the greatest driver that I ever knew.
Harold said we would be riding along in the middle of the night
on these little highways, because they didn’t have interstate highways
back then. Jimmy would be sleeping and he would wake up and he would say
turn left in a half of a mile. That cat knew every road in the country.
(Billy laughs) he said a lot about what a great driver Jimmy was, but he
didn’t say much about his music. It might have been a little too
primitive for Harold, but I love Jimmy’s records and they sold quite
well.”
January 1st 1948 the year got started with a real bang, but not the kind
that Art Rupe was hoping, as there was a musicians’ union strike.
Vera retells the story, “All of the record companies knew the strike was
coming, so they were jamming all the studios trying to record enough
stuff to outlast the strike. Art thought what am I going to do? I (need)
records to sell. He went back to his childhood and he started recording
the Gospel groups. A lot of the groups didn’t need musicians, because
mostly they sang a cappella. The first group that he had, which was
successful was The Pilgrim Travelers. They sold quite a few records at
very little cost, because you weren’t paying musicians. Art said I
noticed they tapped their feet when they sang, so I sent out for a piece
of plywood for them to stand on and I miked the sound of their feet.
That gave these records a beat that other people’s records didn’t have.
I called it walking rhythm. He eventually became the number one Gospel
company in the nation.”
Billy Vera says, “There was an artist in 1950 who in my opinion is the
most talented Specialty artist of them all, he is a fellow by the name
of Percy Mayfield. He was the greatest songwriter of the Blues. Percy
was from Louisiana and his first big hit with Specialty was “Please Send
Me Someone to Love.” They were great lyrics (he then recites some of
them). He wrote brilliant lyrics of pain and loss, of madness, suffering
and agony in such a poetic way.
Some years ago, my then manager had an annual Christmas party and a lot
of A list celebrities were invited. I am kind of shy at parties and I
was sitting at the bar nursing a Pepsi and this woman that I knew (a
bit) tells me that Bob would like a word with you. I looked over her
shoulder and it was Bob Dylan and she said he wanted to thank me for
producing the two Percy Mayfield albums of his older material that I had
released on Specialty. We spent the next two and one-half hours talking
about the brilliance of Percy Mayfield. He said he agreed about what I
had named the first album, which was
The Poet of the Blues. Here
was the great Bob Dylan telling me that he agreed that Percy Mayfield
was the greatest Poet of the
Blues.”
The year was 1952 and Fats Domino was selling a lot of records and he
was on the black charts. He had not yet crossed over to white audiences.
The music of Fats Domino caught the ear of Art Rupe and he bought his
records.
“Art took a scouting trip down to New Orleans where Fats recorded and
where he was from to see if there were other artists down there who were
worth recording. He set aside three days and rented out the only studio
that would record black artists. There was a line leading out to the
street of people who wanted to make records. Most of them were mediocre
and Art said he was ready to throw in the towel or give up and go home,”
he says.
Billy Vera recalls Art telling him, “When I first heard this guy sing,
his chord changes were common and the melody was common. The voice was
not outstandingly different. He sensed that I was about to give up and
turn him down. He started to cry when he sang his song. I thought if I
could capture that passion and emotion I would have something. I set a
session for him and as it turns out Fats Domino played piano for him on
the record. The record was “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” and the artist was Lloyd
Price. It became the number one record in the country.”
“Art would always ask his distributors, which people were buying his
records, because so many of them were being sold. The distributors told
him a very interesting fact, the stores they distributed to tell me that
a lot of black housekeepers come into the store and buy two copies of
“Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” one for themselves and one for the white teenagers
of their employers. Suddenly, there seemed to be a new market for this
black music and that would be white teenagers. That was a real turning
point. “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” became the Rhythm and Blues Record of the
Year. Lloyd became big and he put out a couple of more hits, but then he
got drafted into the army. He was sent over to Korea and that put a
damper on his career,” he says.
A new kind of music was emerging, “It was called Jump Blues or later
Rhythm and Blues and that was the music that the teenagers slowly and I
mean really slowly began to catch onto. Three kids out of your high
school class might have been listening to those records. Over the next
few years it grew until 1956 when it became the biggest thing in the
country.
The black stations were down at the right hand end of the dial and they
were playing these records. The hip kids would listen to those stations
and those disc jockeys. It was like this “in” thing and you felt like
you were a part of something special, that you were part of a club where
you knew more than everybody else. It was that kind of an attitude.
Another element was the music was danceable. It was highly danceable. It
had a good beat. In fact, among black audiences that is a key element in
why a record will be popular. A lot of white critics fail to catch on to
that notion. The element of dance is very important to a black
audience,” says Vera.
The music landscape in North America continues to change, but was it
ready for what came next at Specialty Records? In 1955 Rock and Roll
begins to take a foothold. Artists such as Chuck Berry became a hit,
Fats Domino was now being listened to by white teenagers and Elvis
started recording records.
