DOCSLIB.ORG

African American Radio, WVON, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Chicago Jennifer Searcy Loyola University Chicago, [email protected]

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
African American Radio, WVON, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Chicago Jennifer Searcy Loyola University Chicago, Jennifer.Searcy@Gmail.Com View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Loyola eCommons Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2012 The oiceV of the Negro: African American Radio, WVON, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Chicago Jennifer Searcy Loyola University Chicago, [email protected] Recommended Citation Searcy, Jennifer, "The oV ice of the Negro: African American Radio, WVON, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Chicago" (2012). Dissertations. Paper 688. http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/688 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2013 Jennifer Searcy LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO THE VOICE OF THE NEGRO: AFRICAN AMERICAN RADIO, WVON, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS IN CHICAGO A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN AMERICAN HISTORY/PUBLIC HISTORY BY JENNIFER SEARCY CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2013 Copyright by Jennifer Searcy, 2013 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my dissertation committee for their feedback throughout the research and writing of this dissertation. As the chair, Dr. Christopher Manning provided critical insights and commentary which I hope has not only made me a better historian, but a better writer as well. As readers, Dr. Lewis Erenberg and Dr. Susan Hirsch provided invaluable advice throughout the editing process. Professionally and personally, I would also like to extend my gratitude to Dr. Robert Bucholz. In looking back at my graduate career, some of my fondest memories are of working as your teaching assistant, including those frenetic times when final grades were due. I would also like to thank the Loyola History Department Dissertation Writing Group for their feedback and in particular Kevin Kaufmann, who could always be counted on as a never-ending source of support and for a perfectly-timed “buck up” whenever I was ready to throw in the towel. Given the fleeting nature of radio and a lack of audio primary sources, I would like to thank those who assisted in locating materials for this project, including the staff members at the Loyola University Chicago Library, the Archives of African American Music and Culture at Indiana University and The HistoryMakers, the nation’s largest African American video oral history collection. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Robert Pruter for providing much-needed copies of 1960s playlists from WVON and other local radio stations. iii Personally, I would like to thank my siblings, Jeremy and Joshua, and my parents Ronald and Cathy, for their support. From sending me to Space Camp to helping me sort through a junkyard in the middle of an Ohio winter for parts for a middle school science fair experiment, my parents supported my whims and instilled in me a love of learning that has yet to diminish. To my husband, Michael, I have known you for almost half of my life and this dissertation has occupied a good many of those years. It would not have been completed without your support, and I am forever grateful that “you remembered me” from our first meeting. Finally, I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my son, Wesley. This dissertation is a study of many different voices, but from the moment you were born your voice forever became the sweetest one for me. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: “WHERE A MAN CAN BE A MAN”: THE GREAT MIGRATION AND THE CREATION OF BRONZEVILLE 24 The Great Migration and the Creation of Bronzeville 26 The Emergence of “Race Music” In Chicago 43 The Rise of African American Radio in Chicago 50 Blacks in White Bodies: The Creation of Chess Records 60 Conclusion 68 CHAPTER TWO: CREATING THE “CHESS BABY”: THE BIRTH OF WVON 71 Where Happy Folks Congregate: Transforming “WHFC” Into “WVON” 72 Let’s Go to Work! The Formatting and Programming of WVON 78 The Good Guys: WVON’S Disc Jockeys 89 Conclusion 114 CHAPTER THREE: “NOW RUN AND TELL THAT!” WVON AND THE POWER OF RADIO JOURNALISM DURING THE CHICAGO FREEDOM MOVEMENT 116 The Journalism of WVON 119 Wesley South’s Hotline 134 A Classroom without Walls: WVON and the Education of Chicago’s Black Community 151 Conclusion 161 CHAPTER FOUR: FERNS, FEZNECKIES, IVY LEAGUERS AND GOUSTERS: WVON AND AFRICAN AMERICAN TEEN RADIO IN CHICAGO DURING THE 1960s 164 The Rise of Teen Radio 167 Chicago’s Second Ghetto 171 The World’s Oldest Teenagers: Herb Kent and the Good Guys 178 Don’t Cut Your Own Throat: WVON and Youth-Focused Social Activism 205 Conclusion 219 CHAPTER FIVE: “MUSIC IS THE BACKBONE”: THE MUSIC OF WVON 221 “NY Didn’t Break Records – They Came Here” 223 “People Get Ready”: Civil Rights and Soul Music on WVON 248 “You’ve Got to Make it Baby!” The Business of Being a WVON Disc Jockey 254 Conclusion 269 v CONCLUSION 273 BIBLIOGRAPHY 296 VITA 309 vi INTRODUCTION According to WVON disc jockey Lucky Cordell, “You know a radio station is not the wires and the tubes and a transmitter. A radio station is people.”1 Throughout the 1960s, many listeners on the south and west sides of Chicago wholeheartedly agreed with Cordell’s sentiments towards the local radio station WVON 1450AM, “The Voice of the Negro.” Created and managed by Chess Records founders Leonard and Phil Chess, WVON served not only as a lucrative marketing outlet for the company’s music and for the rhythm and blues and soul industry as a whole, but also as a driving media force that provoked collective thought and action among the Chicago black community during the station’s most relevant years spanning from 1963, the year of its creation, to 1969, with the unexpected death of Leonard Chess. WVON, the focus of this dissertation, provides an excellent opportunity to examine how radio served as an outlet for the concerns of Chicago African Americans, and this study can serve as a formative model for future investigations in how popular culture interacted with the Civil Rights Movement in urban areas. 