Ralph Bass
Ralph Bass (born May 1, 1911 in New York City ; † March 5, 1997 there ; actually Ralph Basso ) was one of the most influential producers of rhythm & blues at the record labels Federal Records and Chess Records .
Life
Career
The son of a German mother and an Italian father, he attended Colgate University and New York University and married Alice Robbins in 1933. Bass pretended to be an accomplished record producer for the owner of the small record label Black & White Records in 1944 and got the job. From 1944 he produced for the label, among other things, Lucky Thompson's live performances from August 1946, which were published as "Ralph Bass' Junior Jazz Series". Bass produced the comedy song Open the Door Richard for tenor saxophonist Jack McVea (band leader of the studio band from Black & White) , which after its release in January 1947 rose to number two on the R&B charts, sold over 300,000 copies and more than a dozen cover versions triggered.
First successes
Ralph Bass made the first musically important and legendary jazz recordings in the Elks Auditorium ( Los Angeles ) of Dexter Gordon's jazz band, which he offered to Savoy Records and are now known as "Savoy Jazz". This is how Blow Mr. Dexter , Dexter's Deck , Dexter's Cuttin 'Out , Dexter's Minor Mad (October 30, 1945), Long Tall Dexter , Dexter Rides Again , I Can't Escape From You , Dexter Digs In (January 29, 1946) came about. , Disorder at the Border , Cherokee , Byas-a-Drink , The Hunt (July 6, 1947), Settin 'the Pace , So Easy , Dexter's Riff (December 11, 1947), Wee Dot , Lion Roars (December 19, 1947 ), Dexter's Mood , Dextrose , Index and Dextivity (December 22, 1947). Gordon didn't miss an opportunity to include his first name or parts of it in most of the titles.
Also known is the production of T-Bone Walker's legendary Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just As Bad) for the Black & White label (# 122), which was made in Los Angeles on September 13, 1947. T-Bone Walker ( vocals / guitar ), Teddy Buckner ( trumpet ), Hubert "Bumps" Myers ( tenor saxophone ), Lloyd Glenn ( piano ), Arthur Edwards ( bass ) and Oscar Lee Bradley ( drums ) were involved in the recording . The title reached a fifth position on the R&B charts and is considered not only one of the most influential songs in music history, but also in the history of the guitar.
Big Jay McNeely's band reached first number one for the producer in the Rhythm & Blues hit parade after its release in March 1949 with The Deacon's Hop (Savoy 685) recorded on December 13, 1948 under the direction of Ralph Bass. Bass was indeed for Savoy and Black & White, but in 1948 ran his own record label Bop! (Dexter Gordon) and Portrait Records ( Erroll Garner ). However, Bass quickly realized that record press factories were only operating against payment in advance, while he received the revenues from the distribution companies late or not at all, and discontinued the labels in the same year. Instead, he continued to produce for the Black & White label Erroll Garner, Dizzy Gillespie , Charles Mingus and Charlie Parker . For Savoy, he looked after Brownie McGhee , Johnny Otis , Little Esther Phillips, and Mel Walker.
Bass took on the role of talent scout for Savoy Records on the West Coast in 1948. He also produced The Robins here until 1950 . For these, on November 10, 1949, There's Rain In My Eyes (Rain In My Eyes) and the Double Crossing Blues were created . On December 1, 1949, Radio Recorders (7000 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles) recorded If It's So Baby / If I Didn't Love You So (Savoy # 726) and Our Romance Is Gone . Band leader Johnny Otis was co-producer with whom Ralph Bass went on tour as a road manager from February 1950. Tired of the constant financial turmoil that was also prevalent at Savoy Records, Bass switched to King Records , where he was left with the newly founded subsidiary label Federal Records as producer and label boss.
Federal Records producer
Federal Records was founded in November 1950 as a subsidiary of King Records and was intended for the rhythm and blues division. Ralph Bass's first discovery for Federal Records was the Dominoes , directed by Billy Ward. The Rhythm & Blues quintet had the very first single in the Federal catalog entitled Do Something For Me (# 12001), recorded on November 14, 1950. After it was released in December 1950, it was immediately ranked sixth in the rhythm Reach & blues charts. On December 30, 1950, the group was back in the studio and recorded their well-known Sixty Minute Man , which stayed at number one on the R&B charts for 14 weeks and became the Federal label's first millionaire seller . Over the years, the Dominoes brought a total of 11 Federal / King titles to the R&B charts by late 1953.
A classic of rhythm & blues and rock & roll was written on August 18, 1952 for Little Willie Littlefield under the title KC Loving (# 12110). Initially by the successful authors Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller with Kansas City , titled Bass changed the title on KC Loving order, because in his opinion "brisk sword" after. When the obscure song hit the market on December 29, 1952, it didn't hit the charts. However, the foundation stone was laid for many successful cover versions under the title Kansas City (including the Beatles ). The actual hit version by Wilbert Harrison reached the top of the pop charts after its release in April 1959 and became a million seller.
In October 1952, Bass Big brought Jay McNeely - whose only top position he had previously produced - to Federal and recorded a total of eight singles with him that did not appear in the charts. Bass didn't have the patience of fellow producer Henry Glover , who was employed by parent label King Records; For example, Bass had brought the as yet unknown Platters to Federal, but failed to recognize their hit potential. When the first of 16 recordings of the unknown Platters were made on September 15, 1953, no hit-parade note jumped out. A third and final recording date on May 20, 1954, when tenor Gaynel Hodge was replaced by Zoletta Lynn "Zola" Taylor , produced four recordings. One track from that session was Only You (And You Alone) . The recording was so bad that label boss Ralph Bass rejected it. After seven singles, Federal lost interest and released the group from their record deal in 1955. Only You then became a multiple million seller on Mercury Records . However, success soon returned for Ralph Bass.
