| Apollo Records | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founded | 1944 |
| Founder | Hy Siegel Ted Gottlieb |
| Defunct | 1962 |
| Status | Inactive |
| Genre | Various |
| Country of origin | U.S. |
| Location | New York City |
Apollo Records was a record company and label founded in New York City by Hy Siegel and Ted Gottlieb in 1944. A year later it was sold to Ike and Bess Berman. Apollo was known for blues (Doc Pomus), doo-wop (The Larks), gospel (Mahalia Jackson), jazz, and rock and roll.
In the early 1940s, the Bermans and Siegel worked at the Rainbow Record Shop on 125th Street in Harlem. They named the label after the nearby Apollo Theater. [1] Siegel served as Apollo's first president. Initially Apollo employed three product lines that included a 300 series, featuring rhythm and blues and jazz artists, and a 100 series which was a variety of genres: gospel, calypso, Country music and Jewish comedy. By issue #188, the 100 series shifted exclusively towards gospel. The third line, starting at #750, was dubbed "Jazz Masterworks". [2] Apollo recorded rhythm and blues singers Dinah Washington and Wynonie Harris before they became famous on other labels.
Dean Martin recorded briefly for the label in 1947.
In 1946, the Bermans signed Mahalia Jackson. Although she was regarded as "The Queen of Gospel",[ citation needed ] she hadn't recorded much. When Jackson's Move On Up a Little Higher was released in January 1948, it was a hit. Overtime shifts were added to keep up with demand for the record. At an Apollo board meeting on May 27, 1948, Siegel stepped down and Bess Berman became president. [3] Berman was among few women executives in the 78 era.[ citation needed ] Ike Berman ran the pressing plant that manufactured Apollo Records.[ citation needed ]
During its peak years from 1948 to 1952, Apollo concentrated on gospel music. Mahalia Jackson was Apollo's biggest seller and the artist they recorded most.[ citation needed ] Apollo also issued recordings by the Roberta Martin Singers, The Dixie Hummingbirds, The Robert Anderson Singers, The Professor Alex Bradford Singers, Harold Ivory Williams and the Ivory Gospel Singers, Rev. B. C. Campbell and his Congregation, The Daniels Singers, and The Two Gospel Keys. Rev. James Cleveland made some of his first recordings with Apollo in The Gospelaires and in The Gospel All-Stars, a session he led and arranged. [4]
Bess Berman took note of the popularity of African American vocal groups named after birds, such as The Orioles and The Ravens. [5] She re-christened the Selah Jubilee Singers as The Larks and began to record them in popular material. The Larks hit number five on the R&B chart with "Eyesight to the Blind" in 1951, but the group split up in 1952. Berman renamed the Royal Sons Quintet The "5" Royales, and their success exceeded that of The Larks'. In 1954, Apollo established a division called Lloyd's Records that was dedicated to doo-wop, adding a new version of The Larks organized under their only remaining member, Gene Mumford. [6]
In 1953, Hy Siegel left to form his own company, Timely Records. In 1954, Mahalia Jackson went to Columbia Records. [7] The "5" Royales went to King Records. Hill & Range announced they were suing Berman, Apollo, and Lloyd's for infringement, citing 20 records where copyrighted songs by Thomas A. Dorsey and others were issued on Berman's labels and credited to Berman and Mahalia Jackson. Jackson wrote a letter denying knowledge of any such arrangement. [8]
The second version of The Larks failed to chart, and in 1955 the group broke up. During the following year, Apollo ceased production of 78 rpm records and its gospel recording program, concentrating on 45s for the pop market. Apollo produced many singles in this period by groups such as the Opals, the Romeos, the Gentlemen and the Casanovas, but few of these records made money.[ citation needed ] The last popular record was "The Fire Burns No More" by the Chesters in 1957. "Handy Man" was first recorded for Apollo in 1959 by the Sparks of Rhythm but did not become a hit until lead singer Jimmy Jones recorded it for Cub Records in 1960. By that time, Apollo had stopped making recordings and was concentrating on reissues, even in the 45 market. After the Chesters renamed themselves Little Anthony and the Imperials and became stars for another record company, their Apollo releases reappeared under the name Little Anthony. [9] In later years Solomon Burke was featured on several singles and an LP. [10]
Apollo Records released only one or two LPs every year, starting in 1954, and these were usually reissues. It never issued a stereo recording. One of Apollo's last releases from 1962 was Mahalia Jackson's Apollo Records Requests the Honor of Your Presence at the Command Performance of Mahalia Jackson, Re-Creating Her European Concert Tour. The album consisted of recordings made for Apollo in the 1940s and early 1950s. It was packaged to look like a live recording from Jackson's 1961 tour, and to compete with the Columbia Records album Mahalia Jackson Recorded in Europe During Her Latest Concert Tour.[ citation needed ]
Apollo Records closed in 1962. [11] Over the next decade, Kenwood Records reissued most of Apollo's albums and added a few more compilations. Kenwood released a memorial album when Mahalia Jackson died in 1972. While the owner or partner in the Kenwood concern is not known, it is assumed that Bess Berman was the likely party behind this label.[ citation needed ]
Although the Apollo records catalog has seen few releases in the digital era, several doo-wop compilations have been released through Relic Records since the 1980s. Some of Apollo's jazz has appeared on Delmark Records. Bess Berman died in 1997. Cash Box said in 1954 that Berman "was the only woman ever to break through with outstanding success in the male-dominated recording industry." [12]
Apollo Records and its affiliated publishing company, Bess Music, was purchased by George Hocutt on May 4, 1989. Shortly after that purchase in January 1990, Hocutt sold fifty percent of his interest to Couch and Madison Partners of the Malaco Music Group located in Jackson, Mississippi.
