NON P E I F 0 R E N S Ralph B ass BY HARRY W E I N G E R /ALPH BASS WAS A CO-CREATOR of some of the indisputable landmarks of rock & roll: producer of and/or witness to “Call It Stormy Monday” (T-Bone Walker), “Sixty-Minute Man” (the Dominoes), “Sleep” (Earl Bostic), “Work With Me, Annie” (Hank Ballard & the Midnighters), “Please Please Please” (James Brown), and so many more. His life spans five decades of music and stints with such pioneering indie labels as Black & White, Savoy, King, and Chess. Yet for all of the artists he nurtured and the labels he Flushed with this sudden success, Bass launched his toiled for, a Ralph Bass production was almost invisible. He own Bop label. His most famous date was a two-part live sax inspired seemingly effortless performances from his vocalists battle between Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray titled “The and musicians in which the overriding Chase” and “The Hunt.” Bass later concern was for pure feeling, “I didn’t RALPH BASS founded Portrait Records and captured give a shit about technique,” he says to­ PICKS SIX significant performances by Errol Gamer. day. “To hell with bad notes. They had to Bass found his first consistent suc­ T-Bone Walker, Call It Stormy Monday feel it. I had to feel it.” (1947, Black & White, #5 R&B) cess with Herman Lubinsky’s Savoy Part Italian, part Jew, all hipster-hus­ “A landmark, and I was no longer andvice. It gave me Records from 1948 to 1951. The hits tler, Ralph Bass was born May 1, the confidm ceto go on my own. ” flowed freely from Big Jay McNeely, in the Bronx and became a child violin Brownie McGee, Little Esther Phillips, Little Esther Phillips, Double Crossing Blues and the Johnny Otis Orchestra. prodigy who played his first concert at (lQ^S^Savoy, #1 R&B) the age of six. But one night uptown at “Cut as a demo, no title. I gave Esther $i$S ffan d the In 1951, King Records founder Syd the height of the jazz age changed him Robins, who were signing backup, — ‘Thanks, Nathan offered Bass the Federal sub­ forever. kids.’ I never thought Herman Lubinsky would put it sidiary, and he turned out one chart-top­ “Chick Webb was playing,” Bass out!” ping R&B hit after another. Two of his recalls,. ‘T said to my friends, ‘Listen to ’ Little Willie Littlefield, K .C . Lovin a/k/a biggest, the Dominoes’ “Sixty-Minute that music! Look at those dancers!”’ Kansas City (1952, Federal) Man” and Hank Ballard & the Mid­ Uprooted to the West Coast a few “Wintertime, KansasCity, asleep in thy hotel near the nighters’ “Work With Me, Annie,” be­ years later, Bass took a job at a Los Ange­ Flame Bar. At 4 a m. a dancer bangs on my door to came embroiled in censorship battles. “It borrow five bucks for a room —she’s gotta have her was a racial thing,” Bass says. “‘Makin’ les manufacturing plant. The company man, only he lives with his mother. What the hell, 1 go picnics featured records in lieu of live with her and throw snowballs at Us window, drive Whoopee’ was considered cute, but a music, and Ralph became the designated them back and pay fo r the room. A few months later, I black record that white people didn’t un­ DJ. He thought he could do better than meet Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and tell them the derstand, that was banned.” the sides he played, and Was soon given story.” Thus: “Kansas ($&,. Kansas City here I Bass stayed with King/Federal for . come/They got a cra&y way of lovin’ there, and I’m the chance to prove it by Paul Reiner, the gonna get me some. ” seven years. He signed James Brown, owner of Black & White Records. Bass driving all night through a violent rain­ was soon cutting the likes of Lena Home, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters, Work W ith storm to beat Leonard Chess to the deal. Ivie Anderson, Slim Gaillard, and T-Bone M e, A nnie and A nnie H ad A Baby He witnessed the collapse of the color (1954, Federal, both #1 R&B) barrier, the creation of Hank Ballard’s Walker. But it took a fluke hit to break “The original title was ‘Sock It To Me, Maddy’—back him out of the pack. then, too nasty. But ‘work with it’ was a phrase evggyg. original “Twist,” and the rise of payola. In late 1947, Bass and jump-jazzman body was throwing out. Annie was engineer Eddie Living out of suitcases, Bass remained a Jack McVea cut eight sides in three hours Smith's wife’s name. She was pregnant and about to driven soul even when his own family be­ at L.A.’s Radio Recorders. ‘With one more drop—when she did, we thought o f the follow-up. ” came a casualty of his fervor. to go and only a few minutes left,” Bass James Brown & the Flames, Chess hired him in 1958, and for the says, “the guys ran down a comedy rou­ Please Please Please (1956, Federal, #5 R&B) next 18 years Ralph Bass survived chang­ tine called ‘Open The Door, Richard!’