Bass discovers James Brown
On November 1, 1955, James Brown & The Flames recorded the piece Please, Please, Please for demonstration purposes on the radio station WIBB ( Macon , Georgia ). When Ralph Bass heard the song on the radio, he was so excited by Brown's passionate singing and the difficult harmonies of the backing singers that he wanted to sign the Flames. On January 23, 1956, Bass traveled to Macon to have Brown sign the record deal; It was urgent because Chess Records employees were on their way to Macon at the same time, but were prevented from continuing their journey due to a snow storm. Bass was able to get the signature after overcoming many obstacles by paying an advance payment of 200 dollars to the band and traveled back to Cincinnati.
Bass' boss Syd Nathan was not at all enthusiastic about the hypnotically repetitive ballad when he was present at the Cincinnati studio on February 4, 1956. For the label boss, Please, Please, Please was an almost one-word stuttered song, making it one of the worst he'd ever heard. For producer Bass, however, James Brown was way ahead of his time, "he didn't sing or play music, he sent out pure feeling". After the release on March 3, 1956 (Federal # 12258), the title reached the fifth position on the Rhythm & Blues chart and sold over a million copies. The spontaneously fired Ralph Bass was immediately reinstated. With that the legend of the "Soul Brother Number One" was born. James Brown, henceforth produced by Bob Gibson and others, brought constant and high sales to Federal and, from 1961, the parent label King.
further activities
On August 13, 1957, Bass produced the original recording of Dedicated to the One I Love (King # 5098) for the "5" Royales , in which Bass appears as a co-author alongside band member Lowman Pauling. The single, which was only released on January 13, 1958, was later successfully covered several times, in particular by the Shirelles (1961) and the Mamas & Papas (1967).
Producer Bass had lyrical difficulties with Hank Ballard & the Midnighters. They had been under contract with Federal since 1953, but often couldn't get their suggestive or ambiguous lyrics through to Bass. Work With Me Annie (# 12169), recorded on January 14, 1954 (original title was “Sock it to Me, Maimie”), was one of those songs that defused the bass lyrically to avoid the all- important airplay cannot be prevented by self-censorship of the radio stations. Despite - or perhaps because of - these difficulties, the title made it to first place in the R&B charts. It was Hank Ballard who approached Federal with the idea for the song The Twist .
At John Watson, later known as Johnny Guitar Watson , bass pioneered the futuristic. Space Guitar (Federal # 12175) was recorded on February 1, 1954 with reverb and feedback effects from the guitar and was the anticipation of later standard effects in pop and rock music, perfected in particular by Jimi Hendrix .
Producer at Chess Records
Ralph Bass stayed with Chess Records the longest, namely from 1959 to 1976. Incidentally, it was label owner Leonard Chess who was prevented by a heavy snowstorm from bringing James Brown to Chess. Here Bass took over the job as a talent scout and produced Etta James ; their version of At Last was written in 1960 and reached number two on the R&B charts. Bass discovered Billy Davis, who also acted as producer and preferred a more soul-oriented sound. Bass, in turn, brought the Jayhawks to the subsidiary label Checker Records in 1960 .
Ralph Bass then concentrated on producing a series of Chess LPs ("Real Folk Blues") for the classic Chess stars Muddy Waters (LP Folk Singer ; April 1964), John Lee Hooker (LP The Real Folk Blues ; May 1966 ), Memphis Slim (LP The Real Folk Blues ; October 1966), Sonny Boy Williamson II. (LP More Real Folk Blues ; September 1967) or Howlin 'Wolf (LP The Backdoor Wolf ; August 1973).
Leonard and brother Phil Chess sold Chess to General Recorded Tape (GRT) in January 1969 for $ 6.5 million and 20,000 shares in GRT. Subsequently, there was an enormous fluctuation of employed producers and composers, but also artists for other labels, especially when Leonard Chess died on October 16, 1969. Bass and fellow producer Gene Barge tried to hold together the eroding Chess remnants; Regardless of this, Bass stayed with the new company until 1976. From August 1975, GRT began to systematically erode Chess, sold the logo to All Platinum Records , and in 1985 MCA Records acquired the rights to the enormous Chess catalog.
Bass was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 16, 1991 . At BMI , 173 titles are protected by copyright, two of which received a BMI Award.
Individual evidence
- ^ Time Magazine, February 10, 1947, Music: Open the Door, Richard
- ^ John Hartley Fox / Dave Alvin, King of the Queen City - The Story of King Records , 2009, p. 88
- ^ Jay Warner, American Singing Groups , 2006, p. 276
- ^ Bruce Tucker, James Brown - The Godfather of Soul , 1988, p. 74
- ↑ a b Bob Gulla, Icons of R & B and Soul , 2008, p. 216
- ^ Arnold Shaw, Honkers and Shouters , 1978, p. 241 f.
- ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 95
- ↑ Robert Pruter, Chicago Soul , 1992, pp. 97 f.
- ^ Robert Pruter, Chicago Soul , 1992, p. 129
- ↑ BMI entry for Ralph Bass ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bass, Ralph |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American R&B producer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 1, 1911 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City , USA |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 5, 1997 |
| Place of death | New York City |