Specialty Records

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Specialty Records
Logo of the label
Logo of the label
Parent company Fantasy Records (from 1990)
Concord Records (from 2004)
Active years since 1946
founder Kind of caterpillar
Seat Los Angeles , California
Genre (s) Blues , rhythm and blues , gospel , rock 'n' roll

Specialty Records is an American independent music label based in Los Angeles , California that released gospel , blues , rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll between 1946 and 1960 . The recording activity was resumed at short notice in 1964, since then material existing under the label until 1990 was re-released. Specialty Records will continue to be used as a brand for re-releases even after the takeover by Fantasy Records .

history

The label was founded in 1946 by Art Rupe , who had already gained experience in the American music market with Juke Box Records since 1944. A first focus was on gospel groups, which JW Alexander took care of as A&R manager . The label also focused on jump blues performers , including Joe Liggins , Percy Mayfield and Roy Milton . The latter had a big hit on Juke Box in 1946 with the RM Blues , which was one of the first forerunners of rock 'n' roll to couple a boogie-woogie rhythm with the backbeat . Also Voo-It! Voo-It! by The Blues Woman came from the juke box catalog and was very successful.

In 1952 Rupe traveled to New Orleans , Louisiana, where Fats Domino was very successful at Imperial Records , to recruit young musicians for a talent competition at Cosimo Matassa's J&M studios. Shortly before leaving in disappointment, seventeen-year-old Lloyd Price sang his song Lawdy Miss Clawdy , which, under the direction of Dave Bartholomew and with Domino on piano on Specialty, would become another milestone in rock history. Since then, Specialty has had a branch in New Orleans to keep recording in Matassa's studio with his famous studio band .

The producer Johnny Vincent took over the control of Specialty in New Orleans and discovered with Guitar Slim an artist, on whose recording The Things That I Used to Do a young, as yet unknown Ray Charles was involved as arranger and piano.

Little Richard on Specialty 624

After Lloyd Price first switched to his own label and then to ABC-Paramount after his military service in 1953 , Rupe and his new A&R manager Robert "Bumps" Blackwell were looking for a new, powerful rock 'n' roller and found it in Little Richard , who sent a demo recording to Los Angeles in 1955 on the advice of Lloyd Price .

Little Richard was to become the most successful interpreter in the Specialty house with a variety of classics of the genre, including Tutti Frutti , Long Tall Sally , Rip It Up , Ready Teddy , Lucille , Keep-A-Knockin ' and Good Golly Miss Molly . The sale of these bestsellers and their marketing via the label's own music publishers Venice Music for BMI and Greenwich Music for ASCAP brought Rupe not only large revenues but also the accusation that he had enriched himself from the artistic work of his Afro-American interpreters.

After an argument, Bumps Blackwell left the label together with Sam Cooke , the singer of the Soul Stirrers , because to the dissatisfaction he recorded Rupes with these pop songs instead of gospel numbers as before. In 1957, Little Richard also left the label in favor of training to become a priest. With Lloyd Price's former assistant Larry Williams , the gap was closed again at short notice. At the time, Sonny Bono was working as the A&R manager at Specialty.

In 1960 Art Rupe stopped recording due to lack of success, even if the selling discs continued to appear in the form of re-releases under the label name. New material was only pressed for a few recordings with Little Richard during his comeback attempt from 1963. From 1969, due to the great interest in early rock 'n' roll, the policy of re-releases was changed by the new A&R manager Dr. Demento intensified and Specialty continued under the direction of Rupe's subsidiary until 1990 as one of the most important independent record labels in the United States alongside Atlantic Records and Sun Records . In 1990 the Specialty catalog was finally sold to Fantasy Records .

Artist

The following list lists the Specialty Artists in alphabetical order.

expenditure

All six EPs released on Specialty in 1957 and 1958 include recordings by Little Richard. The first eleven LPs also come from this main phase of the label , two more followed when production was resumed in 1963. The 55 LP editions that came on the market between 1968 and 1988 are re-releases of already existing material. Specialty Records' preferred format, however, was the single. When Art Rupe began to release singles with Juke Box Records in 1944, they were still commonly pressed onto 78-record shellac records . It wasn't until 1959 that the 7-inch vinyl single replaced the last 78. The number blocks and publication dates are:

  • Juke Box 100-101 and 500-520 between 1944 and 1946
  • Specialty 300-499 between 1946 and 1954
  • Specialty 500-525 between 1946 and 1948
  • Specialty 701-718 between 1949 and 1953
  • Specialty 526-690 between 1954 and 1960
  • Specialty 691-693 in 1963
  • Specialty 694-700 between 1970 and 1972
  • Specialty 719-751 between 1971 and 1985
  • Specialty Gospel Series 800-934 between 1951 and 1974.

Specialty Records served the American market in several issue series . There were also country-specific specialty issues in Great Britain , Germany and the Netherlands . In these countries and many other countries, the specialty catalog was also sold through domestic labels as distributors and in the form of imports .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bill Dahl: Lloyd Price Biography. In: All Music Guide. Retrieved October 28, 2008 .
  2. ^ Charles White: The Life And Times Of Little Richard. The Authorized Biography , Omnibus Press 2003 (1984), London, New York, Paris, Sydney, Copenhagen, Berlin, Madrid, Tokyo, ISBN 0-7119-9761-6 . P. 57ff.
  3. ^ David Edwards, Mike Callahan: Specialty Album Discography. In: Both Sides Now Publications. Retrieved October 28, 2008 .
  4. ↑ Pete Hoppula: Art Rupe - Discography. In: Wang Dang Dula! Retrieved on October 28, 2008 (English, homepage at http://www.wangdangdula.com/ ).
  5. ↑ Specialty Records discography , accessed September 3, 2008
  6. ↑ John Garodkin: Little Richard Special . Mjoelner Edition 1985, Praestoe, ISBN 87-87721-14-7 . Pp. 34-42