HOME OF THE HITS

Bob Armstrong: A Tribute

2012-01-16T08:42:00.000-05:00

Organist Bob Armstrong in the 1970s

By Randy McNutt

Organist Bob Armstrong, a mainstay of the Cincinnati rock band the Casinos, died December 27, 2011, at his home in suburban Cincinnati. He was 67.

     I knew Bob as one of the area's most friendly, intelligent, talented, and professional musicians. I first met him years ago when I was producing records in Cincinnati. He always had a tip for a young and aspiring record man. When working on my book The Cincinnati Sound in 2007, I went to Bob's home to interview him at length. He had terrific recall of people, events, and places.

     He started performing in the early 1960s, when he attended the University of Cincinnati. Although he went on to become a highly sought-after industrial engineer and electrical contractor, he continued to perform up until his death. He is known best for his keyboard work with the Casinos, having played on their 1967 hit "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye," a top 10 hit on Cincinnati's Fraternity Records. The record helped rescue the small independent label and brought the Cincinnati band into national prominence. The band toured for two years as the opening act for the Beach Boys, and later performed in major clubs throughout the nation and in Cincinnati.

     The Casinos discovered many talented acts and allowed them to perform during their shows, Bob told me. These acts included The Heywoods at Cincinnati's Touche Club. After the Casinos' big hit record, "We played the Playboy Club and the Desert Inn," he recalled. "We had a bona fide show. We were not just a group that recorded and played hops. Locally, we played at the [premier] Lookout House and the Beverly Hills Supper Club. We hired groups to open for us. We'd set up for six months straight." In this respect, the Casinos were unlike other one-hit rock bands that went on tour in America's small clubs. With their short hair and ballads, the group seemed the antithesis of hippies and psychedelic sounds.

     When the group's members went their own ways in the 1970s, Bob and fellow Casino Ray White helped form Canon, which became a popular party band in southern Ohio. The group continued until 1988. Carl Edmondson, the leader of the Driving Winds as well as a guitarist and producer, joined Canon. "Bob was one of the best, and he was my best friend," Carl said. "We worked on church service music together for years. I'll miss him."

     What I will remember Bob for is the prominent organ on "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye." He told me the band booked time at the King Records recording studio, and went in and cut four songs, including the John D. Loudermilk ballad, which they had been performing in clubs for months. They knew it so well that they cut a master shortly after starting the session.

     "We played with the Beach Boys and a lot of other big [rock] bands of the period," Bob once said proudly. "Unfortunately, we couldn't duplicate the hit. By 1973, Cincinnati had dried up as a national music center. I call it the year the music died."

     Farewell, our good friend.

Canon, 1970s: (L-R) unknown, Bob Armstrong,

Vicky Taylor, Ray White, and Carl Edmondson.

Canon: (L-R) Bob Armstrong, Ray White,

unknown, and Carl Edmondson.

Regional Record Labels, Pt. 1

2011-12-17T11:54:00.004-05:00

Regional Labels, Part 1
The Cincinnati Connection

By Randy McNutt

Regional record companies flourished in the halcyon days of Top 40 radio, primarily the 1960s. Many local radio stations were willing to play high-quality singles released by local and regional labels. By the late '60s, however, this cooperation had begun to fade. Pressed by increasing radio competition, stations decided to play mostly big-label releases. The days of local labels scoring hits in their towns was ending.

Independent, commercial radio labels were of two varieties: local and regional. Local labels operated out of a hometown or one city, and didn't try to seek radio play in a wide geographic area. Regional labels did seek airply through a whole state or several states. But they did not seek national airplay.

Some local labels developed into regional ones. And a few made the jump from regional to national. But most of their owners were content to remain small. They knew their market and its influential disc jockeys, distributors, studio owners, musicians, and other music people. When I was growing up in Hamilton, Ohio, in the 1960s, I assumed the Counterpart label in Cincinnati was national because its records were played on the area's No. 1 Top 40 station, WSAI. From the mid-'60s through the mid-'70s, Counterpart released singles by rock bands such as the Mark V, the New Lime, Canon, the Grey Imprint, and other groups.

Counterpart owner Shad O'Shea worked the telephones, seeking regional airplay. He sold tens of thousands of singles over the years, usually selling from 1,000 to 5,000 copies of a hot rock single in the mid-'60s. Sometimes he received offers from larger labels--Laurie, Monument, SSI International, Columbia, Capitol, RCA, and others--to release the records nationally.

A 45-rpm Counterpart sleeve from the mid-1970s.

Counterpart Records

Founded by WCPO Radio disc jockey Shad O'Shea in 1963, Counterpart Records released singles aimed at the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana region, focusing primarily on the larger cities of Cincinnati and Columbus in Ohio; Louisville and Lexington in Kentucky; and Indianapolis and rural parts of Indiana.

That year O'Shea also formed Counterpart Music, BMI, which owned the publishing for many of the label's songs. He operated his companies from his home in suburban Cincinnati until 1970, when opened Counterpart Creative Studios at 3744 Applegate Ave. in Cheviot, a small city on the west side of Cincinnati. He moved the publishing company and the record label into the studio's office. From this studio he would record many of his label's singles. He also recorded his own singles. A prolific producer, O'Shea (real name Howard Lovdal) wrote and recorded many novelties under various names, including his own.

By 1975, when O'Shea purchased the national Fraternity Records name from founder Harry Carlson, times had grown tough for local and regional labels. Radio had tightened its playlists. O'Shea continued to use the Counterpart label, but only sporadically. He focused on Fraternity and a new label, the Applegate Recording Society.

When he semi-retired in the mid-2000s, he sold his publishing interests, his label names, and masters to a New York music producer. Today, the Counterpart name is rarely used.

A subsidiary label of Counterpart, 1970s.

Vocalist Wayne Perry takes a break during a

session at Counterpart Creative Studios, the

home of Counterpart Records. When this picture

was taken in the summer of 1973, Perry was there to remake
the New Lime's "The Only Thing To Do."

Beast Records

Strictly a local label in Cincinnati, Beast Records was founded by Randy McNutt in 1973. Its one and only release was "Gonna Have A Good Time"/"Pain" by Little Flint.

This was actually performed by two groups, the newly formed Little Flint ("Pain") and the Chamberly Kids ("Good Time") from Lebanon, Ohio. The Kids recorded another version of "Good Time" but it was not released. A compact disc album now in preparation by a New York label features the Kids' version as well as Little Flint's. The Kids featured highly talented Rick "Bam" Powell, a high school senior who sang and played drums. Both songs featured 17-year-old sideman Terry Hoskins on Hammond B-3 organ and veteran sideman Roger "Jellyroll" Troy on bass. Unfortunately, by 1973 the local radio market was all but excluding local labels from the air, and the Beast label quickly came and went. It was pressed and distributed by Counterpart using A-1 Distribution in Cincinnati.

Candee Records

Owned by popular WLW talk-show host and songwriter Ruth Lyons, Candee Records was named after her daughter. It was both a local and regional pop label in that it was based in Cincinnati, and used for a local audience, but it also served other cities in the region where Lyons' 50-50 Club was shown on television and heard on radio, including Louisville, Lexington, Indianapolis, and Columbus.

According to author Michael Banks, Candee was incorporated on March 4, 1959, as Candee Enterprises. Principals were Ruth Lyons Newman, president and director; her husband, Herman Newman, vice president and director; Candy Newman, director; and Ronald J. Coffey, secretary and director. Coffee, probably Lyons' attorney, was based at 603 Dixie Terminal Building with another attorney, Donald G. Rowlings, who was Miss Lyons' lawyer.

Banks said the corporation was dissolved on April 28, 1965. Miss Lyons, who wrote "Wasn't the Summer Short?" by Johnny Mathis and numerous other locally recorded songs, never registered Candee as a trademark, Banks said.

The company released some 45s and albums, mainly with Christmas music. Pressing and recording was often done at King Records in Cincinnati.

Tip-Toe Records

Cincinnati's Bill Watkins, a rockabilly and country singer since the 1950s, founded the Tip-Toe label in the early 1970s and operated it sporadically until the early 1980s. He named the yellow label after his 16-track recording studio that he operated in the basement of his home in suburan Colerain Township. He lived here with his wife and studio partner, Axie Watkins.

Watkins released his own material on the label as well as that of other artists who recorded at the Tip-Toe Recording Studio. The label was local, although Watkins' singles became known to rockabillly collectors around the world.

Watkins recorded two rockabilly albums in the Tip-Toe studio, one for the Rockhouse label in Holland ain 1988 nd the other for the Gee-Dee label in Germany in the early 1990s. Several singles were released from sessions at Tip Toe, including "Red Cadillac" and "Cowboy" on Randy McNutt's General Store Records. By the early 1980s, however, all activity had ceased on Tip Toe Records.

More regional and local labels will be covered in later blogs.

Uncle Josh and the Record Labels

2011-10-29T11:29:00.010-04:00

Uncle Josh and the Record Labels

By Randy McNutt

In country music, only a few performers are prehistoric—contributors to what hillbilly music became in the 1920s. One of them is Calvin Edward Stewart, known Cal Stewart, who began recording comedic monologues in the 1890s and continued until his death in 1919. As the creator of the Uncle Josh Weathersby series of recordings (Josh was the Down East farmer whose foibles entertained millions of people on the infant talking machine), Stewart stands out as an actor, author, comedian, songwriter, and rustic poet. Recently, iUniverse reissued my 1981 book Cal Stewart, Your Uncle Josh in both softbound and e-book formats. A subtitle, America's King of Rural Comedy, is now added to this rewritten and expanded second edition. The book is available from Amazon.com and other Internet sites as well as from www.iUniverse.com. The book costs $20.95; $9.99 in electronic form. In addition to 19 chapters, the 277-page book features 42 rare photographs and illustrations, a guide to Stewart’s Punkin Center characters, a Stewart career timeline, a discography, and a “Cylopedium” of terms used by Stewart’s characters during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

From the Introduction to

Cal Stewart, Your Uncle Josh: America's King of Rural Comedy

As a winter storm pummeled the city of Hamilton, Ohio, I was below ground, exploring the artifacts of my elderly uncle’s life. The unfinished basement in his 1920s bungalow was his personal museum, a dim place crammed with everything from antique fishing reels to corroded weathervanes. They were piled all over the room. All his life he had hoarded assorted junk and hand-me-downs, and they all ended up there in his basement. As a child, the place fascinated me with its strange things and creaky sounds. My mind can still see them—an old orange soda pop thermometer, a set of yellowed cow’s teeth, a dozen black iron tobacco cutters, rusty horseshoes, a train-station clock, and a big hornets’ nest—long since abandoned, thankfully.

