Starday
| Starday Records | |
|---|---|
 Logo of the label |
|
| Active years | 1953 to 1968 |
| founder | Harold W. Dailey, Jack Starnes |
| Seat | Houston, Texas - later Madison, Tennessee |
| Sub-label | Dixie Records , Nashville Records |
| Genre (s) | Country , bluegrass , rockabilly |
Starday was the name of an independent label specializing in country and bluegrass music that was founded in 1953 and made country stars such as Willie Nelson , George Jones and Roger Miller famous.
history
founding
Label founder Jack Starnes initially managed country singers like Lefty Frizzell , with whom he signed a managerial contract on January 26, 1950. At the same time, he worked in his nightclub as a booking agent for artists and talent scouts. In June 1953 he founded the company Starday Records in Beaumont , Texas together with the record wholesaler Harold "Pappy" Daily with start-up capital of 1000 dollars . The company name is made up of the first letters of the surname of the owner: Star nes and Da il y .
The small independent label made a name for itself in its founding phase with the so-called East Texas Honky Tonk . The first single in the Starday catalog was Mary Jo Chelette's Gee It's Tough To Be Thirteen / Cat Fishing (Starday 101), which was released on July 4, 1953. English teacher Arlie Duff recorded You All Come (Starday 104) in May 1953 , which, at number seven on the country charts, brought early success for the small label. One of the first artists was Blacky Crawford, who played as lead guitarist in the sessions for Duff and made recordings for Coral Records with his Western Cherokees from December 4, 1951 , before moving to Starday in May 1953.
Ascent
Don F. Pierce joined the label in September 1953 with $ 333 as a 1/3 stake and became head of the label, while the other co-owners took care of administration, production and sales. With Pierce, who had previously worked at 4 Star Records in Pasadena , the new business idea of "custom pressing" came to Starday. In June 1955, Pierce and Daily acquired the shares in Starnes, who had previously discovered George Jones in his nightclub. Jones was the label's first artist to later become a country star. Jones had initially played rhythm guitar in the Arlie Duff recording sessions. George Jones' first single was No Money in This Deal (# 130), recorded in Starne's living room on January 19, 1954. Jones became the label's most successful interpreter between 1954 and 1958. On August 25, 1955, his Why Baby Why was recorded, which was his first hit with a number four in the country charts, successfully covered by Webb Pierce & Red Sovine in a duet (rank 1 for 4 weeks). Jones brought more country hits with What Am I Worth (recorded on August 27, 1955; # 7), You Gotta be my Baby (March 1956; # 7), Yearning (duet with Jeanette Hicks, August 1956; # 10) or Just One More (August 1956; # 3) out. In March 1956 he was born in the Goldstar Studios (Houston) with Rock it under the pseudonym Thumper Jones, one of the most important rockabilly titles ever, in November 1956 Jones released his first Starday LP for the label. Jones should become one of the great country stars through Starday, who made recordings in 2010.
Daily had now discovered Roger Miller in October 1957, whose first records were released under the Mercury-Starday Records label. The reason was the label cooperation with Mercury Records that came into force on January 1, 1957 , but was dissolved again in July 1958. The content of the collaboration was that Starday took over the entire country department of Mercury and released records of the country artists who were previously under contract with Mercury under the new label name Mercury-Starday . One of the first publications on the combined labels was Leon Payne's own composition Lumberjack , which was released on February 12, 1957. When the still completely unknown country singer Willie Nelson found out about this, he contacted Mercury-Starday. Don Pierce initially saw little potential in the singer, but offered him in May 1957 to record the single and have 300 copies pressed. In May 1957 he took the title No Place For Me / Lumberjack for the label catalog on the radio station KVAN in Vancouver, which were published within the Starday Custom series (45-628) and were his first recordings at all. The single is said to have sold 3,500 copies.
The unsystematic publication of singles as "Starday", "Starday-Mercury" or just "Mercury" makes it difficult for historians to assign them. In any case, baritone Jimmie Skinner was a Starday discovery and sang his own composition I Found my Girl in the USA under the Mercury brand , which was released on September 10, 1957 and climbed to number five on the country charts. Jimmy Dean & His Texas Wildcats were already with other record labels when they joined Starday in April 1957. However, their numerous recordings did not make it into the charts. The last official single under the short-term liaison with Mercury was the Stanley Brothers with A Life of Sorrow , released on January 15, 1958. Mercury took over after the breakup, George Jones, who was still produced by Pappy Daily. Mercury was lucky with the division they found, because George Jones achieved first place in the country charts for the first time with White Lightning , a fast-paced composition by Big Bopper . Impending conflicts of interest between a Daily producing for Mercury and its stake in Starday had to be resolved. Therefore, Don Pierce acquired the company shares from Daily in July 1958, so that he rose to the sole owner. In June 1960, Pierce set up his own recording studio, Starday Sound Studios in Nashville , which Red Sovine also regularly booked.
