Miss Rhythm" Speaks out Only Difference Is That This Sort of Lyric Then Was Off in a Corner by Itself
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10 THE ROCK HISTORY READER The major diskeries, with the apparently same disregard as to where the blue notes may fall, are as guilty. Guiltier, perhaps, considering the greater obligation-their maturer backgrounds-their time-honored relations with the record-buying public. 3 The most casual look at the current crop of "lyrics" must tell even the most naive that dirty postcards have been translated into songs. Compared to some of the language that loosely passes for song "lyrics" today, the "pool-table papa" and "jellyroll" terminology of yesteryear is polite palaver. "Miss Rhythm" Speaks Out Only difference is that this sort of lyric then was off in a corner by itself. It was t!ie music underworld-not the mainstream. Ruth Brown on R&B and Covers For the music men-publishers and diskeries-tQ. say that "that's what the kids want" and "that's the only thing that sells nowadays," is akin to condoning publication of back-fence language. Earthy dialog may belong in "art novels" but mass media have tremendous obligation. If they forget, they'll hear from authority. Seemingly that is not the case in the music business. Before it's too late for the welfare of the industry-forgetting for the moment the welfare of young Americans-VARIETY urges a strong self-examination of the record business by its most responsible Singer Ruth Brown (1928-2006), whose title of "Miss Rhythm" signified her .importance t? the growing R&B field in the early chief executive officers. A strong suspicion lingers with VARIETY that these business men are too 1950s, was one of the first artists to bring prommen.ce to the mde pendent label Atlantic Records. As she discusses in these excerpts from her concerned with the profit statements to take stock of what's causing some of their items to sell. Or 1996 autob1?g~aph!, blac~ artists like herself were at a decided disadvantage in the 1950s. Not only were they limited m their maybe they just don't care. A suspicion has been expressed that even the network-affiliated and access to channels of distribution, such as radio and television, but their very songs were often Hollywood-affiliated record companies brush things off with "that's the music business." This is duplicated virtually note for note by white singers, whose versions were then promoted in wider illogical because it is morally wrong and in the long run it's wrong financially. marketplaces, and for greater sales. The flood of cover versions that floated between rhythm and Today's "angles" and sharp practices in the music business are an intra-trade problem. Much of blues, rock 'n' roll, and pop in the 1950s proved to be a point of serious contention for black singers it, time-dishonored. The promulgation and propagation of a pop song, ever since there was a Tin like her and La Vern Baker (1929-1997), who as Brown mentions, formally complained of the Pan Alley, was synonymous with shrewdness, astuteness and deviousness that often bordered on inequality that she faced competing with white cover singers like Georgia Gibbs. 1 On one bi~ter racketeering in its subornation of talent, subsidy, cajolery and out-and-out bribery. occasion, Baker even went so far as to name Gibbs as the recipient of her flight insurance, reasonmg that if any tragedy In its trade functions no trade paper, VARIETY included, wants to be accused of "blowing the were to befall her, Gibbs would be without a source of further revenue. For all the deep resentment and pain that singers like Brown and Baker whistle." But the music business is flirting with the shrill commands of an outer influence if it doesn't felt, at the same time Bro:"n acknowledges that she did not view all covers as unwanted wake up and police itself. encroachments. As long as the recordmg "contributed" to the song, it was welcome. This is not the first time VARIETY has spotlighted the pyramiding evils of the music business as it operates today. One of the roots is the payola. If some freak "beat" captures the kids' imagination, Any real money I made came from touring, and I was always ou~ there promoting the rec~rds."Back the boys are in there quick, wooing, romancing, cajoling the a&r men. then any record by a black artist needed every ounce of help 1t could get. The expression R&B Here is where the responsible chief officers of the major diskeries should come in. They can chart" was another way in the later forties and early fifties to list "race and black" as well as "rhythm continue to