Rummaging in a corner on that stormy February night long ago, I discovered an upright Brunswick crank phonograph, a fancily carved oak model that had been painted flat red. (In the 1920s, it must have been a flapper’s dream machine.) Next to it stood a pillar of dusty 78-rpm records. I glanced at one of the more oddly named selections; it was credited to someone named Cal Stewart, who performed as Uncle Josh. To a slightly bored twenty-something newspaper reporter, Vernon Hornung’s assorted collectibles looked like relics from another century—old, useless things, suitable for tomorrow’s trash. At first, I included the Uncle Josh records in this category. As I studied the paper label on one of the heavy discs, however, I became intrigued by the performer's stage name.

“Who’s Uncle Josh?” I asked.

My uncle smiled. “He was a big name in his day. When I was young, my brother and I used to entertain ourselves for hours by listening to his records.”

I pointed to the phonograph. “Does that thing still work?”

He examined the brittle platter, slapped it onto the red felt-covered turntable, and turned the metal crank. When the steel needle touched the record, a man’s tinny voice rose above the scratching to greet me with laughter. The title, “Uncle Josh and the Honey Bees” (identified only as a “talking record”), compelled me to continue listening—once, twice, three times. Stewart recorded it for Victor and other labels. He recorded for many pioneer record companies during his long career. This record was unlike any that I had ever heard. It was both American history and entertainment. It seemed that Stewart was talking to me personally about his fictional little town, Punkin Center, a place with stories, characters, issues, laughter, and sadness. His music—a forerunner of country—brightened some of his talking records. While my own uncle regaled me with personal tales of listening to Uncle Josh records as a boy in an equally obscure small town named Dunlap, Ohio (fifteen miles west of Cincinnati), I sat down on the cold floor and paid close attention to the entertainment. I wanted more of this Uncle Josh. Later, I searched local flea markets and found a few of his records. Then I graduated to collector auctions. Seeking more Cal Stewart, I visited libraries and Josh-related sites in Boston; Swanzey, New Hampshire; Indianapolis; Cincinnati; Tipton, Indiana; and even two rural Indiana communities named Punkin Center.

For a time, I actually felt that I was on Josh’s trail—cold as it had become by then. Some small-town business districts were left so unchanged that I imagined them ready to accommodate Stewart’s acting troupe from Indiana. I walked along old brick streets and saw some now-closed theaters—former stops on a loose network known as the Kerosene Circuit. The theaters provided paychecks for traveling actors and diversions for hard-working townspeople in the days before radio and television.

Regardless of where I traveled, I learned this simple truth: Finding fragments of Cal Stewart’s life and career and putting them together is like working on a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. It will never be complete; questions will always confound us. Stewart preferred to discuss his fictional characters rather than himself. We practically know as much about them as we do their creator, who continues to live in dust-filled grooves of shellac records and wax cylinders. As I began to accumulate more information, I decided to write his story as an appreciation. If nothing more, I wanted to organize the facts that remain about the actor who entertained millions of people at the turn of the twentieth century. Slowly, my notes filled several file folders. I learned, for instance, that Stewart has been elected to the national Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York. Unfortunately, on the day I viewed his space on the group’s Web site, a large blank space existed under Stewart’s biography section. But that’s not surprising, for people tend to remember Stewart—if they bother to remember him at all—for some undetermined achievement. The truth is, he was a pioneer performer-songwriter, a forerunner of our modern ones. His personal life—so colorful, he claimed—is filled with discrepancies. Did he really leave home at age twelve? Did he make up half the things he said about himself? Was he really an express messenger on a stagecoach out West? Did he operate a locomotive? Did he work with the famous actor Denman Thompson? Was he a friend of Mark Twain? Even by using public documents and personal accounts, it's difficult to verify his claims. It is also difficult to uncover much personal information, including where Stewart lived at any one time. Too much time has elapsed, and Stewart hesitated to talk about himself except in the most superficial ways. He seemed to purposely hide clues from future researchers. Even his wife, close friends, and acting associates claimed they were not fully informed about his past. A business and music partner, Frederick Hager of Northport, New York, said of Stewart in a letter to writer Jim Walsh: “Mark Twain was an old friend and, in later life, Will Rogers.” I can’t verify it, and Hager can't elaborate. Twain had already become a famous literary figure by the time Stewart went to work for the railroad companies. Who knows? Perhaps they met on the lyceum circuit in the early 1870s, or maybe they didn’t meet until Stewart became a nationally known recording star twenty years later. Whatever the case, Stewart kept quiet about himself, which makes this book as much about the development of the Uncle Josh character in American life.

Still searching for Uncle Josh, I drove along rural Indiana’s back roads that reminded me of Hoosier highways of the early 1900s. In the southern hills, I imagined Stewart’s acting company chugging along on a train to some small-town theater before arriving at the prized destination—the Empire Theater in Indianapolis. Surprisingly, I still found evidence of his career—publicity photographs, concert handbills, books, and records tucked away in Indiana’s antiquarian bookstores, antiques shops, and libraries. Except for his earliest and most rare recordings (one recently sold for eighty-five dollars), however, most Uncle Josh recordings aren’t worth more than ten dollars because the record companies pressed them in large numbers. But they are culturally valuable, and interest in them continues to grow.

Driving farther on back roads, I stopped in Tipton, the hometown of Stewart’s wife, Rossini, and her family. The Stewarts also lived there, although they weren’t at home too often. At the Sisters of St. Joseph on the outskirts of Tipton, retired Mother Superior Gerard Maher once told me that she remembered when Hazel “Rossini” Stewart returned to Tipton after Cal’s death in 1919. Mrs. Stewart accepted a job teaching music at the Catholic academy. The transition from performing to teaching music to girls in her hometown must have been jarring, but no doubt Mrs. Stewart needed to stay in one place and reflect on her life and future for a time. One thing is certain: Indiana influenced Stewart’s writing. Early in his career, Stewart fashioned the Uncle Josh character into strictly a New England farmer, and promoted the act that way. As the years passed, however, and he met and married the Indiana woman and brought her into his company of performers. That's when Uncle Josh became more generic—small-town Midwesterner meets New England farmer. Punkin Center turned into an odd amalgam of both regions, but most of all it represented rural America.

When I met Mother Gerard she was in her nineties, but her memory was still clear. She was one of the few people in Tipton who knew Stewart and his troupe. To her, one half of a century had passed in the blink of an eye until the whole town seemed a sepia picture. Before the academy was demolished in 1977, Mother Gerard’s friends had mistakenly thrown away her Uncle Josh wax cylinder recordings. The younger women had no idea what the cylinders were, what they represented, and what they meant to the elderly nun. By the time I found her, she kept all that remained of her early days in a small wooden box: Stewart’s hardbound book Punkin Centre Stories, a collection of poems and monologues from 1903; a brittle newspaper clipping telling of his funeral in Tipton; and a playbill. She presented the book to me as a gift, and I reprinted it to share Uncle Josh’s writings with the world.

Twenty-five years later, I returned to Tipton. At the Tipton County Public Library, a modern building near the courthouse downtown, a young man escorted me to the local history room and pulled out the only file he had on Stewart. It contained ten newspaper and magazine stories from recent years. As I sifted through them, I found an unexpected prize: an original publicity photograph of Stewart in character. My heart raced. The picture was about five by eight inches, with a sepia tone, and it was cut unevenly on all sides. Dressed as Uncle Josh, Stewart stood on a set in front of a wooden railing, wearing his straw hat (with a chunk bitten out in front), white shirt, and speckled vest. His wire-rim glasses were pushed up on his wide and furrowed forehead. I believe the picture was taken late in his career, between 1915 and 1919. As I studied the heavy wrinkles under his eyes, I saw how much Stewart had aged in the last ten years of his life. I wondered if Cal himself had ever held this same picture, and what he might have thought of it. Then I turned it over and I saw these handwritten words, “Cal Stewart—Donated to the library by the Sisters of St. Joseph.” At that moment I understood that the photograph probably had belonged to Stewart’s wife, a good friend of the sisters. Holding his photograph on that gray day reinvigorated my search for Uncle Josh.

A hour later, as I stood at the broken cross that marks his grave in Tipton’s Fairview Cemetery, I asked myself: Why is Stewart nearly forgotten? Moments later, the wind blew a brown leaf across the frozen grass, pressing it firmly against the base of his tombstone. Then I realized that change is reality. Popularity is fleeting. Although each generation has its own faded stars, Cal Stewart is one worth remembering for all time.

Hits from Muscle Shoals Sound Studios

2011-10-15T13:02:00.004-04:00

Selected Hits from

Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

3614 Jackson Highway

Sheffield, Alabama

During the used-appliance years, the 1990s.

Selected Hit Singles

“Take a Letter, Maria,” R.B. Greaves, 1969

“Oh Me Oh My (I’m a Fool for You Baby),” 1969

“Always Something There to Remind Me,” R.B Greaves, 1970

“Brown Sugar,” Rolling Stones, 1971

“Wild Horses,” Rolling Stones, 1971

“It Hurts So Good,” Katie Love, 1971

“Heavy Makes You Happy,” the Staple Singers, 1971

“Don’t Knock My Love,” Wilson Pickett, 1971

“A Very Lovely Lady,” Linda Ronstadt, 1971

“Dinah Flo,” Boz Scaggs, 1972

“Tightrope,” Leon Russell, 1972

“Starting All Over Again,” Mel and Tim, 1972

“If Loving You Is Right (I Don’t Want to be Wrong),” Luther Ingram, 1972

“Kodachrome,” Paul Simon, 1973

“Loves Me Like a Rock,” Paul Simon, 1973

“I Believe In You (You Believe in Me),” Johnny Taylor, 1973

“Lookin’ for a Love,” Bobby Womack, 1973

“Still Crazy After All These Years,” Paul Simon, 1974

“I’ll Be Your Everything,” Percy Sledge, 1974

“Beautiful Loser,” Bob Seger, 1974

“My Little Town,” Simon and Garfunkel, 1975

“Left Overs,” Millie Jackson, 1975

“Touch Me Baby,” Tamiko Jones, 1975

“Night Moves,” Bob Seger, 1976

“Main Street,” Bob Seger, 1977

The Story

The original Muscle Shoals Sound Studio (1969-1978) and its successor (1978-1990s) turned out hundreds of nationally charted singles. They included the records listed above, which also share something else in common: they aren’t generally recognized as being a product of the Alabama studios. (Note: In a few cases, additional overdubbing and/or mixing could have been done in other studios.)

Forgotten Facts

Founded by independent musicians bassist David Hood, guitarist Jimmy Johnson, pianist Barry Beckett, and drummer Roger Hawkins. The band nicknamed itself the Swampers, but it was better known as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section because it had played on hits at Fame Recording and other studios in northern Alabama.

Studio Quirks

1. When the musician-owners bought the old Fred Bevis Studio in the late 1960s, they mortgaged their homes to pay for it. The roof leaked. They didn’t have enough money to repair it, so they tucked tampons in the ceiling. They worked.

2. The restroom walls are covered with autographs of stars.

3. By the 1990s, the studio was used as a used appliance store.

4. The studio was rare in that its owners were big-name musicians who worked in their own place as well as in other studios.