This A & R man whose name was “Bumps” Blackwell heard the song and he
thought that it was something different. He had never heard anything
like this before. He thought obviously the lyrics were too dirty to make
a record out of it and it would never get on the radio. Then he spotted
at another table a New Orleans songwriter named Dorothy LaBostrie and he
asked her if she could clean up the lyric, so he could record the song
at the afternoon recording session. She did and the thing that sold the
song was the beat and Richard’s outlandish singing. The song “Tutti
Frutti,” became a career making hit for Richard. Suddenly, Specialty
Records found themselves in the Little Richard business. It was one hit
after another, after another. There was “Long Tall Sally,” “Rip It Up,”
“Lucille,” “Good Golly Miss Molly, “Ready Teddy,” “Keep a Knockin’’',”
and more hits, until Richard went over to Australia for a tour. On the
way back he sees Sputnik, the Soviet Union’s satellite (editor’s note:
the first satellite ever launched from earth). When Richard saw it he
thought it was a message from God that the end of the world was going to
come. He thought he had better repent of his sins and stop singing the
devil’s music. He came back to Los Angeles and he told Mr. Rupe that he
wasn’t singing the devil’s music anymore. Art tries to placate him and
he says Richard you are eighteen months into a three year contract. He
says if you were to stop now that’s called breach of contract and there
is a price to be paid for the breach of a contract. That would be no
more money, no more royalties, no more anything. Richard said I don’t
care I don’t want the devil’s music. I don’t want the devil’s money and
I am going to leave and become a minister. That was it.
Art was quick on his feet and he had another artist that he was just
starting out with and his name was Larry Williams. Larry took over the
throne. He had hits (like) “Boney Moronie.” Specialty also had a music
publishing arm., Venice Publishing. There were a lot of cover records on
those songs. Five of the Venice songs were recorded by Elvis Presley on
his first two albums “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” “Tutti Frutti,” “Long Tall
Sally,” “Rip It Up,” and “Ready Teddy.” The enormity of that and the
financial windfall of having five songs recorded by Elvis Presley the
biggest artist in the world and who was selling millions of records was
very lucrative. Of course Larry Williams’ songs later on were revived by
The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. (The Beatles did) “Bad Boy,” “Slow
Down,” “Boney Moronie,” and there was a fourth one. The Stones did
Larry’s song “She Said Yeah.”
We cut from 1959 to 1964 and Art gets a call from his dear friend Little
Richard whom he hadn’t heard from in years. Richard says I just came
back from Germany and I heard this band and they were great. They can
copy anybody, even me. He said I think you ought to record them. Art
said I am really not in the business of making records anymore, but he
said if you want to make another record I would love to make another
record with you. Richard said are you sure you don’t want to record
these guys, they are really great. They call themselves The Beatles. Art
said I am not interested, but he did go in and make another record with
Little Richard, which made it to the bottom of the charts and that was
the last chart hit that Specialty Records ever had. After that it was
just servicing oldies accounts and jukebox accounts. The Beatles were
turned down by every company in the business in America. Nobody wanted
them,” he says.
The radio market begins to change and payola becomes a problem for
artists and independent labels trying to get their songs played on the
radio.
“Payola became a big thing. It started before Alan Freed, but he took it
to a new level of corruption. He wanted his name on songs as a
co-writer. He tried to get Art to switch distributors in Cleveland when
Freed was in Cleveland. It was a distributor that he started with his
brother. He was a terrible guy. Payola became huge and you couldn’t get
records played without paying off these disc jockeys. That was back in
the day when disc jockeys could pick the records that they could play.
Today there is one guy who programs 1,500 stations. You have 1,500
stations playing the same twenty-five records all day. It wasn’t like
that in the ‘50s. You had disc jockeys that would play the records that
record companies would pay them to play. Art hated this. He felt it took
away the value of the music and he felt that these guys were riding on
the backs of the people who made the music. He thought it was corrupt
and it disgusted him. Eventually, he did it or he wouldn’t have got his
records played.
Art’s taxes were in a very high tax bracket, unspeakably high, so he had
to find other ways of making money. That is when he went into oil. The
last act that he signed and that was really important was a duo named
Don and Dewey. They never made a chart hit, but about five or six of the
songs that they wrote became hits for other people, including one song
called “Leaving It Up To You,” which was a hit for Paul and Paula. It
was number one in the country and then ten years later it became a hit
for Donny and Marie Osmond.
By 1959 Art’s interest in the record company was dwindling and the oil
was taking over. He basically let the company fade. He kept a little
office with one or two helpers to service oldies accounts or when the
songs that were revived through the publishing company. That (part) was
fairly lucrative," he says.
How will Art Rupe be remembered? Perhaps the way Billy Vera
describes him, "He took his love for music and he turned it into a great
success.
|
that
Specialty label just jumped out at you. When I spoke to Art he said that
it (he got the idea) when he was studying marketing at university. His
marketing professor told him that those colors are the ones that attract
people’s attention better than any others and he was sure right.”
“There
was this artist who made a pest of himself (to Art) he would call up and
say Lloyd Price told me to get ahold of you. I am the greatest thing
that ever was. When Art finally listened to this little demo tape that
he had made he said I heard something there. It was undeveloped, but I
heard something. He sent his A & R man to New Orleans to record this new
artist named Little Richard. They did two sessions one in the morning
and one in the afternoon. In those days the union allowed you to do a
three hour session and you could record as many as, but not more than
four songs. The morning session was nothing special and they broke for
lunch. Richard went over to this place called the Dew Drop Inn, which
was a famous nightclub in New Orleans. Richard, being the ham that he
was jumped up on the piano and he started singing this risqué song that
started out like this “Whop baba loo map a good goddamn Tutti Fruiti
good booty.” Richard sang dirty songs for white college boys at
fraternity houses. Sometimes he would do his act in drag in those early
days in black clubs.