The Apollo Records Collection, which contains the label's master acetate disc sound recordings, resides at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill within the Southern Folklife Collection.
Doo-wop is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Detroit, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. It features vocal group harmony that carries an engaging melodic line to a simple beat with little or no instrumentation. Lyrics are simple, usually about love, sung by a lead vocal over background vocals, and often featuring, in the bridge, a melodramatically heartfelt recitative addressed to the beloved. Harmonic singing of nonsense syllables is a common characteristic of these songs. Gaining popularity in the 1950s, doo-wop was "artistically and commercially viable" until the early 1960s, but continued to influence performers in other genres.
The Parliaments were an American vocal quintet from Plainfield, New Jersey, United States. Originally formed in the back room of a barbershop in 1956, the quintet was named after the cigarette brand. The Parliaments initially performed doo-wop music; after some early personnel changes their lineup solidified with George Clinton, Ray Davis, Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas. Clinton was group leader and manager, and part owner of the barbershop where the group convened to entertain customers. The group later changed its style, evolving into the bands Parliament and Funkadelic, which found success in the 1970s.
The Soul Stirrers were an American gospel music group, whose career spans over eighty years. The group was a pioneer in the development of the quartet style of gospel, and a major influence on soul, doo wop, and Motown, some of the secular music that owed much to gospel.
Mahalia Jackson was an American gospel singer, widely considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. With a career spanning 40 years, Jackson was integral to the development and spread of gospel blues in black churches throughout the U.S. During a time when racial segregation was pervasive in American society, she met considerable and unexpected success in a recording career, selling an estimated 22 million records and performing in front of integrated and secular audiences in concert halls around the world.
The Dixie Hummingbirds are an influential American gospel music group, spanning more than 80 years from the jubilee quartet style of the 1920s, through the "hard gospel" quartet style of gospel's golden age in the 1940s and 1950s, to the eclectic pop-tinged songs of today. The Hummingbirds inspired a number of imitators, such as Jackie Wilson and James Brown, who adapted the shouting style and enthusiastic showmanship of hard gospel to secular themes to help create soul music in the 1960s.
Clara Mae Ward was an American gospel singer who achieved great artistic and commercial success during the 1940s and 1950s, as leader of The Famous Ward Singers. A gifted singer and arranger, Ward adopted the lead-switching style, previously used primarily by male gospel quartets, creating opportunities for spontaneous improvisation and vamping by each member of the group, while giving virtuoso singers such as Marion Williams the opportunity to perform the lead vocal in songs such as "Surely, God Is Able", "How I Got Over" and "Packin' Up".
Bessie Griffin was an American gospel singer. From junior high into the late 1940s, she sang with the Southern Harps, who were better known later as the Southern Revivalists Of New Orleans, then performed with The Caravans for a year and toured with W. Herbert Brewster Jr. Mentored by Mahalia Jackson, she moved to Chicago in the early 1950s and then relocated to Los Angeles at the end of the decade. She performed in theaters and night clubs, and appeared on popular televisions shows like The Ed Sullivan Show and The Dinah Shore Show.
The Chantels are a pop music group and were the second African-American girl group to enjoy nationwide success in the United States, preceded by The Bobbettes. The group was established in the early 1950s by students attending St. Anthony of Padua Church and school in the Bronx.