5. The studio was actually in neighboring Sheffield, not Muscle Shoals. Formerly, the building had been used as a small venetian blind factory.

Selected Hit Singles from

Muscle Shoals Sound Studios

1000 Alabama Avenue

Sheffield, Alabama

Singles:

“Sharing the Night Together,” Dr. Hook, 1978
“We’ve Got Tonight,” Bob Seger, 1979
"Old-Time Rock ’n’ Roll,” Bog Seger, 1979
“When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman,” Dr. Hook, 1979
“Gotta Serve Somebody,” Bob Dylan, 1979
“Giving It Up for Your Love,” Delbert McClinton, 1980
“Ozark Mountain Jubilee,” the Oak Ridge Boys, 1983
“I Guess It Never Hurts,” the Oak Ridge Boys, 1983
“Sexy Girl,” Glenn Frey, 1983
“Valotte,” Julian Lennon, 1984
“Too Late for Gooodbyes,” Julian Lennon, 1984
“I Will Never Be the Same,” Melissa Etheridge, 1993
“Shaky Ground,” Melissa Etheridge, 1993

Albums:

Plain From the Heart, Delbert McClinton, 1981

Billy Vera, Billy Vera, 1982

Comin’ Home, Bob Seger, 1982

No Fun Aloud, Glenn Frey, 1983

Deliver, the Oak Ridge Boys, 1983

The Allnighter, Glenn Frey, 1984

Havanna Moon, Carlos Santana, 1984

Studio Quirk

1. The building, along the Tennessee River, was once a navy reserve center. It offered 31,000 square feet.

FYI

For additional information on the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, see Randy McNutt’s Guitar Towns: A Journey to the Crossroads of Rock ’n’ Roll and Too Hot to Handle: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of America Recording Studios of the Twentieth Century. Both books are available through Amazon.com.

Bassist David Hood stands in front of the second MSSS

in the late 1990s.

Gennett Records and Mo' Blues

2011-09-10T20:03:00.001-04:00

Mo' Blues at Gennett Records

By Randy McNutt

In Richmond, Indiana, on Saturday (September 10, 2011), local Gennett Records and Starr Piano enthusiasts kicked off their Mo' Blues concert and tours in Whitewater Gorge, the area that housed the independent label's factory complex in the 1920s and 1930s.

Under warm and sunny skies through mid-afternoon, the Starr-Gennett Foundation Inc. organizers welcomed people from across the region and several states.

Martin Fisher came from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, where he is is manager of Recorded Media Collections. "I will go wherever people are interested in hearing acoustic recordings, if the drive is within a reasonable distance," he told me. Fisher brought several acoustic talking machines, including a large one that he used to play back cylinders that he recorded with guests of the Mo' Blues concert and tours. He said he buys blank cylinders from a man in England, who manufactures them at his home. Fisher said another man, an American, also produces blanks, which also can be used to record on home machines.

The program was held at the Gennett-Starr factory area in the Whitewater Gorge Park in Richmond. Parts of the original buildings still stand. Concerts were held inside one of them. On a sidewalk leading along where the factory once stood is an attractive Walk of Fame, featuring a number of prominent artists who recorded for Gennett Records or its spinoff labels.

Fisher operated in a booth near where the Gennett Recording Studio once stood. "There's so much history left here," he said of the park.

Gennett Records is known for its disc recordings. At the historic site, a concrete floor is all that stands of the firm's record-pressing unit.

For Gennett's many recordings made before and during the Depression, Richmond calls itself "the cradle of recorded jazz." The Starr-Gennett Redevelopment Plan began earlier this year, using a federal grant. One of the Foundation's goals is to build an interpretative center, including a replica of the Gennett Records sound studio.

To donate or seek additional information, contact the Starr-Gennett Foundation at 33 South 7th Street, Richmond, IN 47374-5462, or see the group's website at www.starrgennett.org.

Photos by Randy McNutt

Singers and musicians who recorded for Gennett:

Louis Armstrong, Gene Autry, Sidney Bechet, Bix Beiderbecke,

Big Bill Broonzy, Hoagy Carmichael, Vernon Dalhart, Georgia

Tom Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Wendell Hall, Coleman Hawkins,

Blind Lemon Jefferson, Uncle Dave Mason, Guy Lombardo,

Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, and many others.

Jim LaBarbara and 1960s Radio

2011-09-10T09:54:00.007-04:00

Jim LaBarbara on the air in Cincinnati, 1980s.

Jim LaBarbara: A Life Amplified

Through Radio and Rock 'n' Roll

By Randy McNutt

When the golden age of the 45-rpm single is re-examined, future historians will undoubtedly give proper credit to local disc jockeys who made and played the hits. One of them is Jim LaBarbara, late of Erie, Cleveland, Denver, Cincinnati, and other cities. Not only did he play the hits, but he interviewed and knew many of the singers and musicians who recorded them. He also has the distinction of being a major air personality in two great Ohio music towns.

One of the most knowledgeable air personalities in radio recalls his long career in Jim Labarbara, The Music Professor: A Life Amplified Through Radio and Rock 'n' Roll. It's not just another DJ book, nor is it a superficial one. It is a personal and career memoir, a rock history, and a tribute to the radio industry that employed him for fifty years. And it's also a lot of fun to read. Its many photographs give a sense of being there.

The radio industry that he discusses is mostly gone today. When he started in it in the late 1950s, the business was still wacky and wide open to people with big ideas. In the 1970s, I used to listen to LaBarbara--the Music Professor--on WLW Radio in Cincinnati, when he played the hits and then interviewed their artists. (I find it hard to believe that the same station today is mostly talk radio, but then that has happened all over the country.) If I missed his show, I thought I possibly missed something special. More recently, he played oldies on the popular WGRR in Cincinnati. Lately he has turned to chronicling his career, and with this book he proves that he can write with flair. He weaves his own story--a college kid wants to get into radio in the late 1950s--with the concurrent stories of singers who were making hit records in the early days of rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll. Over the years, he interviewed hundreds of them, including Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Berry, Neil Diamond, John Denver, the Supremes, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles. And yes, the book offfers anecdotes about dozens of them. Those anecdotes, including the ones he tells about himself, make the book interesting.

He worked in a time when radio was still exciting and creative. His radio career began at small stations in Pennsylvania, his home state. "I drove my new . . . light-blue 1959 Jaguar XK150 with red leather . . . 150 miles to Erie on a few hours sleep," he writes in a chapter titled "J. Bentley Starr," his on-air name then. "The receptionist laughed when she saw me. She still had all the postcards I sent. I was so tired, but I wanted to go on from seven to midnight. I felt terrific; my adrenalin was pumping, and about eleven o'clock that tnight, I got an idea. I was going to hijack the station. WWGO had the transmitter controls in the same area as my on-air studio. I had control of the station. They couldn't take me off. When the all-night man came in, I locked him out after putting the news microphone in the hall. He was a college student and didn't care; he studied. I put a huge desk in front of the door and stacked cabinets on top and barricaded myself in the studio. I was replacing a guy who left to go across the street to 'Jet,' the number-one station. It was shameless self-promotion: 'Hey everybody, look at me! Here I am.' It worked. The next morning by 9 a.m., the whole city knew I was in town, but my boss wasn't happy because I missed playing some commercials. [While on the air] he fired me a couple of times, but I had to tell him to watch his language because I had the news microphone in the hall turned on. A local high school team came to break the door down. During most of that time, I played one record--"C'mon and Swim" by Bobby Freeman--and introduced it differently every time . . . It drove me crazy; I can just imagine what listeners thought." When the marathon ended thirty-some hours later, his boss agreed to keep him. When LaBarbara finally went to his car to go home, however, he found a lot of parking tickets waiting.

Eventually, he became the station's music director as well as a DJ. He stayed in Erie into the British Invasion, when he played both a British and American countdown show every night. When the Beatles visited Pittsburgh in 1964, he asked them before the show, "The 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah' in the song 'She Loves You,' was that inspired by your Liverpool friends Gerry and the Pacemakers' song 'I Like It'? Where did you get it? They all stood up [from the interview table] and mocked me, singing, 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.' Everybody got a good laugh."

He left Erie in 1966 to work for WKYC, a 50,000-watt Top 40 station in Cleveland, and WIXY. He used his real name. That year, WKYC promoted a Rolling Stones concert. The opening act was the McCoys of "Hang On Sloopy" fame. [Now the official state rock song of Ohio.--RM] LaBarbara writes: "The McCoys told me, 'We heard you on the radio last night. We're not from Dayton, Ohio, we're from Union City, Indiana.' They were upset, but that's what their record company told me. Their hit . . . was a giant, and I played it a lot. Yes, it bothered me a little that these high school kids, instead of saying, Thanks for playing our records. By the way, we are not from Dayton, but we were discovered in Dayton by the Strangeloves ("I Want Candy") when we did a concert with them, chose to be abrasive." But that's not all that bothered LaBarbara that night. "A teenage listener of WKYC won a contest," he continues, "and was invited backstage to meet the Rolling Stones in their dressing room. She made a cake and was excited to give this to her favorite band. The Rolling Stones took the cake from this little, bubbly thirteen-year-old, laughed about the cake, and proceded to throw it into a nearby toilet and flush it. She started to cry while they continued to giggle. We all thought they were jerks. I made a comment to one of my fellow jocks that I'd never play another one of their records. Of course that was difficult to do, but I sure didn't go out of my way to play them. They were dispicable in every sense of the word."

He changed his opinion of the Stones, however, when he saw them perform in 1972 in Denver. "They were a lot more professional than six years earlier," he says. "Mick [Jagger] worked the audience like Wayne Newton playing to the blue-haired angels in Las Vegas. I became a Rolling Stones fan . . . ."

LaBarbara was impressed and shocked at times by what he saw on stage and behind it. Once, "I got shocked for the first time on stage . . . I was standing in a little puddle of sweat when I grabbed the microphone to take off [stage] a soaking wet Mitch Ryder. It hurt, but I kept it to myself."

He is reminded of a conversation he had with Jerry Lewis, who visited the radio station when his son Gary had some hits. "What advice did you give Gary?" LaBarbara asks him. "He said, 'Just make sure you can look at yourself the next day in the mirror.' A simple sentence but more complex than you might think."

In the '60s, LaBarbara was excited to work in Cleveland, one of the nation's top radio markets. In 1967, he says, he and Ken Scott tied for second place behind the popular Jerry G. in a Billboard magazine radio response rating for the city. "I was flattered to be in that company," he says. Cleveland was one of America's top radio markets.

Another LaBarbara story comes from Sonny Bono, just after he and Cher had divorced. The incident reveals the way the entertainment business works. To the public, Bono had went from big star on records and television to nobody, he tells LaBarbara, with people asking what he would do now that he didn't have Cher. People saw her as the major part of the act. "I had built this whole thing," he tells Jim. "I had written all the songs--ten million-selling songs. I had written the show I had created; I worked eleven years, devoted to this act. And when everything was shaken down, I came out really holding a fig leaf. You know, I thought, I don't ever want to do that again. So, I want to do things, and at least get recognized for what I do."