Starday was able to solidify its reputation as a bluegrass label by 1959, in the same year Pierce was named Man of the Year in the country music category by Billboard magazine . In November 1961 Arthur Smith came to the label, who tried with the Guitar Boogie Twist in January 1962 to build on the success of his instrumental classic Guitar Boogie , which was recorded in September 1944 . Also Dottie West began at Starday in his new recording studio in September 1960, but was their first big hits in 1963 at RCA Records under producer Chet Atkins celebrate. Under sole owner Pierce, numerous hits for Starday in the country sector were created, such as Black Land Farmer by Frankie Miller (published March 9, 1959; ranked 5), the biggest hit in the Starday catalog Alabam by Cowboy Copas (recorded February 5, 1960; 12 weeks in 1st place) or Giddyup Go by Red Sovine (4th August 1965; 6 weeks 1st place). When Starday merged with King Records in October 1968 , Pierce's stake in Starday had grown to $ 2 million.
Starday founded the sublabel Nashville Records in September 1963 , whose catalog consisted of country singers such as Bill Clifton or Red Sovine and also published bluegrass recordings. The big record companies almost completely ignored these fringes and instead focused on marketing the more commercial Nashville sound .
The End
In October 1968, after the death of Sydney King, his label King Records was merged from Starday to Starday-King Records and sold to LIN Broadcasting for five million dollars in the same month. In 1971 the Starday King catalog went to Leiber & Stollers Tennessee Recording & Publishing. In 1975 the Starday master tapes were sold to Moe Lytle by GML Inc. ( Gusto Records ) in Nashville for $ 375,000 . Since then, the Starday catalog has been used for compilations of historical country songs. In July 1978, Red Sovine brought out the song Teddy Bear (Starday / Gusto 142), which was first published in May 1976 , a trucker song that became a number one hit in the country charts .
Starday Package Deal
The so-called Starday Package Deal was a sales idea that Don Pierce brought with him in 1955. Pierce had previously worked for Four Star Records in California , and shortly before that Four Star had introduced the Other People (OP ) series. This program was about allowing artists to send in songs they recorded themselves along with the label name they wanted. The record company then pressed records with an edition of 100 to 500 pieces and sent them to the artist who could now sell the records. In this way, Willie Nelson's first single was sold under the label name Willie Nelson Label .
What started as a small project in 1955 quickly turned out to be very lucrative for Starday. Although other labels - such as Four Star, RCA Victor and Columbia Records - also offered this service, the Stardays Package Deal developed into a success. With the success of rock and roll there were enough musicians wanting to make records and turned to Starday.
The publications of the Package Deal were published in a separate series, the catalog numbers of which began at 500 in 1955 and ended at over 1100 in the mid-1960s, each with the prefix 45 in front of it. If no specific label name was given, the songs appeared on the Starday label (from 1958 then on Dixie).
Artists publishing under Starday and Nashville (selection) not mentioned in the article
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Billboard Magazine, September 15, 1951, p. 69.
- ^ Paul Kingsbury, The Encyclopedia of Country Music , 1998, p. 504.
- ↑ John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers , 2009 S. 284th
- ↑ Malcolm Chapman / Pascal Perrault / Phillip Tricker / Al Turner / Dave Sax: Introduction , Starday Custom Series, October 29, 2009, accessed on August 11, 2017.
- ^ Nathan D. Gibson / Don Pierce, The Starday Story: The House That Country Music Built , 2011, p. 65.
- ^ History link via Willie Nelson
- ^ Nathan D. Gibson / Don Pierce, The Starday Story: The House That Country Music Built , 2011, p. 69.
- ↑ At Take 11, the double bass player Buddy Killen's finger skin came off, so the decision was made for Take 3.
- ^ Andy Bradley / Charles Roger Wood, House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star / Sugar Hill Recording Studios , 2010, p. 69.
- ↑ John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers , 2009 S. 287th
- ↑ John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers , 2009 S. 148th