1 Moses “Lucky” Cordell. interview by Alexis Gillespie, transcript, June 14, 1995, Radio Smithsonian: Black Radio Project Collection, Archives of African American Music and Culture, Bloomington, Indiana 1 2 The model for radio analysis established by communications and media theorist Marshall McLuhan can be applied to WVON. In his best-selling 1964 study Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, McLuhan argued that for the first time in global history, “by means of fragmentary and mechanical technologies, the Western World is imploding” as electronic media such as radio and television brought its inhabitants closer together.2 For McLuhan, electronic media unified societies by importing far-flung events into the daily lives of its consumers, thus created a shared consciousness about the world around them. Media also served as an “extension of man” and lengthened man’s ability to see, hear, feel, and touch the world around them by presenting information closer and quicker than ever before in human history. He contended that “It is the persistent theme of this book that all technologies are extensions of our physical and nervous systems to increase power and speed.”3 His mantra was “the medium is the message,” that is the medium, or the way and form in which a message is transmitted, is just as important as its content. The new forms of media introduced in the twentieth century, including telephone, radio, and television, inundated multiple senses with information simultaneously. As a result of this implosion, McLuhan argued that “the globe is no more than a village. Its electric speed in bringing all social and political functions together in a sudden 2Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw Hill and Company, 1964), 3. 3 Ibid, 90. 3 implosion has heightened human awareness to an intense degree.”4 As a result of these new forms of electronic media that immediately transmitted information, “Any highway eatery with its TV set, newspaper and magazine is as cosmopolitan as New York or Paris.”5 Radio’s ability to quickly transmit content aided in the unification of its listeners. During the Civil Rights Movement and the burgeoning Black Nationalism movement of the 1960s, WVON served as unifying force for Chicago’s African American community. Through this medium, which broadcast a combination of racially conscious rhythm and blues and soul music, disc jockeys who identified with the composition of the African American community encouraged a pro-Civil Rights agenda; through journalistic offerings that discussed and featured prominent Civil Rights agendas and leaders, WVON became a rallying point for black Americans for demanding improved conditions not only locally in Chicago, but also across the nation. On the surface, WVON fulfilled two goals, that of financial gain for the owners and the establishment of a black radio station in Chicago. This study, however, will focus on the progressive-mindedness of Leonard Chess and what role his mindset played in his decision to create WVON. As his son Marshall Chess remembers, “He had a real affinity and sensitivity to black people. I think in some way, all the Chesses were blacks in white bodies.” As previously explored by historian Lewis Erenberg, African Americans and Jews experienced a cultural connection because “both groups felt a deep woe, had 4 Ibid, 5.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Definitive Collection of Stax Records' Singles to Be
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: DEFINITIVE COLLECTION OF STAX RECORDS’ SINGLES TO BE REISSUED Two volumes, due out December 16, 2014 and Spring 2015, cover 1968-1975. Volumes to be made available digitally for first time. LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Concord Music Group and Stax Records are proud to announce the digital release and physical reissue of two comprehensive box set titles: The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles, Vol. 2: 1968-1971 and The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles, Vol. 3: 1972-1975. Originally released in 1993 and 1994, respectively, these two compilations will be re-released back into the physical market in compact and sleek new packaging. Each set includes full-color booklets with in-depth essays by Stax historian and compilations co- producer Rob Bowman. The volumes feature stalwart Stax R&B artists including Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor, Carla Thomas, the Bar-Kays and William Bell, as well as bluesmen Little Milton, Albert King and Little Sonny, and “second generation” Stax hitmakers like Jean Knight, the Soul Children, Kim Weston, the Temprees, and Mel & Tim. Many of the tracks included in these collections will be made available digitally for the very first time. The story of the great Memphis soul label Stax/Volt can be divided into two distinct eras: the period from 1959 through the beginning of 1968, when the company was distributed by Atlantic and was developing its influential sound and image (chronicled in acclaimed 9-CD box set The Complete Stax/Volt Singles 1959-1968, released by Atlantic in 1991); and the post-Atlantic years, from May 1968 through the end of 1975, when Stax/Volt began its transition from a small, down-home enterprise to a corporate soul powerhouse.