Turning to politics, Bono was elected mayor of Palm Springs and later a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He later died in a skiing accident.

Another telling incident came years later, when the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and Museum recognized famous DJ Bill Randle, LaBarbara's good friend and the man who once brought Elvis to Cleveland. "I was asked to sit on the dais," LaBarbara says. "As I sat there on stage, I thought about the irony. The one place I knew he had total disdain for was the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. He told me that seventy-five to eighty percent of all the people [enshrined or noted] in there are accused or convicted felons. He certainly didn't like the politics involved with the selection process."

When the 1960s ended, and campus life erupted in violence, LaBarbara decided to move to Cincinnati, where he did a radio show that allowed him to conduct interviews with recording artists and play records. He became Jim LaBarbara, the Music Professor.

Class is still in session.

Coming soon to Home of the Hits blog: More tales of rock 'n' roll and AM radio days from Jim LaBarbara's new book. He will be making appearances in Cleveland and Cincinnati to promote it.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Jim LaBarbara, the Music Professor:

A Life Amplified Through

Radio and Rock 'n' Roll

Author: Jim LaBarbara

Publisher: Little Miami Publishing, Milford, Ohio.

Price: $28

Pages: 400; hardbound

Photos and illustrations: 50-plus

Publication date: October 1, 2011

Additional information: www.littlemiamibooks.com

and www.jimlabarbara.com

Ghosts of Nashville's Recording Studios, Part 2

2011-08-28T20:11:00.008-04:00

By Randy McNutt

The ghosts of Nashville's recording studios grow in number, but not all ghosts are created equal. Some live on through their hits while others already are forgotten.
     So let's continue our tour around Music City, where we'll explore two famous studios founded by "Cowboy" Jack Clement, the Sun Records legend who in the 1970s became a financially successful Nashville producer. He possibly founded more studios than any other independent of his era.
     His studios spawned new ones, creating some great music and training grounds for talented audio engineers who continue to practice their craft to this day.
     And now, follow me into music history--and into the . . .

Jack Clement Recording Studios, 1969-1980s

Jack Clement, the legendary writer-producer who worked at Sun Records in Memphis in the 1950s, opened his own studio in Nashville in late 1969, at 3102 Belmont Avenue, not far from the happenings of Music Row.
In 1974, Larry Butler and partner Al Mifflin bought the studio, retaining the name. It was during the Butler-Mifflin years that the studio became known as a huge hit-making machine. During the first six months of 1979, for example, about 11 percent of the Top 100 country singles listed in the major trade magazines were recorded at Clement Recording. At the time, about 150 studios were operating in Nashville, so Clement had a significant share of the business. Also that year, nine singles recorded there during the first 10 months hit No. 1.
Many of the studio's hits were made by various producers and companies, but Butler, a long-time musician, soon became one of Nashville's hottest producers of the period.

(Meanwhile, the Cowboy continued to be busy. He opened five studios, although some of them were privately operated.)

Back at 3102 Belmont, the big names of the 1970s were walking through the door: Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Don Williams, Andy Williams, Don McLean, the Amazing Rhythm Aces, and Carrie Lucas, who cut a disco hit called "Dance With You." Soon after Butler bought the studio, he brought Rogers in and produced a string of singles that included "The Gambler" and "The Coward of the County." Mac Davis came in to record "It's Hard to be Humble."

Prior to Butler's arrival, hits had been plentiful at Clement. Ray Stevens recorded "Everything Is Beautiful," Gene Watson cut "Paper Rosie," and Donna Fargo did "The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A."

The Clement Studio A measured 35x45 feet, with a 22-foot ceiling; Studio B, 25x45 feet with a 16-foot ceiling. In 1979, the complex featured a a Studer A-80 with 16- and 24-track capability, plus a Studer A-80 and a Studer B-67, both two-track recorders. The mixing console was a Harrison 32-32. If you wanted to record there, you paid $125 per hour for 16-track time and $165 per hour for 24-track time.

Through the 1980s, the studio continued to operate. Eventually, it evolved into Clement's Sound Emporium.
But that's another story.

Jack's Tracks, 1974-, c. 2010

The studio as it appeared in 1999.
Below, Allen Reynolds at the board.
(Randy McNutt)

Jack's Tracks opened in the mid-1970s at 1308 16th Avenue South on Music Row. Originally, the building was a large brick house, built in the 1890s. As the Row expanded over the years, the house became commercial property. Jack Clement, a successful Nashville producer, operated a commercial art and photography studio there until he decided to turn the house into a studio.
The building also housed his JMI Records, which opened in 1971.

Producer-songwriter Allen Reynolds remembers how Jack's Tracks came to be: "I had come up from Memphis to write for Jack," he said, "and a bunch of writers pestered him to open a demo studio."
Clement agreed.

Reynolds liked what he heard. In fact, he loved it. So he became Clement's partner in the studio. In 1976, Reynolds bought Clement's share, and he continued to operate the studio until his retirement in 2010.

     Immediately Reynolds began to turn out hit singles and albums by Don Williams, Kathy Mattea, Crystal Gayle, and Garth Brooks--all produced by Reynolds. In 1978, Ampex Corp.'s magnetic tape division gave its Golden Reel award to Reynolds; his engineer, Garth Fundis; and Gayle, for making We Must Believe in Magic. The project was mastered on Ampex tape.
     The last time I visited Jack's Tracks (it was always known by that name), I found no sign to identify the studio. When I knocked on the door, Reynolds answered and invited me in for a tour. The Memphis native showed me the recording console and we sat down and discussed the changing record business, songwriting, and producing. He said he learned his way around the studio by watching Clement, who learned his way by turning out hits for Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis in the late 1950s. Reynolds said Phillips was also his early engineering hero. "When he [Phillips] stopped at Jack's Tracks years ago, he said he liked it better than Jack's other studios," Reynolds told me that day. "The place has a certain homey feel to it that I've grown to appreciate. I was going to sell it once, but then I decided to hang onto it. It's not open to the public anymore. It's my private workshop."
     In his place he recorded Gayle's hit "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue," "Ready For the Times to Get Better," and "Talking In Your Sleep." Brooks cut his hit "The Dance" there.
     In a front room, a bag of golf clubs sat in one corner. Recording awards and photos hung on the walls. The heavy wooden front door remained locked. Access to the control room was through the former parlor, where recording artists relaxed while listening to playbacks. "We didn't plan it that way. It just happened," Reynold said.
     The control room was on the small side--about twelve feet long. It led into the studio, which was also rather small by modern standards. Dark commercial carpeting covered the floor; brown soundproofing material covered the walls. Wooden folding chairs sat around for musicians. Special booths were used for drums and vocals. In this unassuming place, Reynolds created Garth Brooks' projects, including the album that sold 10 million copies. In the 1980s, Reynolds used a 24-track Sony recorder and a Quad Eight (installed in 1980) console to replace an older Quad Eight. Although the studio went digital in its final decade or so, Reynolds still enjoyed hearing sounds made on tape. "I feel it brings a warmth and richness to recording," he told me. "The board I use is old, but it's sweet."
     So was Jack's Tracks.

These studios and many others are featured in Randy McNutt's Too Hot to Handle: An Illustrated History of American Recording Studios of hte Twentieth Century, available through Amazon.com.

Ghosts of Nashville's Recording Studios, Part 1

2011-08-07T19:44:00.029-04:00

By Randy McNutt

If you’re searching for record business ghosts, Nashville is a good place to roam. Buildings that once bustled with recording studios, record company offices, and publishing companies are around nearly every corner. All you need to get started is an address and some background.

On my “ghost” tours, everything is game. I am looking for hits and history. Old studios fascinate me most, however, and there have been plenty of them in Nashville since the 1950s. Over the last several decades a number of the more high-profile studios have closed, despite their notoriety, success, and popularity at the time of their closing. When I think of them, I can’t help but feel a sense of loss, for many of the older studios were great places to record. (Their hits speak for themselves. They are from the tape era's golden days.)

Here are a few of the more interesting ghosts that I discovered in Nashville town:

Woodland Sound, 1968-2001

In 1968 audio engineer Glenn Snoddy opened Woodland Sound Studios at 1011 Woodland Street, which was not on Music Row. But that didn’t matter. Music Row people came to Woodland because its sound was so good. By 1971 Snoddy was using tape recorders with one, two, four, eight, and 16 tracks; a few years later he upgraded with two 24-track Studer recorders. By 2000 new owner Robert Solomon added to the complex two recording studios (with Neve consoles) and a mastering room. By then, he was still attracting big-name clients. I recall what the place was like long ago. I mixed a single there in 1975, and the echo sounded terrific. Immediately Woodland became one of my favorite studios. I recall seeing it again in 1998, two months after a vicious tornado had ripped through downtown Nashville. The building’s exterior had sustained some damage, but inside business went on as usual. Unfortunately, Solomon closed Woodland in 2001, after some issues with the building’s owner, but the studio’s legacy remains in its hits. A few of them include “Honey” by Bobby Goldboro; “Knock Three Times,” Billy “Crash” Craddock; “Tennessee Birdwalk,” Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan; and A-1-A, the Jimmy Buffett album that featured “A Pirate Looks At Forty.”

Woodland Sound was a winner. I won’t forget it.

1998: Woodland after the tornado.
Note damage to the facade.

Fred Foster Sound, 1964-1969

Fred Foster Sound Studios, 315 Seventh Avenue North, operated from 1964 to 1969, when the building was torn down to make way for an insurance office. At the time, Foster was the owner of Monument Records, the independent label that operated out of Nashville. Foster Sound was based on the top floor of the Cumberland Building, more commonly known as the Masonic Lodge. Foster’s place is sometimes confused with his other studio, Monument Recording, which operated in the Music Row area in the 1970s, after Foster Sound had closed. Fred Foster acquired his first studio from entrepreneur Sam Phillips, who had bought it in 1961 from Billy Sherill and Bill Cooner. Sherill stayed on as engineer and Phillips renamed the place the Sam Phillips Recording Service of Nashville. (This is the same Sherill who would become a producer at Columbia Nashville.) Three years later, Phillips sold it because he couldn’t devote enough attention to it while operating Sun Records and his other business holdings. Foster knew the studio would be a good acquisition. "It was one of the best studios in town,” he once told me. “It was flexible for doing custom work as well as our [Monument’s] own.” He hired Bill Porter as engineer and later Mort Thomason and young apprentice Brent Maher. The studio’s three-track Ampex recorder was top-of-the-line for the early 1960s. The many hits cut at Foster Sound/Phillips studio included “Single Girl” by Sandy Posey; “Right Or Wrong” and “One Kiss For Old Time’s Sake,” Ronnie Dove; “What’d I Say,” Jerry Lee Lewis; “Mohair Sam,” Charlie Rich; “Hey, Paula,” Paul and Paula; “Down At Papa Joe’s,” the Dixie Belles; “GTO,” Ronnie and the Daytonas; and “Yakety Sax,” Boots Randolph.