either blind themselves, as apparently seems to be the case, or they can compel their and blues" records. And the reason so few discs by black artists crossed over to the Billboard's moral obligations to stand in the way of a little quick profit. This has an accumulative force, because mainstream chart was simple: it was compiled from white-owned radio station playlists featuring their own radio outlets can limit the exploitation of this spU:rious stuff. Not only the commodities music by white artists, with our list catering to blacks. As Jerry Wexler, H,erb' s succ~ssor at of their own affiliation, but others. A~ant~c, put it when asked if it was difficult to get R-and-B records played on general-audience stations m Some may argue that this is a proposal of "censorship." Not at all. It is a plea to ownership to 2 the early fifties, "Difficult would have been easy. It was impossible." . assume the responsibilities of ownership and eliminate practices which will otherwise invite It very gradually became less so, of course, as R-and-B artists broke through the barriers by the censorship. In short, chums, do it yourself or have it done for you. You're not going to get or have sheer strength and quality of their music. But it took time, and throughout my biggest hit-making it done for you. period I was forced to stand by as white singers like Georgia Gibbs and Patti Page dup~icated my records note for note and were able to plug them on top television shows like The Ed Sullivan Show, Source: Abel Green, "A Warning to the Music Business," Variety, February 23, 1955, p. 2. to which I had no access. " Chuck Willis wrote "Oh, What a Dream" especially for me, and it was my favorite song, but it was Patti Page, with an identical arrangement, who got to sing it on national television. Even topical 1 For more on La Vern Baker's reactions to the cover versions of her songs, see Chip Deffaa' s chapter on her in Blue Rhythms: Six Lives in Rhythm and Blues (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996). 2 "Herb" is Herb Abramson, the co-founder of Atlantic Records. Jerry Wexler succeeded him at Atlantic in 1953, when Abramson was drafted into the Army. 11 12 THE ROCK HISTORY READER stuff like my "Mambo Baby" had a Georgia Gibbs duplicate rushed out. My labelmate and good friend La Vern Baker, who joined Atlantic in '53, suffered the same fate on her original of "Tweedle Dee" -another note-for-note copy by Her Nibs Miss Gibbs. There was no pretense, either, that they 4 were anything but duplicates. Mercury actually called up Tommy Dowd on the day they were cutting "Tweedle Dee" and said, "Look, we've got the same arrangement, musicians and tempo, we might as well have the same sound engineer too." Elvis Presley and "The Craze" It was tough enough coming up with hit sounds, therefore doubly galling to see them stolen from under our noses. Few seemed to stop and question the morality of this, least of all the publishers, to whom it was a case of the more the merrier. La Vern for one did, protesting to her JOHN CROSBY congressman over her treatment at Mercury's hands, but then as now, there was no copyright protection on arrangements. I was denied sales abroad as well, although I knew nothing of this at the time. "Abroad," as far as the feedback from Atlantic's accounting department was concerned, could have been the moon. Having made number three on Billboard's R-and-B chart in the States, and actually crossing over number twenty-five, my version of "Lucky Lips" was ignored to their pop charts as well, reaching When Elvis Presley (1935-1977) rocketed into the national spotlight in 1956 on the wings of the in Britain. The number itself hit there years later in a 1963 version by Cliff Richard. Naturally the rock 'n' roll phenomenon, his popularity and notoriety were aided in no small part by his numerous lyrics were suitably amended for him, for "When I was a little girl my curls were long and silky" television appearances. Presley performed with his group six times on the Dorsey Brothers' CBS Stage sounded pretty ridiculous even for me. Cliff took the tune to number four on the British charts, Show between January and March, helping to send his first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel," to the well into his unprecedented run of over one hundred chart entries that continues-and deservedly top of the charts. But it was not until Presley's June 5 appearance on NBC's Milton Berle show that so-to this day. Why he's not bigger in the U.S. I'll never know. the young singer from Memphis drew the ire of incredulous and indignant television critics.