    [Show full text]
  • Aristocrat/Chess Records by Frank Daniels
    Aristocrat/Chess Records by Frank Daniels When Aristocrat Records began in early April, 1947, the firm had several partners. The label was going to feature all sorts of musicians – not just pop, or country, or jazz. By September they hired Leonard Chess to help sell their singles, and by the end of the year several of the partners had gone away. The musicians’ union strike in 1948 probably drove some of the others away, so that by 1949 Evelyn Aron and Leonard Chess were basically running the show by themselves. Aron joined Art Spiegel that year in forming American Distributing, and Phil Chess wound up joining Leonard. By spring, 1950, they were preparing for a name change to Chess Records. As if they were foretelling the future, some of the greatest artists on the label were in their blues stable – including the always- noteworthy Muddy Waters, the father of (modern) Chicago blues. Muddy had recorded unreleased material for Columbia and had just released one record for Ballen’s 20th Century label, the B-side of a single. That had been a primitive version of his song, “Mean Red Spider,” a record that would be rerecorded for Aristocrat. As soon as his first Aristocrat single hit (in February, 1948), Muddy was a blues legend. When Aristocrat morphed into Chess, right away he released the song that gave the Rolling Stones their name (7/15/50). Aristocrat Records had plenty of talent on the label, but their blues artists piqued the most interest, and these were the artists that Chess was most interested in promoting.
    [Show full text]
  • According to Chaim Weizmann's
    Motal Pol. Motol, Bel. Моталь, [We] had our own house – one storey, with seven rooms and a kitchen some acres of land, chickens, two cows, a vegetable garden, a few – מאָטעלע .Yid fruit trees. So we had a supply of milk, and sometimes butter; we had fruit and vegetables in season; we had enough bread – which my mother baked herself; we had fish, and we had meat once a week – on the Sabbath. And there was always plenty of fresh air. Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error. The Autobiography, Philadelphia 1949 Hebrew greeting ¶ Motal, the into the Slonim Province, then into the birthplace and childhood home of Lithuania Governorate, and from 1801, it Chaim Weizmann, the first president was made part of the Grodno Province of of Israel, is probably the only town in the Russian Empire. Belarus that has a sign with its name in Hebrew posted by the road leading out of The Jews of Motal ¶ In 1562, town. ¶ The earliest written mention of “a Jewish landlord and tax collector from Motal is found in the documents of the Kobryn Favish Yeskovich,” who leased Lithuanian Metrica from 1422, where the right to collect taxes on merchandise, it was referred to as a private estate in complained to Savostian Druzhylovitski the Principality of Pinsk. In 1520, it was that the ruler of the district did not allow the property of Prince Fyodor Ivanovich him to collect taxes in his town of Motal Yaroslavich, who later donated it to the and in the neighbouring villages. This Orthodox Church of the Assumption of document suggests that Jews collecting the Blessed Virgin Mary in Leszno.
    [Show full text]
  • “Bo Diddley” and “I'm a Man” (1955)
    “Bo Diddley” and “I’m a Man” (1955) Added to the National Registry: 2011 Essay by Ed Komara (guest post)* Bo Diddley While waiting in Bo Diddley’s house to conduct an interview for the February 12, 1987 issue of “Rolling Stone,” journalist Kurt Loder noticed a poster. “If You Think Rock and Roll Started With Elvis,” it proclaimed, “You Don’t Know Diddley.” This statement seems exaggerated, but upon listening to Diddley’s April 1955 debut 78 on Checker 814, “Bo Diddley” backed with “I’m A Man,” it becomes apt, perhaps even understated. Bo Diddley (1928-2008) described his own place in music history to Loder. “People wouldn’t even bother with no stuff like ‘Bo Diddley’ and ‘I’m A Man’ and stuff like that ten years earlier [circa 1945] or even a year earlier [1954]. Then Leonard and Phil Chess decided to take a chance, and suddenly a whole different scene, a different kind of music, came in. And that was the beginning of rock and roll.” The composer credit for Checker 814 reads “E. McDaniels,” and there begins the tale. Bo Diddley was born Ellas Otha Bates in McComb, Mississippi on December 30, 1928 to a teenage mother and her local boyfriend. He was raised, however, by his maternal first cousin, Gussie McDaniel, to whom he was taken to Chicago, and given her surname McDaniel. He grew up on the South Side of the city, where he learned violin, trombone and, at age 12, the guitar. Before long, he was playing for change on the local streets.