Too bad that I couldn’t see the building, for Fred Foster Sound was a magical recording studio—a place where great sounds and long-lasting music flourished.

Young ’Un Sound, 1969-1988

Session guitarist Chip Young founded Young ’Un Sound Studio in the late 1960s as his personal studio in Mufreesboro, Tenn., and later, as business increased, as a second, conventional studio at 114 17th Avenue South in Nashville. Nowadays, Young ’Un is remembered mainly for the home studio, which Young operated in a small log cabin on his farm, about 30 miles east of Nashville. Starting with a new 16-track Ampex recorder, one of Nashville’s earliest, Young recorded many clients—Delbert McClinton and Kris Kristofferson were among the cabin’s visitors—who sought the studio’s clean sound as well as Young’s reputation as a fine musician. The cabin studio was small—about 15 by 20 feet, including the control room. The walls and ceiling were made of logs, and the wood floor was covered with carpet. To ease space constraints, Young added a screened porch on which he could place the string players. He once told writer Richard Buskin that crickets can be heard on Buffett’s Havanna Daydreamin’ because they were chirping so loudly when the album’s strings were recorded. Young’s chief engineer was Glenn Rievf, but Young engineered many of the sessions himself. One of them was Billy Swan’s “I Can Help,” a bluesy pop hit from 1974. Young co-produced it with Swan at the cabin studio, using Young’s custom-built tube console. Despite the hits and the interest in his studio, Young didn’t get rich from owning it. It took too much of his time and money, so he closed his business in 1988. The building on Music Row later became Masterlink Studios.

Sadly, the sounds of Young ’Un are no more.

These studios and many others are featured in

Too Hot to Handle: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Recording Studios of the 20th Century, available through Amazon.com for $25.

Woodland rate card, 1978

Who Knows Beau Dollar

2011-07-22T18:31:00.007-04:00

By Randy McNutt

When a friend mentioned Beau Dollar the other day, I started thinking of Cincinnati's blue-eyed soul days. Beau, whose real name was William Hargis Bowman Jr., hailed from my hometown, Hamilton, Ohio, but I didn't know him. By the time I had turned eighteen and could enter area nightclubs to see him perform, the vocalist and drummer was already a veteran of the then-active local music and recording scene.

These days, however, Beau is but another nearly forgotten performer whose name is kept alive by some dedicated music enthusiasts across the world. He was a product of America's old regional music machine in the days when many cities like Cincinnati had their own music business infrastructures that could launch regional and national hits. The towns also had their own session players.

Beau, who once kept the beat for soul and later early funk, died in Florida at age 69 on February 21, 2011. His wake, held at a Hamilton funeral home, was attended mostly by local musicians of a certain age--the ones who had played with Beau or knew him. I saw Wayne Bullock, the bass player for Lonnie Mack in the early 1960s and later the B-3 organist for the popular white soul group the Young Breed. Also attending were guitarist Carl Edmondson, producer of Lonnie Mack's "Memphis"; Bob Armstrong, organist for the Casinos; Bill Jones, bassist and founder of the Young Breed; and Chuck Sullivan, who played guitar with Beau in the Coins. "Beau," said Jones, "was one of the top drummers around Cincinnati in those days. His groups were always tight and talented."

To me, Beau Dollar meant Hamilton's musical melting pot. The city of 60,000 people in Butler County represented a blending of various musical genres and styles, including country, rhythm and blues, and rock 'n' roll. Growing up, Beau absorbed the various musical styles and molded them into his own brand of R&B. He was of the same generation as other area bluesy musicians, including Troy Seals, the guitarist who later went to Nashville and became an important hit songwriter, and Denzil "Dumpy" Rice, the pianist who once played with Mack and with Seals wrote Elvis's "There's A Honky Tonk Angel (Who'll Take Me Back In)." These boys of Appalachian decent knew their country, but they could also turn on some lean, mean R&B.

Beau was the really funky one. I remember hearing Beau Dollar and the Coins at a forgotten club in Middletown, about twelve miles north of Hamilton. Back then he had curly brown hair--sort of a white man's afro--and sang some terrific blue-eyed soul. He came up with his name as a play on Bo for Bowman; he paired it with dollar because of the natural connection: a beau dollar, an old Southern term for silver dollar. By the mid-1960s, Beau Dollar and the Coins had become one of the area's more popular white soul bands, with a devoted following that enjoyed dancing. Beau sometimes wore a fancy vest befitting his name--a beau, or a dandy. He seemed poised for the local radio charts.

In 1966, Beau Dollar and the Coins recorded for Fraternity Records, a Cincinnati-based independent that had made hits for 1950s acts such as Bobby Bare, Cathy Carr, and Jimmy Dorsey. In 1963, Fraternity released Mack's two big instrumental blue-eyed soul hits, "Memphis" and "Wham!" Company president Harry Carlson released Beau and the Coins' version of "Soul Serenade" for at least a couple of reasons--Mack had produced it and it was another catchy R&B instrumental from a city known for making them. The song, which had first hit with King Curtis in 1964, was cut in the King Recording Studio in Cincinnati, where so many other R&B hits emerged from the late 1940s through the 1960s. (This was Bill Doggett and Freddy King territory.) The intended B-side, "Any Day Now," was an often-cut Burt Bacharach pop song once done by Chuck Jackson.

"Soul Serenade" received some airplay locally and regionally, and soon Carlson had an offer to lease the master to a label named Prime. (Today's record collectors will most often find the record on Prime.) Although it wasn't a national hit, Beau's "Soul Serenade" became a minor cult record and sort of a spinning musical monument to the blue-eyed soul that was so popular in Cincinnati from the early 1960s until disco took hold about 1975.

In those days, you could find white soul bands, many of them with good horn sections, in clubs throughout southwest Ohio--places called the Half-Way Inn (halfway between Hamilton and Middletown), the Tiki Club in Hamilton County, and the Hawaiian Gardens in Cincinnati. Musicians used to laugh and recall how the people would chant, "Play 'Soul Serenade'! Play 'Soul Serenade'!"

At Beau's wake, Sullivan stood around talking to his musician friends about the "Serenade" days, when he played guitar for the Coins. He said he played lead on that session, but he seldom receives credit for it. "People think Lonnie Mack did it because Lonnie produced the session. But I played lead on that record. I did use Lonnie's amp, though." Based on his work on that record, he said he received an invitation to go to New York to play guitar for King Curtis. But he decided against making the move.

When the Coins' broke up, Beau recorded for King Records as a solo act. He also performed at times with the legendary Dapps (that's a story for later). He sang and played drums. He also helped influence a growing funk movement by playing on other performers' recording sessions at King, and by playing in the local clubs. James Brown hired him regularly, and soon Beau was being produced by Brown's production company, which was based out of the King Records factory in the old Evanston neighborhood. Perhaps his most-remembered King single is "Who Knows," written by Brown; his chief assistant, Bud Hobgood; and Beau. It's B-side was "(I Wanna Go) Where the Soul Trees Grow."

Unfortunately, the talented drummer's recording career didn't develop, and soon King was sold and the company's Cincinnati factory and studio were closed. Brown's contract was sold to Polydor Records in New York. With the local recording scene being dismantled, Beau went to Nashville, where he tried some session work. He took a job in song publishing, working with his old Hamilton musician friend Seals, but in time all that faded and Beau ended up in Florida. There he was known to everyone as Bill. As time passed, only a few old friends remembered him as Beau. "I used to invite him to our musician reunions every year," Wayne Bullock told me at the wake, "but he didn't come. He just didn't want to talk about the old days."

Sadly, that leaves only the 45th anniversary of his Fraternity record and some fast-fading memories of Beau Dollar.

So play some of that "Soul Serenade"!

Remembering Gennett Records

2011-06-29T19:42:00.028-04:00

Recreated Gennett Studio interior at the county

museum in Richmond, Indiana. (Randy McNutt)

"The studio was a dreary looking Rube Goldberg place with lily-shaped [recording] horns sticking oddly from the walls. It didn't have the effect of soothing me."

--Hoagy Carmichael, composer of "Stardust"

By Randy McNutt

A few weeks ago I was driving through Richmond, Indiana, on my way north to Fort Wayne, when I looked down from a bridge and saw some old brick factories. I realized that this must be the location of the seminal Gennett Records, the roots-music label that operated in Richmond in the 1920s and early 1930s. I made a mental note to return soon to see what was down there, for Gennett is to me one of the early roots labels of any fame. When you consider what Gennett did back in the 1920s, you come to know how and why Syd Nathan did what he did with King Records twenty years later in Cincinnati.

In the mid-1990s, Rick Kennedy wrote a book about Gennett called Jellyroll, Bix, and Hoagy: Gennett Studios and the Birth of American Jazz. In 1999, we included an updated chapter on Gennett Records and its famed studio in our book Little Labels--Big Sound: Small Record Companies and the Rise of American Music. Since then, Rick has been working with with historians in Richmond to help discover more missing history about the Hoosier city's record company. He believes Gennett's old-time country music is more popular with people today than the company's groundbreaking jazz recordings, which featured such greats as Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke.

Gennett was a fascinating company to explore, especially because it was only thirty miles from my home. One thing I like about writing is a chance to uncover forgotten people and places, and this is what Rick did with Gennett. You should read his story about Ezra C.A. Wickemeyer, the studio engineer and company recording director who is about as forgotten as anybody in the record business. Nevertheless, Rick put together a fascinating story about the life and career of this early engineer, tracing Wickemeyer to Cincinnati in his later years. (Please see Rick's story on the Starr Gennett Foundation's web site, at www.starrgennett.org/stories/articles/iWickemeyer.article).

Whenever I walk the streets of Richmond, I try to imagine April 1923, when King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, a hot group on Chicago's black nightclub circuit, arrived in town after a five-hour train ride from the Windy City. Their destination: the Starr Piano factory, operated by Henry Gennett and his three sons. In a wooden building next to the factory's rail line the Gennetts recorded some of the greats of jazz and old-time country music. The performers sang and played into a recording horn, something like a megaphone in the days of acoustic recording. (This was prior to the introduction of the electric microphone in the mid-1920s.) Commenting on that spring 1923 session, drummer Baby Dodds once said, "It was something none of us had experienced and we were all very nervous. We were all working hard and perspiration as big as a thumb dropped off us."

The studio is my main interest. That's where the recording engineer, working in what has been described as a "hot, non-ventilated place," cut twenty-eight takes for the Creole Jazz Band. Considering how hot and humid the weather can be in our area, I can't imagine how any musicians ever worked under such conditions. Yet Gennett Records turned out session after session, record after record, even when its chief A&R man, Fred Gennett, cared little about the music. He cared more about the latest fad.

