Post by AlanB on Dec 14, 2012 9:42:22 GMT -5
Spotted this birthday. Lester MELROSE (producer/a&r/Bluebird Records et al) b. 14-12-1891, Olney,IL
Here follows what he had to say for himself. Shortly after this Lester Melrose succumbed to a heart attack on Good Friday, April 12, 1968. He was 76 at the time of his death and had been enjoying a well-earned retirement in Florida. He is survived by his widow Blanche Melrose, four children and 12 grandchildren.
My Life In Recording By Lester Melrose
I was born Dec. 14, 1891, on a farm in southeast Illinois, about ten miles east of Olney. When I reached the age nineteen we moved to Sumner, Ill.
While there I worked at my dad's livery stable, from there moved to a job in a grocery store and also was catcher on the town baseball team. We had a great pitcher, so Henderson, Ky., signed us to a contract to play in the K LT. League. The league broke up a year later.
I got a job as a fireman on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, firing their compound engines, and that job lasted until they found out I was under twenty-one years of age. From there I decided to go to Chicago, because my brother was there and had a good job at Marshall Field's (a large department store) at about $15 per week That was in 1912. I landed there and got a job at Rothschild's department store at $9 per week. In 1914 I opened my own grocery and market at the corner on 37th St. and Vincennes Ave. That store was still there about ten years ago.
In May on 1918 I was called into the service and was shipped to France and thence to the front in August, 1918. I lost everything I had in the sale of the store. I arrived back in Chicago in June, 1919.
In 1922 my brother and I opened a small music store at 6309 Cottage Grove Ave. At that time the music business was very slow. We carried a full stock of pop sheet music, piano rolls, small musical instruments and records. Emerson and Gennett were the only records we could purchase at that time, so the going was pretty rough. Our rent was $40 per month and when the Tivoli Theater opened a few doors south of us the rent went to $350 per month!
Business boomed and word got around to the record and music publishing companies that we were doing a tremendous business. Our store was too small to handle our business so we moved across the street to 6318 Cottage Grove Ave. This store was 20 by 80 feet. The Victor, Columbia and Brunswick record companies each had an agency in our territory, so we were unable to buy records directly from them.
However, within three months we carried a full line of their pop records, along with Gennett, Emerson, OKeh and, a little later, Paramount. In the meantime we were getting inquiries from various composers, including colored, about publishing their music or getting it recorded on phonograph records. It was impossible for us to publish pop tunes at that time, so we decided to take a whirl at the blues. The blues selections started coming in and we soon had ten or twelve selections that we thought were good material.
In the meantime, King Oliver arrived with his New Orleans Jazz Band and opened up at the Lincoln Gardens at 31st St, and Cottage Grove Ave, Louis Armstrong was playing second cornet for the King, with Johnny Dodds on clarinet. We had arrangements made on three selections-one was Wolverine Blues for the King, and his band featured them every night. Wolverine Blues was making a hit there, so we convinced the Gennett record company they should record King Oliver. The recording was made in Richmond, Ind., and the first pressings were released about three weeks later. King's first record featured Wolverine Blues and Dipper Mouth Blues, the latter being composed by Oliver, The title was later changed to Sugar Foot Stomp. (Ed. Note: Mr. Melrose is in error here. Oliver and his band did not record Wolverine Blues at this Gennett session or, for that matter, at any other recording session. During 1923 three Oliver recording dates were held in Richmond, at which seventeen selections were waxed, all but three being issued. Wolverine was not one of these seventeen titles. Dipper Mouth Blues was recorded at Oliver's second session, in April, 1923, and was coupled with Weather Bird Rag, recorded at the same session.)
The record was selling well at our store and soon Columbia and Victor outlets were getting plenty of calls for a record by King Oliver. One day a man wearing a Western-style hat with a red bandanna around his neck walked into our store and announced that he was Jelly Roll Morton, the greatest stomp and blues piano player this side oi New Orleans. Cassius Clay had nothing on Jelly Roll!