    [Show full text]
  • Pre-Lesson Reading Chess Set Still Sings the Blues
    ! ! Pre-Lesson Activity - “Chess Set Still Sings The Blues: Marshall Chess and Chess Records” JUST OVER 50 YEARS AGO, brothers Phil and Leonard Chess, two industrious Polish immigrants in Chicago, tentatively established what would become the most famous blues label in the USA. The impact of the music they released radically shaped the musical landscape of the next two decades. The Chess Story: 1947-1975, a new 15-CD box-set, is a hefty testament to their huge legacy. Marshall Chess, Leonard's son, is a passionate advocate of the label. Describing the box- set today, he admits, "It makes me so proud to be a Chess!" This pride is the result of two intrepid trips made in the first half of the 20th century. Indeed, the very foundations of Chicago's Chess Records were built by two, seemingly quite distinct, groups of people, both of whom were raised in impoverished rural areas far from this dynamic industrial city. In the 1930s and '40s, hundreds of thousands of African-Americans in the Southern states caught the Illinois Central Railway up to Chicago, desperate to escape the "southern hospitality" of the Deep South. Today, Marshall Chess recalls, "A certain kind of temperament came up to Chicago from Mississippi. Mississippi was deep slavery roots. They were living on old plantations. Those places didn't have electricity." Marshall Chess's family in Poland might not have suffered from racism, but they shared similar penniless circumstances to these black Americans. In their Polish village, Leonard Chess and his family had no electricity, heating or running water.
    [Show full text]
  • The Impressions, Circa 1960: Clockwise from Top: Fred Cash, Richard Brooks> Curtis Mayfield, Arthur Brooks, and Sam (Pooden
    The Impressions, circa 1960: Clockwise from top: Fred Cash, Richard Brooks> Curtis Mayfield, Arthur Brooks, and Sam (Pooden. Inset: Original lead singer Jerry Butler. PERFORMERS Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions BY J O E M cE W E N from the union of two friends, Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield of Chicago, Illinois. The two had sung together in church as adolescents, and had traveled with the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers and the Traveling Souls Spiritual Church. It was Butler who con­ vinced his friend Mayfield to leave his own struggling group, the Alfatones, and join him, Sam Gooden, and brothers Richard and Arthur Brooks— the remnants of another strug­ gling vocal group called the Roosters. According to legend, an impressive performance at Major Lance, Walter Jackson, and Jan Bradley; he also a Chicago fashion show brought the quintet to the at­ wrote music that seemed to speak for the entire civil tention of Falcon Records, and their debut single was rights movement. A succession of singles that began in recorded shortly thereafter. “For Your 1964 with “Keep On Pushing” and Precious Love” by “The Impressions SELECTED the moody masterpiece “People Get featuring Jerry Butler” (as the label DISCOGRAPHY Ready” stretched through such exu­ read) was dominated by Butler’s reso­ berant wellsprings of inspiration as nant baritone lead, while Mayfield’s For Your Precious Love.......................... Impressions “We’re A Winner” and Mayfield solo (July 1958, Falcon-Abner) fragile tenor wailed innocently in the recordings like “(Don’t Worry) If background. Several follow-ups He Will Break Your Heart......................Jerry Butler There’s A Hell Below We’re All Going (October 1960, Veejay) failed, Butler left to pursue a solo ca­ To Go” and “Move On Up,” placing reer, and the Impressions floundered.