In 1915, the Gennett family expanded its Starr piano business by launching a record label under the same name. The label floundered, however, due to its vertical-cut discs (like Edison's thick Diamond Discs) and many independent dealers' reluctance to carry the Starr label name. Dealers didn't want to do business with a piano company. As a result, a few years later the family changed the label's name to Gennett, and in 1919 challenged the mighty Victor label by manufacturing lateral-cut discs, which could be played on phonographs made by Columbia, Victor, and other companies. Of course, Victor sued for patent infringement; the Gennetts won the case in 1922. This allowed the lateral-cut disc system to enter the public domain, open to anyone who wanted to use it. Amazingly, a small record company in Richmond, Indiana, had defeated one of the giants of the record business.

Before radio took hold of the public's imagination, Gennett sold a lot of records in the early 1920s. Its pressing plant in Richmond cranked out symphony music, jazz, black music, opera, orchestral music, comedies, old-time country, and any other kind of music on which the company could earn a dollar. The studio also recorded many hymns for the Ku Klux Klan, and custom-pressed the sides for the Klan's own label.

Here's how we described the Gennett studio in our Little Labels--Big Sound:

". . . the studio [was] in a gray wooden warehouse, along a row of factory buildings. It stood three feet from a secondary railroad spur for slow-moving cars hauling freight through the congested factory. To make matters worse, the main Chesapeake & Ohio railroad ran above the Starr Piano factory along the ridge of Starr Valley, also producing tremendous noise and vibration. Because of the two railroad lines, recording sessions were frequently interrupted. The studio's attempt at soundproofing involved packing sawdust between the studio's interior and exterior walls. Inside, sound resonance was minimized by hanging monk's cloth draperies from ceiling to floor. A large Mohawk rug from Harry Gennett's home was hung on one wall . . . ."

In the second half of the 1920s, Gennett started pressing hillbilly discs in large numbers. Gene Autry recorded for the company, as well as Fiddlin' Doc Roberts and others. "All the Gennetts were interested in was hillbilly music," said Joe Geier, a company recording engineer in the late 1920s. "That's where they made their money, because the Gennetts catered to Sears, and Sears catered to the hillbillies."

Gennett also recorded black blues and gospel singers at the Richmond studio as well as in its studios in New York and in its temporary studios in Chicago and Birmingham, Alabama. Bluesmen received five to fifteen dollars per recording session. No royalties. In Richmond, they were expected to stay in boarding houses in "Goose Town," a black neighborhood north of the factory that was in a red-light district that featured speakeasies. I've not heard much about the temporary studio in Birmingham, but Rick tells me it was where Baptist minister Reverend J.F. Forrest cut his sermon "Hell and What It Is," and Alabama blues harmonica man Jaybird Coleman cut one of the best titles ever, "Ah'm Sick and Tired of Tellin' You (To Wiggle That Thing)."

In 1929, another pioneering roots label, Paramount Records, paid Gennett's Richmond studio forty dollars per side to produce masters for its acts. This is how blues greats Charley Patton and Blind Lemon Jefferson came to record in the Richmond studio. By this time, Gennett was struggling to stay in business. When the full effect of the Great Depression hit in 1930, Gennett Records nearly collapsed, but somehow it continued to release a few blues and country records on its Champion label. In late 1934, the Gennett family closed Champion too, but not before they had recorded country pioneer Uncle Dave Mason and singer-guitarists Sam and Kirk McGee.

Although the Depression had nearly killed the record business and Gennett Records, the studio continued to operate into the 1940s, doing mainly sound effects records for radio. The company sold its metal masters--the original sounds of America's roots music--for scrap. When Fred Gennett, who had managed the record label, died in 1964 near Richmond, his obituary didn't even mention Gennett Records. Even his grandsons didn't know he had recorded some of jazz's earliest sides, and some of America's finest early country ones. Jazz must have been that unimportant to him.

But the people of Richmond haven't forgotten his accomplishments, nor those of Gennett Records. They want to make sure that the world remembers their city and the music it gave to the generations that have followed.

On September 10, 2011, Richmond will host a Gennett Walk of Fame program called "Mo' Blues," a combination of food, discussion, and live music. Of special interest: from 1-4 p.m., two Gennett researchers will "tour" the Gennett Studio. See the group's Web site for additional details.

Recommended reading:

Jellyroll, Bix, and Hoagy: Gennett Studios and the Birth of Jazz (Rick Kennedy, Indiana University Press).

Little Labels--Big Sound: Small Record Companies and the Rise of American Music (Rick Kennedy and Randy McNutt, Indiana University Press).

Recently taken photos of the company logo and

a marker for the studio, near the site where the studio stood.

Gennett complex as it appeared in the company's heyday.

Celebrating America's Roots Music

2011-05-15T11:55:00.006-04:00

By Randy McNutt

When Wilmington College invited me to speak about King Records as a part of the Smithsonian Institution's traveling exhibit "New Harmonies: Celebrating America's Roots Music," I had no idea that the day would turn out so interesting. That afternoon in Wilmington, Ohio, I met Ivan Tribe, who happened to be in the audience.

Ivan, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Rio Grande, is a highly regarded author who shares my interests in roots music and regional history. He has written many stories and books about bluegrass, country, and rockabilly performers over the years. After my King talk, I spoke with him about music that day.

We discussed King Records, The Midwestern Hayride, singers Bonnie Lou and Kenny Roberts, regional record labels, and other subjects that we could have went on talking about all day. The Hayride, a Cincinnati barn dance show which we both enjoyed when we were young, still captives us. As Ivan said, "The Hayride became in 1948 the first barn dance to make the transition to television, and some years later abandoned radio but continued on TV. For several seasons between 1951 and 1959 it was televised on the NBC network as a summer replacement program. Overall, the Cincinnati area's Boone County Jamboree/Midwestern Hayride played a major role in the growth and dissemination of country-western music." When the program finally went off the air in the early 1970s, it left a lot of music history behind.

Ivan has written a story about the show called "Midwestern Hayride Popularizes Country-Western Music." In fact, he has written two pieces for a free tabloid-size newspaper called New Harmonies: Celebrating America's Roots Music, published by the Ohio Humanities Council. You can pick one up free from the Council or at one of the traveling exhibit's sites throughout 2011 (I'll list them at the end of this story.) Ivan's other piece is "Traditional and Country Music in Appalachian Ohio." Other stories featured in New Harmonies include "Big Joe Duskin: Last of the Cincinnati Boogie Men" by my friend and former Cincinnati Enquirer colleague Larry Nager; "Cincinnati's King Records, Too Cool to Conquer" by Jon Hartley Fox, author of King of the Queen City, A History of King Records; "Spirituals Spread the Roots of Gospel," by Brenda Ellis, an associate professor of music at Wright State University in Dayton; "Being Here: Old-Time Fiddle Music in Community" by Judy Sacks, a scholar of Appalachian-style fiddling in Ohio; "Folk Scholarship Takes Root in 1960s and 1970s Music in Central Ohio" by Hank Arbaugh, a Columbus music publisher and recording artist; "Migration--Wherever the Heart Sings, It's Home" by Lucy Long, a former Smithsonian employee; and "Bluegrass Resonates in Columbus" by Tom Ewing, a bluegrass guitarist and former lead singer for Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys. Tom's interesting story is a first-person account of being in bluegrass and performing with some legendary acts.

If you're interested in seeing the traveling exhibit or picking up a copy of the publication, contact the Ohio Humanities Council at 471 E. Broad Street, Suite 1620, Columbus, Ohio 43215-3857, or at www.ohiohumanities.org. The tour schedule for the remainder of this year is: May 22-June 22, Springfield Arts Council/The Heritage Center of Clark County, 117 S. Fountain Avenue, Springfield, Ohio;

July 1-August 1, Pump House Center for the Arts, 1 Enderlin Circle, Yoctangee Park, Chillicothe, Ohio;

August 6-September 6, Kent State University at Geauga, 14111 Claridon Troy Road, Burton, Ohio;

September 12-October 11, Auglaize County Public Library, 203 Perry Street, Wapakoneta, Ohio;

October 16-November 16; Rural Life Center/Mount Vernon Public Library, 201 North Mulberry Street, Mount Vernon, Ohio;

November 22-December 31, the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor, 151 W. Wood Street, Youngstown.

Please make sure you call in advance, just in case there has been a change in schedule for the exhibit.

A Tour of King Records

2011-05-13T19:22:00.014-04:00

This is King Records, circa 1966. Behind the loading dock's

doors stood the King Recording Studio, where James Brown,

Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, and other performers

recorded. (Courtesy Lee Hazen.)

By Randy McNutt

One of Cincinnati's best-kept secrets, King Records, once forgotten by all but dedicated music enthusiasts, is now the happening thing. Its funky factory now has a historical marker, courtesy of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and people are talking about songs that have been dormant for half a century. This qualifies King for one of my "Subterranean Music Tours"--self-guided trips through an underworld of forgotten places that once rocked or shocked the nation.

Founded in 1943 by Cincinnati native Sydney Nathan, King Records operated at first from his record shop, and soon moved into a gothic old factory at 1540 Brewster Avenue in the Evanston neighborhood. King would reign for twenty-five years as America's largest and most innovative independent record company. I would go so far as to say that in the 1940s it was the nation's most prolific and largest independent roots music label--a distinction that King still holds. One reason for this is the company's depth. It had an active pressing plant that daily punched out tens of thousands of 45-rpm singles, LPs, and 78-rpm discs. Nathan did everything but make his own shipping cartons, and all under one roof. He could afford to take chances on long-shot singles. From his dreary factory he pressed discs for hillbillly crooners Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins, R&B legends James Brown and the Famous Flames and Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, country boogie greats Wayne Raney and the Delmore Brothers, and blues guitarist Freddy King.

Nathan and most of his stars are gone now, but their careers will live again if Xavier University is successful in opening a King Records museum. Although that too is a long shot, it might happen in time. But you don't have to wait to experience the King magic. You can travel into the musical past with only a car and a dream. To set the mood, bring along an audiocassette (no iPods or compact discs permitted) of Brown's prehistoric funk masterpiece "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag (Part 1)." It's a dance record, in case you didn't know, so feel free to tap the steering wheel and yell "Ain't That A Groove."

When you arrive at your first stop (call it your first take), listen closely. Above the steady humming of tires you might hear Brown's faded screams--"Hey, all right!"--from a parallel universe.

So, tourists, let's go, let's go, let's go!

Take One:

The King factory, 1540 Brewster, is visible from Interstate 71, north of downtown Cincinnati. On the plant's left side is a concrete-block addition, behind the loading dock. This is hallowed ground, the King Recording Studio, where anybody could cut a record if he or she had the cash. Here, Ballard cut "The Twist"--the original version--in 1959, and guitarist Lonnie Mack made his instrumentals "Memphis" and "Wham!" for Fraternity Records in 1963. In 1971, when I was a kid songwriter signed to a fading Fraternity, I was among the last to see the historic studio intact, a day or so before it would be stripped and the King plant closed. On that cold night, promo man Bob "Mr. Movin'" Patton led us through the dim and silent building. In the studio, I stopped to touch the top of the Hammond B-3 organ that James Brown and Bill Doggett used on sessions. (At the Starday Studio near Nashville in 2000, I rediscovered that old B-3, unused for years and covered with boxes of recording tape.)