"Take My Hand, Precious Lord" is a gospel song. The lyrics were written by Thomas A. Dorsey, who also adapted the melody.
Jerry Zolten is an American writer, advocator for, and producer of American roots music. A Professor at Penn State University, he is best known as the author of a book tracing the 90 year career of the African-American Dixie Hummingbirds gospel group and their influence on both sacred and secular music. He also writes about and is a noted expert on the history of American stand-up comedy. Zolten is also known for numerous articles and album liner notes on blues, country, and gospel music as well as collaborations on musical projects with Robert Crumb and Harvey Pekar. His more recent writings and musical releases include "The Beatles as Recording Artists" in The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles, biographical and musicological entries on Paramount recording artists for The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records 1917–1927, and Chimpin' the Blues with Robert Crumb and Jerry Zolten, an audio collection of conversation and rare blues and blues-related recordings from the early 20th Century. In 2017 he co-produced and narrated the public radio program Time to Lay It Down: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War.
James Bodie Davis was an American gospel music singer and a founder of The Dixie Hummingbirds, one of the longest-lasting and most influential groups in gospel music.
The Larks were an American vocal group, active in the early 1950s. They were not the same group as the Los Angeles-based Larks featuring Don Julian, nor the Philadelphia-based group The Four Larks.
Allen Rathel Bunn, who was sometimes credited as Alden Bunn and who performed as Tarheel Slim, was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter whose work spanned gospel, blues, doowop, R&B, pop, and rockabilly. After singing in various gospel groups he became a member of The Larks before recording with his wife Anna Lee "Little Ann" Sandford, and then as a solo performer.
"Move On Up a Little Higher" is a gospel song written by W. Herbert Brewster, first recorded by Brother John Sellers in late 1946, but most famously recorded on September 12, 1947, by gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, a version that sold eight million copies. The song was honored with the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in (1998). In 2005, the Library of Congress honored the song by adding it to the National Recording Registry. It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century, by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts, and is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the 500 songs that shaped rock.
The World's Greatest Gospel Singer is Mahalia Jackson's debut album on the Columbia label, recorded in 1954.
"Bad Girl" is a 1959 doo-wop single by The Miracles. Issued locally on the Motown Records label, it was licensed to and issued nationally by Chess Records because the fledgling Motown Record Corporation did not, at that time, have national distribution. It was the first single released on the Motown label – all previous singles from the company were released on Motown's Tamla label. Although The Miracles had charted regionally and on the R&B charts with several earlier songs, including "Got a Job", "I Cry", "I Need a Change", and "(You Can) Depend on Me", "Bad Girl" was their first national chart hit, reaching #93 on the Billboard Hot 100. Written by Miracles lead singer Smokey Robinson and Motown Records' President and Founder Berry Gordy, "Bad Girl" is a sad, remorseful ballad about a young woman, whom Robinson, as the narrator, says "was so good at the start", but who later in the song "is breaking my heart". It is in the popular doo-wop style, as several of The Miracles' songs were during the late 1950s. The record's success, coupled with the distributor's failure to pay Gordy and The Miracles properly for its sales, prompted Robinson to urge Gordy to "go national" with it, meaning that Motown should do its own national distribution of its songs, and eliminate the middleman, to ensure that all money from sales of its records would go directly to the label.
Bess Berman was an American record label executive. With her husband Isaac "Ike" Berman, Herman "Hy" Siegel and Sam Schneider, she set up Apollo Records, an independent label notable for its promotion of gospel and R&B musicians, in New York City in 1944.
"Jesus Met the Woman at the Well" is a traditional gospel song. It relates the story of the meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman, found in the Gospel of John at 4:4-26.
"God Only Knows" was a regional hit for Philadelphia Doo wop group The Capris. It was their debut single for the group and was written by Ruben Wright. The song also had a dramatic effect on Motown singer Marvin Gaye. It has been covered by other artists as well.
Mahalia Jackson was the preeminent gospel singer of the 20th century, her career spanning from about 1931 to 1971. She began singing in church as a child in New Orleans, then moved to Chicago as an adolescent and joined Chicago's first gospel group, the Johnson Singers. By demand, she began to sing solo at funerals and political rallies. For about 15 years, Jackson toured a circuit of churches and revivals spreading gospel blues throughout the U.S. working odd jobs to make a living. Her first recordings were made in 1931, produced by the owner of a funeral parlor in Chicago where Jackson often sang, although these have been lost.