    [Show full text]
  • The Jody Williams Story
    THE JODY WILLIAMS STORY Howlin’ Wolf, Jody Williams, Earl Phillips and Hubert Sumlin. Chicago circa mid 1950s. From the B&R Archives. Interview by Mike Stephenson y name is Joseph Leon Williams, that’s the styles because some of the people who were around also impressed me. People who I played with I’d pick up a little bit here and there because at that name my mother gave me. I’ve been called age I was trying to learn all I could. When I got started on guitar, Bo Diddley a little of everything over the years, but taught me how to tune the guitar to an open E. He taught me how to play the M bass background but his playing was limited, I wanted to learn more. I was Jody is a nickname. When I started recording, if hungry for knowledge on the guitar so I would hang around in the clubs and they had put Joe Williams on the record they might stuff like that. You could say I was getting on the job training. have confused me with the singer Joe Williams I started to come into contact with more and more people. I don’t recall how I got into the studio but I went to Chess Studios first around 1956. Willie Dixon who was with Count Basie! So people would have helped me. This is the guy who wrote many tunes, matter of fact he wrote the been buying his recordings thinking it was me and first tune that I recorded and he’s playing on it – ‘Lookin’ For My Baby’ (Blue Lake 116).
    [Show full text]
  • Mavis Staples 1
    Mavis Staples Feb. 22, 2002 [Chicago Sun-Times reporter Dave Hoekstra recounts his experience as a first-time writer and producer on the Chicago Stories documentary "The Staple Singers." Hoekstra's deep respect for the group - headed by late patriarch Roebuck "Pops" Staples - is rooted in the Staples' dedication to both the civil rights movement and their art.] By Dave Hoekstra The Staple Singers are jewels in the crown of goodwill. Over the past 18 years I have discovered the many genuine dimensions of the Chicago-based family that always sang with a message. In 1984, I interviewed patriarch Roebuck "Pops" Staples in his Calumet City apartment for the Suburban Sun-Times. I wrote his obituary in 2000. And over the years at the Sun-Times I profiled lead singer Mavis Staples and wrote about the family's role in the civil rights movement, in Chicago's gospel community and their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. These stories evolved into a friendship that led to the making of a documentary on the Staple Singers, which I produced and co-wrote with Jamie Ceaser, another longtime friend. The documentary, part of the "Chicago Stories" series. The half-hour program includes rare footage of the Staples and interviews with family members Pops, Mavis, Pervis and Yvonne, as well as Harry Belafonte, Jerry Butler, Gene Chandler, Bob Dylan, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Chicago radio veteran Herb Kent, Natalie Merchant, gospel legend Albertina Walker and gospel star BeBe Winans. It's narrated by Grammy-winning musician and vocalist Bonnie Raitt, who collaborated with Pops on his "Peace to the Neighborhood" album.
    [Show full text]
  • Stax Reissues 'Boy Meets Girl: Classic Soul' Duets
    PRLog - Global Press Release Distribution Stax Reissues 'Boy Meets Girl: Classic Soul' Duets Duets include Eddie Floyd & Mavis Staples, William Bell & Carla Thomas, Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett, and a rare one from Dusty Springfield & Spencer Davis July 20, 2009 - PRLog -- LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Stax Records through Concord Music Group will reissue its 1969 compilation Boy Meets Girl, which paired Stax male and female artists for a set of classic duets. Featured are many of the greatest names in soul music including Johnnie Taylor, Eddie Floyd, Pervis Staples, Carla Thomas, William Bell, Mavis Staples and Cleotha Staples. The reissue adds two rare duets of Bell and Booker T. Jones’ ”Private Number,” by Bell and Judy Clay, and by Dusty Springfield and Spencer Davis. The latter version was previously available only on a long out-of-print mid-‘80s Takoma Records release. The album is slated for a street date of August 18, 2009. “Duets have always been an integral part of the history of soul music,” writes Stax historian Rob Bowman in his liner notes, “Boy Meets Girl provides a vehicle for several interesting examples of the medium cut for the mighty Stax Records.” Most of Boy Meets Girl was recorded in 1969 at the suggestion of Stax president Al Bell, who felt Stax should progress from a singles label to an album-oriented label. A variety of producers oversaw the various tracks including Bell himself, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. Jones, Don Davis, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Randy Jackson, Homer Banks and Don Nix. The 18-track set begins with the Bell-Clay “Private Number”; next, Bell and Mavis Staples reprise the Sam & Dave hit “I Thank You”; Eddie Floyd and Mavis Staples tackle Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart”; Johnnie Taylor and Carla Thomas perform “Just Keep On Loving Me”; and Eddie Floyd and Mavis Staples perform Floyd and Booker T.