Take Two:

The alternative weekly City Beat is based at 811 Race Street. In the late 1940s, the second floor housed E.T. "Bucky" Herzog's recording studio, Herzog Recording.Herzog had been an audio engineer at WLW Radio before leaving to start his own studio. Early in King's run, Nathan recorded some acts in Bucky's home studio. Soon, Herzog relocated to Race Street and the big time. He once told me he had to ask Nathan to leave because he was too tough on the musicians. Nathan responded by opening his own studio in October 1947. But Herzog still had plenty of business: Hank Williams, Patti Page, Rex Allen. They came to Herzog's for the talented musicians, not the studio.

Take Three:

The Inner Circle, 2691 Vine Street, near the University of Cincinnati, is now Bogart's. The Circle hosted rock bands, and Brown visited regularly to search for new musicians, hot beats, and a little inspiration. One night, probably in 1968, he discovered a band that he would name the Dapps. While every other band in town seemed to be imitating the Beatles, these white guys were exploring soul and early funk and merging their licks with rock 'n' roll. At times the Dapps included Tim Drummond on bass, Tim Hedding on organ, and Beau Dollar on drums. The Dapps recorded for Brown at King, making a few singles for themselves and other acts. Then they broke up. But the sound of the Dapps still haunts the nightclub on Vine.

Take Four:

Dino's, 16 E. Sixth Street, is the one-time clothing store where Brown bought his hip threads. Back then, my young songwriting partner and I used to go around town looking for him, and laughing and shouting "Hey, all right!" When we finally saw Soul Brother No. 1 leaving Dino's one day, I exclaimed, "Wow! James Brown!" My friend just shrugged. "Oh, man," he said, "I see him all the time." Dino's claimed it helped create Brown's "fashion image," which I always thought was something of an oxymoron.

Take Five:

Union Baptist Cemetery, 4933 Cleves-Warsaw Road, in Cincinnati's West Price Hill neighborhood, is the resting place of Myron "Tiny" Bradshaw. At age 45 in 1950, the Youngstown, Ohio, native had his first King hit, "Well, Oh Well." By 1953, the bandleader had his fifth and final King hit, "Heavy Juice." His band performed in the Cotton Club, Cincinnati's first integrated nightclub. When he died in 1958, Bradshaw was buried in his adopted town's old black cemetery.

Take Six

Unitl its demise in 1972, The Midwestern Hayride boomed from WLW Radio and WLWT (the television station) on Crosley Square, at Ninth and Elm Streets downtown, every Saturday night. The show provided King with a well of country talent, including popular vocalist Bonnie Lou; Zeke Turner, an original A-team country guitarist; and Louis Innis, a guitarist, songwriter, and major King operative. A Hayride quartet, the Hometowners, also recorded for King, and included Kenny Price (later of Hee-Haw fame). Other part-time Hayriders included King's own Cowboy Copas and Charlie Gore, who started on the show in 1949 and became a regional country star. He recorded for King from 1951 to 1956. He co-wrote Bonnie Lou's rockabilly hit "Daddy-O."

Take Seven:

At the corner of Ohios 126 and 128 in Ross in Butler County, you'll find the Venice Pavilion, now an antiques mall. In the 1940s, however, the pavilion offered a slice of heaven--dancing, bowling, and country music. On its stage King star Copas sang "Filipino Baby" and "The Tennessee Waltz" on hot summer nights.

Take Eight:

Shake It Records, 4156 Hamilton Avenue, in the Northside neighborhood, will end your tour. Browse through old records and new compilation compact discs that feature original King songs. Soon you'll understand why Cincinnati was the original Music City and why its visionary was Syd Nathan. Why isn't this man in the Country Music Hall of Fame?

Shout it out: "Hey, all right!"

Randy McNutt is the author of two pictorial histories, The Cincinnati Sound and King Records of Cincinnati, published by Arcadia Publishing Co. For more information, see Amazon.com or www.arcadiapublishing.com.

Jimmy Webb, Barry Mann, and Paul Williams: The Soundtrack of Your Life

2011-04-26T11:50:00.031-04:00

By Randy McNutt

Perhaps the night before Easter isn't the best time to schedule a concert, yet on April 23, 2011, hundreds of people came to Dayton, Ohio's Victoria Theatre to hear three veteran songwriters sing their songs. My view from row J, seat 3, was nearly perfect. From there I watched as Barry Mann, Jimmy Webb, and Paul Williams sang, laughed at their failures and successes, told the stories behind their hits, and entertained the grateful and enthusiastic crowd.

Everything about that night seemed magical. Amply lit in the misty spring night, the theater stood out like a big white diamond--a gorgeous piece of Victorian architecture with plush and cushioned seats and a wide balcony. The acoustics were equally good. And the singers--well, they weren't just any singers. These guys had written so many hits that it would take many two-and-a-half-hour shows to hear them all.

The one-of-a-kind program in Dayton was called the Soundtrack of Your Life. And, for us, it was aptly named. Initially, operators of the Victoria wanted to host a Jimmy Webb concert, and then they decided to expand the show. Webb and Williams had worked together before. But the three of them on stage together, well, that was something else. As Webb explained after the show: "Believe me, we enjoyed doing it even more than you enjoyed seeing it."

The music icons' visit to my home state did more than entertain. It boosted my spirits. Only two days earlier, I had opened USA Today and scanned the music charts. On one chart, the numbers one and two songs both used a certain obscenity in their titles to get attention. I thought, Give me a good melody and an interesting lyric. That's all I need.

I heard good melodies in abundance at the Victoria. Just hearing the writers sing their original songs in their unique voices made me feel hopeful about the future of songwriti

ng and performing. No fancy video needed, thank you; no gimmicks, either. A voice and a piano did the job. If these three writers (and perhaps others of their era) could keep performing their material in concerts, I told myself, then perhaps more young songwriters would emulate them and the music business would be better off for it.

I admit my bias. I've always been fascinated by songwriters, and I've collected their often obscure recordings, from Margo Guryan to Chris Gantry. From them I've learned there's no substitute--in style and voice--for songs sung in their original form. Regardless of vocal ability, only a songwriter can generate a certain feeling in his song. And I also admire any writer who has the courage to perform in public--particularly the hits, for people have preconceived ideas of how those songs should sound.

Williams opened the show using only a pianist to accompany him. Funny and self-effacing, he recalled his beginnings as an actor in Hollywood in the mid-1960s, when he appeared in The Loved One and The Chase. At age 27, the former Ohioan was living in Los Angeles with his mother and writing love songs with Roger Nichols. Ultimately this led to the Carpenters recording some of his material, including "We've Only Just Begun." (Originally composed as a bank commercial, Williams noted, the song has been sung at countless weddings.) For us that night he also sang "Just An Old-Fashioned Love Song," recorded by Three Dog Night (the Carpenters rejected the piece); "Rainy Days and Mondays," the Carpenters; and Helen Reddy's "You And Me Against The World." Williams even sang a few bars of The Love Boat theme, which he wrote with Charlie Fox. Williams laughed and admitted that some people still recognize him as Little Enos from Smokey and the Bandit.

Next, Jimmy Webb strode onto the stage and took a seat at the grand piano. The son of an Oklahoma preacher became a pop music sensation in the late 1960s when he composed Glen Campbell's "By The Time I Get To Phoenix," "Galveston," "Wichita Lineman," and other hits. The Fifth Dimension cut Webb's "Up, Up And Away," and Webb never looked back. In banter between songs, he explained how in the wilder days of his youth he often told acquaintances, "Let's make a record sometime." Few people ever took him up on his offer. Richard Harris did, though, and Webb went to England to work with the actor who would sing "MacArthur Park" and "Didn't We." Webb didn't sing those two songs during his performance, but the audience knew all the ones he did do, including Garfunkel's "All I Know." During a pause between songs, Webb said a songwriter singing his or her songs is all about "singing from the heart--it's the interpretation that counts." What a treat it was, too, hearing "Phoenix" as he intended it, complete with melancholy chords and his soulful vocals.

Finally, Barry Man sat down at the piano and began singing "On Broadway." Dropping anecdotes between songs, and using only the grand piano at first, he continued to sing forgotten melodies, from Edie Gorme's "Blame It On The Bossa Nova" to Dolly Parton's "Here You Come Again." He mused that an English condom company wanted to use the latter in a commercial, but he and his wife wouldn't allow it. Hearing him discuss his music, I was struck by his depth and career longevity. He was no novice when he and wife-lyricist Cynthia Weil wrote "Kicks" and "Hungry" for Paul Revere and the Raiders in the mid-1960s, and Mann is still writing hits. (He acknowleged his wife's vital contributions, and introduced her. She was sitting in the audience.) After some time had passed during Mann's performance, his band--four musicians and a powerful accompanying female vocalist--joined him. His version of "(You're My) Soul And Inspiration," the Righteous Brothers hit, came off well, as did the newer "Somewhere Out There," the Animals' "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place," and the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling." As Williams pointed out toward the end of the show, "Lovin' Feeling" was BMI's most-played song of the twentieth century and the most-performed song in the BMI catalog. Mann smiled and told the audience that when he and his wife first played it for Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, they reacted cooly. Hatfield asked what he was supposed to be doing while Medley was singing at the beginning. "You can be running to the bank," producer Phil Spector told him.

After the show, I met the three songwriters with a small group of people who also attended the concert. The three were gracious, friendly, warm, and thankful. They took time to discuss their songs with individual fans, and signed LPs, CDs, and concert programs. As I watched them sitting there, talking and recalling old times, I thought: These guys didn't have to do come to Dayton, especially on the day before Easter, yet they took time to sing and meet the people. Then I recalled something that Mann had mentioned during the program. He said it's the recording artists, not the professional songwriters, who usually hear people's personal reactions to the songs. Songwriters, he said, are left in a vacuum, having no idea how much their songs have meant in people's lives. He then read a letter from a woman who had served as a nurse during the war in Vietnam. She told him that "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" was everyone's theme there--the only hope. "I will try to get through this," Mann said as he began to read, knowing the emotion it would rekindle in him.

Perhaps this is why Barry Mann, Jimmy Webb, and Paul Williams came to Dayton to perform, and why they would like to take their show to other venues across the nation.

After all, music is all about creating a personal connection with people, and singing from the heart.

Counterpart Creative Studios

2007-11-12T10:38:00.013-05:00

Randy (left) and Perry at the original board.

Rewind: Counterpart Creative Studios
1971-1991

R.I.P.