— “Someone gave me their demo on the road. I didn’t ing popular taste with notable successes: and not*v^r^ well, I thought, but there even know who the lead singer was. All I wanted was Etta James, Moms Mabley, Sonny Boy that song. 5yd Nathan tried to fire me, said it was the Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, and Muddy was no time to do it over. Next thing I worst piece o f shit he’d ever heard!” knew, I was sitting on a national pheno­ Waters, as well as gospel greats the menon.” “Open The Door, Richard!” Etta James, All I Could Do Was Cry Violinaires, and the Soul Stirrers. touched off an American craze. The song (1960, Argo, #2 R&B) “All I ever wanted was the musicians’ went to Number Three Pop and was a “One take, and Etta was crying her eyes out for real. respect,” says Ralph Bass. ’’And to tell you The band wanted to doitovfir! I told them, forget it. I factor in Capitol’s purchase of Black & mean, how much more soul am id I get from a ringer?” the truth, I didn’t give a damn if whites White. ever bought my records!” P A G E 2 9 Chess Master: iVillk Dixon (center)^^|r an<Mriends at the 1989 la^jmarking of the ChessP Studios, 2120 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago. HE HISTORY OF ^ rock & roll is to a — great extent the history of particular musical elements associated with geo­ graphic regions and/or inde­ pendent record labels. The best-remembered proponents of these “sounds”— of Memphis, of Detroit, of New Orleans— are the marquee performers who brought the sound to the public, and the producers who served as catalysts for the stars’ success. But another, less prom­ inent component in the equation was the studio environment, its session musicians and engineers. Imagine Motown without Hol- land-Dozier-Holland and the Funk Brothers house band, or Stax without the MGs and the Memphis Horns. .and the list goes on. The celebrated “sound” of Chess Records was really a succession of sounds. From its inception in 1947 as Aristocrat to its demise in the mid-’70s, the Chicago-based company founded by Leonard and Phil The Chess Sìmdio Scene of Chicago by Don Snowden “Those studio musicians were moving like Chess mirrored the changing times Chess sessions from 1955 to 1960. with its output of jump blues, mod­ “There is the producer in the theatri­ em jazz, gospel, Delta-rooted Ckt- , cal sense, who puts together the cago blues, vocal-group R&B, classic money and hires the musicians. rock & roll, comedy, and soul music. There’s the producer on the session Chess’ dominance in Chicago who says, ‘The tempo’s wrong, we’re over the years allowed the company going to do it a little faster.’ And to recmit session players from the there’s the producer who says, ‘Okay, cream of the Windy City’s freelance that’s it, next case.’ musicians. Drummer A1 Duncan and “Leonard Chess functioned fre­ bassist Louis Satterfield were regulars quently and very well as the theatrical in the pit band of the Regal Theater form of producer. He was then per­ in the early ’60s. Phil Upchurch was fectly content to let the people on the high school buddies with Curtis floor do the job. .Will [Dixon] would Mayfield, played on many early Im­ run ’em off in a comer somewhere pressions tracks, and handled the and rehearse them a bit, and we’d do guitar when the Motown rhythm sec­ the session. tion rolled into Veejay to cut John ■ “We just continued to churn out Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom.” Gene this stuff year after year, including “Daddy G” Barge brought his saxo- some of the most horrible stuff, to my phonic legacy (including Chuck taste, I’ve ever m n across, and some Willis’ “The Stroll” and all of Gary stuff that was absolutely wonderful. U.S. Bonds’s hits) from Norfolk, Vir­ There are things like ‘Back In The. ginia to produce, arrange, and per­ ¡USA and ‘I’m A Man’ that you know form on Chess sides by Little Milton are classics when you cut them. You and Etta James.