    [Show full text]
  • Biographical Description for the Historymakers® Video Oral History with Pervis Spann
    Biographical Description for The HistoryMakers® Video Oral History with Pervis Spann PERSON Spann, Pervis, 1932- Alternative Names: Pervis Spann; Life Dates: August 16, 1932- Place of Birth: Itta Bena, Mississippi, USA Work: Chicago, IL Occupations: Radio Personality; Broadcast Chief Executive Biographical Note Born in Itta Bena, Mississippi, on August 16, 1932, Pervis Spann distinguished himself as a broadcaster, exposing generations to the blues. Spann worked hard from an early age, caring for his mother after she suffered a stroke. At age 14, he managed the Dixie Theater, a local all-black theater. In 1949, he moved with his mother and sister to Battle Creek, Michigan. However, Spann soon left to work in Gary, Indiana. Spann enlisted in the Army toward the Gary, Indiana. Spann enlisted in the Army toward the end of the Korean War. After completing his service, he moved to Chicago and settled down. He became interested in broadcasting and attended the Midway Television Institute and the Midwestern Broadcasting School on the G.I. Bill. In the 1950s, Spann was granted a four-hour overnight time slot on WOPA. In 1960, he organized his first concert, showcasing B.B. King and Junior Parker. In 1963, Phil and Leonard Chess bought the radio station, which became WVON, a 24-hour blues station. Spann became the "all-night blues man." He gained notoriety with an on-air 87-hour "sleepless sit-in," raising money for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Spann widened his sphere of influence during the 1960s, and began managing talented performers such as B.B. King. He booked major acts, including the Jackson 5 and Aretha Franklin.
    [Show full text]
  • Wattstax: “Black Woodstock” and the Legendary Film It
    Angeles headed by Forest Hamilton, the son of jazz drum- mer Chico Hamilton. Stax West was conceived with a man- WATTSTAX: date that included the promotion and marketing of existing Stax products, the ferreting out of untapped regional talent, and the establishment of Stax within Hollywood’s motion “BLACK picture and television industries. According to John KaSandra, one of Stax’s West Coast– based artists, Wattstax began in March of 1972 WOODSTOCK” when “I came down [to the L.A. office] with an idea that we’d have a black Woodstock.” Seven years earlier, to the chanting of “burn, baby, burn,” a sizable section of the pre- dominantly black Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles had AND THE been destroyed by fire during the first of the 1960s race riots (referred to as “rebellions” within the community). The Watts Summer Festival had been established to commem- LEGENDARY orate the rebellions and raise money for the ailing commu- nity. It was Hamilton’s idea that Stax should be involved in the 1972 festival for promotional purposes, and he had not FILM IT forgotten KaSandra’s “black Woodstock” idea. On August 20, 1972, that notion blossomed into an epic one- day festival at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The day INSPIRED opened with Reverend Jesse Jackson leading the audience in a proclamation of the black litany, “I Am Somebody,” followed by Kim Weston singing the black national anthem, by Rob Bowman “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” It closed with Isaac Hayes as Black Moses embodying the strength, beauty, and spiritu- ality of contemporary black culture.
    [Show full text]
  • Transforming Southern Soul: an Examination of Stax Fax and Stax
    Transforming Southern Soul: An Examination of Stax Fax and Stax Records During the Late 1960s Chandler Vaught Rhodes Institute for Regional Studies 2017 Vaught 2 Special Thanks to Al Bell Deanie Parker Jeff Kollath Jennifer Campbell And Dr. Charles Hughes Vaught 3 In the early 1960s Deanie Parker moved from Ironton, Ohio to Memphis, Tennessee in order to finish high school and be with her mother, who was living in the city at the time. She attended Hamilton High School, where future star Carla Thomas would also graduate from, and became the lead female vocalist for a student band.1 Encouraged by the school’s glee club instructor, the group took part in a Beale Street music competition for which the first place prize was an opportunity to audition for Stax Records. “And we won that prize,” Parker recalls, “So that was how I managed to get into Stax Records and to learn what it was they did in that old Capitol Theater that had been converted into a recording company. Which was behind Satellite Record Shop on McLemore at College.”2 Though Deanie would not go on to become a hit musician, she would become an integral part of Stax Records. In 1965 Jim Stewart, the president of Stax, hired Deanie as the company’s first publicist. The ultimate goal of her job was to package and advertise the product (the songs and artists of Stax) to both the DJs who played their music and the general public as a whole.3 In the fall of 1968 a new marketing tool was developed that would aid her in this endeavor, Stax’s very own magazine called Stax Fax.
    [Show full text]