By Randy McNutt

Prompted by readers of my book Too Hot to Handle: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Recording Studios of the 20th Century (HHP Books), I am starting this blog to celebrate vintage studios. The book is the only one on the market that concentrates on America’s smaller, out-of-way studios that forged local and national sounds. Everyone has heard of the Hit Factory in New York, but what about the obscure Kin-Tel Recording Studios of Atlanta? Its slogan: “You and Kin-Tel Can Make Beautiful Music Together.” And in 1968 Joe South made it with “Games People Play.” South earned a Grammy for his work, and one more regional studio became a part of music history. Over the years, I was fortunate to record in a number of the smaller studios as an independent producer, and I heard tales from studio musicians, songwriters, and engineers. They prompted me to write Too Hot, which also features entries on many of the larger and historic studios. But the smaller ones are my real love, and it was a joy to ask studio owners to explain how they started their businesses. Smaller local studios were magnets for musicians, songwriters, producers, and performers in towns throughout the United States. They created many hits, including San Antonio’s “Last Kiss” by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers (see the book for a great anecdote) and Cleveland’s “Time Won’t Let Me” by the Outsiders.

For twenty years, a Cincinnati recording studio cut hits and provided work for dozens of studio musicians and songwriters. No, it wasn't the legendary King Recording Studio or the E.T. Herzog Recording. It is Counterpart Creative Studios, based in suburban Cheviot, Ohio, a small town that lies just west of Cincinnati in Hamilton County. Counterpart was not one of Cincinnati 's early studios. It didn’t open until 1971, but that was just in time to host some fine rock and soul bands and independent producers.

Prior to the opening of Counterpart Creative, local music people cut records primarily at Jewel Recording in neighboring Mt. Healthy and at the famous King Recording Studios in Cincinnati. King closed in 1971, the year that gave birth to indie producer Shad O’Shea’s dream.

O’Shea founded Counterpart Creative for two simple reasons: he needed a business to support him, and he was tired of driving to Louisville, Ky., to record rock bands for his Cincinnati-based Counterpart Records. The former WCPO Radio disc jockey already had hit regionally—from Lexington, Ky., to Indianapolis to Columbus, Ohio—with his Counterpart label from 1963 to 1970. He also operated a BMI song-publishing firm with the name Counterpart Music. He worked with garage bands such as the Mark V, the New Lime, and the US Too Group. A lot of people in Cincinnati assumed that Counterpart Records was a national label because it placed so many hits in area cities’ top-10 lists during the golden age of the garage band.

By the late 1960s, O’Shea was one of Ohio’s busiest independent producers. He recorded his own novelty songs as well as artists from the major musical genres. Many of his productions ended up being released on Counterpart first, and later on hot independents or the major labels.

“In those days,” O’Shea explained, “you could find a rock band and cut a record for $500 and put out a single that would get a lot of play from radio stations in your region. There were a lot of regional hits in the days before radio stopped playing small labels. This is how Counterpart Studios was born. It all happened after I did so many records in the 1960s.”

In the early 1970s, Counterpart Creative welcomed performers who would later go on to success on larger label and publishers. O’Shea produced the commercial country single "Harlan” (initially released on Counterpart Records) by Bobby Borchers, who later relocated to Nashville and wrote hits by Johnny Paycheck and others. The session featured Cincinnati’s top studio players. O’Shea also cut a big-sound ballad, “A Song For Peace,” by Mike Reid, a singer-pianist and NFL player who had just quit the Cincinnati Bengals for a career in music. His original ballad, with strings and horns, was appropriate in the Vietnam War days. O’Shea sold the master to Laurie Records of New York. Although it wasn’t a big hit, it did launch Reid’s songwriting career in Nashville, where he still thrives.

Counterpart also started a production and writing career for singer Wayne Perry, a young songwriter from Hamilton, Ohio, who recorded four singles at the studio for release on Counterpart Records. Perry later became a hit songwriter in Nashville, writing for the Back Street Boys, Lorrie Morgan, Joe, and Joe Diffie. Perry's first single, "Mr. Bus Driver," was a driving soul-rocker that was leased to Avco-Embassy Records in New York. It was written by the talented Wayne Carson Thompson. When the company failed to release it, O'Shea agreed to put it out on Counterpart. Although the disc label identifies the record as being engineered by Gene Lawson of Counterpart Creative Studios, this is not totally accurate. It was recorded and mixed at Jewel Recording when Lawson was the staff engineer there. He joined O'Shea's new studio as engineer a short time later, and did oversee the remainder of Perry's sessions at Counterpart. Meanwhile, O’Shea recorded a number of his own novelty singles for his label, and after the studio opened he became one of the most prolific novelty acts in the nation. He wrote and recorded satirical and crazy songs such as "Back To Nature" by Hy Bush and the Wild Cranberries. In 1975 he purchased the rights to the name Fraternity Records, a label started by Harry Carlson in Cincinnati in 1954. With hits (all recorded at King) such as “Memphis” by Lonnie Mack and “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye” by the Casinos, the Fraternity label became a leading Midwest independent through 1967. After purchasing the company, which O'Shea relocated from the Sheraton Gibson Hotel in downtown Cincinnati to Counterpart Creative in Cheviot, O’Shea started releasing most of his own records on Fraternity. The Counterpart label slowly faded into history. Although his novelties weren’t big hits, they were wacky enough to receive airplay on hundreds of stations nationally. Recorded at Counterpart Creative were “Colorado Call,” a spoof of the citizens band radio craze by Shad O’Shea and the 18-Wheelers (Fraternity and Private Stock), and “McLove Story,” a salute to McDonald’s ubiquity by Shad O’Shea and the Hamburger Helpers (Fraternity and SSS International).

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Counterpart Creative recorded single hits and albums by R&B groups Midnight Star on Solar Records, and Sun on Capitol. Midnight Star, formed in 1976 in Louisville, featured Reggie Calloway, who later became a producer and operated the old QCA Studio in Cincinnati. Star’s R&B hit “No Parking (On The Dance Floor)” came from an album that was recorded at Counterpart Creative Studios and Fifth Floor Recording in Cincinnati. In addition, R&B singers Roger and Tony Troutman, R&B singers from nearby Hamilton, Ohio, also recorded at Counterpart, as did the band Canon, with some former members of the Casinos.

As the 1980s wore on, however, competition became tougher and business slowed for O’Shea. He sold the studio’s contents in 1991, and moved his companies—Fraternity Records, song publishing firms, and Positive Feedback Communications book publishing—into an office in a Cheviot building. He continued to operate there as an independent producer, label owner, and author, writing how-to books about the music industry. In 2007, he semi-retired and sold the Fraternity name to out-of-state interests.

He also sold the remaining pieces of the studio that he had loved so much: a sign that had once hung in the lobby, and record awards that had covered the walls of his office.

“The record business as I knew it is dead,” O’Shea told me in an interview in June 2007. “Judging by today’s standards, it’s difficult to believe that the business was once such an exciting field to work in. The phone used to ring off the hook every day with disc jockeys, distributors, and studio people calling. It was a great thing to be a part of, but it has changed. The big studios aren’t needed so much anymore with all the good home recording equipment. Now it’s all computers and the Internet and so forth. But at least I lived during the heyday of the music business. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.”

Next time, we'll explore another independent story from. . .who knows where? Maybe it will be from your hometown.

Fact File
Name: Counterpart Creative Studios,

Address: 3744 Applegate Avenue, Cheviot, Ohio

Owner-manager: Shad O’Shea.

Location: In residential area, in remodeled 1930s house.

Studio Rooms: One.

Initial Equipment: 16-track Scully tape recorder (later upgraded to a 24-track recorder); Electrodyne console.

Engineers: Gene Lawson, Wes Owen, Dale Smith, and others.

Quirks: Inside the lobby was a long wall covered with about 125 singles that O’Shea had produced or with which he had been associated. All were on national labels, including Mercury, Era, Capitol, RCA, and Monument. As soon as a client entered the building, he saw the wall. O’Shea kept it that way until he remodeled the studio in the 1980s.

Some Notable Clients: Aerosmith, Livingston Taylor, Rob Hegel, The Zap Band, Bootsy Collins, Leonard Bernstein, Midnight Star, Sun, Mike Reid, the Ohio Players, Roger Troutman, Lamb, Bobby Borchers, and Wayne Perry.

House Band: None. But over two decades prominent Cincinnati musicians in pop, country, jazz, and rock recorded at Counterpart, including pianist Dumpy Rice, drummer Gene Lawson, and arranger Gordon Brisker.

Associated Enterprises: Under one roof were Counterpart Records, Applegate Recording Society, Bunk House Records, Counterpart Music (BMI), Hurdy Gurdy Music (ASCAP), Fraternity Records, PFC, and other music-related businesses operated by O’Shea.

Most Discused Single that Didn’t Hit: “Space Funk” by the funk group Manzel, released on Fraternity in 1977. “It could be the most-sampled record in the world,” O’Shea said.

First Take: Counterpart was only the second studio I had ever recorded in. Jewel Recording was the first. So my initial comparisons were inevitable. Jewel was terrific for a deep sound, the kind you'd want on an old R&B record or for Southern gospel. It helped "Mr. Bus Driver" become a real driving track. I was surprised to hear a brighter sound at Counterpart, which made the studio good for pop and rock, especially when acoustic guitars were used. Counterpart had a clear sound--very crisp. I enjoyed recording several singles there, and hearing many productions by Shad and other producers right there in the control room.

Where, Oh Where, Has the Scully Gone?: O'Shea's first recorder, a 16-track Scully, was installed in late 1970 or early 1971. He used it for a few years, until he purchased a 24-tracker. I'm not certain where the first Scully went next, but I do know that it landed in the basement studio of rockabilly and country singer Bill Watkins in suburban Cincinnati about 1977. Bill bought it from somebody who lived in the area. At his Tip-Toe Recording Studios, Bill worked the old Scully hard for five to eight years, and then slowed down his pace of recording. By the time I was reunited with the Scully, the year was 1989. I soon learned that the machine was the same one on which I had cut four Wayne Perry rock singles and a country one by Ron Sweet at Counterpart Studios in the 1970s. Bill and I got busy recording rockabilly singles and albums at his studio after I wrote about him in my book We Wanna Boogie: An Illustrated History of the American Rockabilly Movement ($25; Amazon.com). We cut Bill's singles "Red Cadillac" and "Cowboy" at Tip-Toe, and then albums for the Rockhouse and Gee-Dee labels in Europe. Sadly, the Scully started breaking down not long after that time, and Bill couldn't find anybody to repair it anymore. He finally sold it to a guy in rural New York about 2004. Bill loaded the heavy machine on his pickup truck and drove it up there. Bill now uses a small digital recorder, and longs for the days of the Scully and its wonderful depth of sound.

Randy McNutt is an independent record producer, award-winning reporter, and the author of Too Hot to Handle. It may be purchased through Amazon.com for $25. His Home of the Hits blog will feature stories of historic American recording studios, engineers, producers, songwriters, labels, and more. For a list of all his books, view his Web site at http://www.randymcnutt.com/.