He had a flock of numbers, including Milenberg Joys. A1 Short and his tivoli Orchestra were featuring several of our blues selections and we arranged for the orchestra to go to New York to record for Vocalion Records, They were called the Tivoli Syncopators, and Wayne King was the lead sax player. They recorded eight selections, including four of our blues numbers, Wolverine Blues was their best seller. (Ed. Note Among other selections recorded by the 15-piece band at its March, 1923, session were Bugle Call Rag, Sobbin' Blues and Long-Lost Mama.)
Later we recorded the Friars Inn Orchestra for Gennett Records and a few weeks later recorded the New Orleans Rhythm Kings for the same label, The New Orleans Rhythm Kings made a big hit with all musicians with their Tin Roof Blues. The clarinet solo by Leon Rappolo was something to listen to! (Ed. Note: The front line on Rappolo, cornetist Paul Mares and trombonist George Brunies was present in both of these important groups.) Our store was headquarters for many musicians, who came in to listen to the various new records being released,
In 1926 I sold my interest in Melrose Bros. Music Co. to my brother Walter. I started out on my own, and things were pretty rough for a few years. I recorded the Jelly Roll Morton Trio on Victor Records, and the first record was a tremendous seller. The trio consisted of Jelly Roll on piano, Johnny Dodds on clarinet and his brother Baby on drums. I recorded a number of blues for Gennett Records and a few for Paramount. I believe it was in the later part of 1928 that I met up with Thomas Dorsey, who was quite a composer as well as the leader of the Hokum Boys. They recorded the selections Beedle Um Bum and Sellin' That Stuff on Paramount and the record was a tremendous seller. About a year later McKinney's Cotton Pickers recorded the same selections for RCA Victor. I also recorded Big Bill Broonzy on Paramount and Gennett Records.
In 1930 I received a request from the American Record Corp. to record some of my blues talent. This company had various labels for chain stores. I got together a dozen musicians and vocal artists and went to New York City and recorded about thirty selections for them. The vocalists consisted of the Famous Hokum Boys (Georgia Tom Dorsey, piano; Big Bill Broonzy and Frank Brasswell, guitars). The records turned out very well and I made several more trips with artists to New York for recording sessions. There was very little recording being done in 1932 and 1933 due to the effects of the Depression.
However, in February of 1934, taverns were opening up and nearly all of them had juke-boxes for entertainment, I sent a letter, which was just a feeler, to both RCA Victor and Columbia Records, explaining that I had certain blues talent ready to record and that I could locate any amount of rhythm-and-blues talent to meet their demands. They responded at once with telegrams and long distance phone calls. From March, 1934, to February, 1951, I recorded at least 90 percent of all rhythm-and-blues talent for RCA Victor and Columbia Records,
Along with the Famous Hokum Boys and Big Bill Broonzy, I recorded Washboard Sam, the Yas Yas Girl (Merline Johnson), Tampa Red, Lil Green, the Four Clefs, Big Boy Crudup, St, Louis Jimmy, Roosevelt Sykes, Memphis Minnie, Curtis Jones, the State Street Ramblers, Roy Palmer, Jimmy Yancey, Joe Williams, Walter Davis, Sonny Boy Williamson, Doctor Clayton, Lonnie Johnson, Peter Chatman (Memphis Slim), Tommy McClennan, Big Maceo Merriweather, Amos(Bumble Bee Slim) Easton, the Cats and the Fiddle, the Dixie Four, Leroy Carr, Junie Cobb, Lovin' Sam Theard, Jimmy Blythe, Victoria Spivey, Johnny Temple, Dorothy Donegan, the Big Three Trio (Leonard Caston, piano; Bernard Dennis or Ollie Crawford, guitar; Willie Dixon, bass), Jazz Gillum, and many others.
I retired from the music business in February, 1951, and at the time was living in Tucson, Ariz. I moved back to Chicago in 1954 and was contacted at once by Steve Sholes of RCA Victor. He informed me that a fellow by the name of Elvis Presley had recorded one of my blues selections on the Sun label and that the record was selling like wild-fire. The selection was That's A11 Right (composed by Arthur Crudup), and that is the selection that got Presley off to a good start. Even though I have never met Elvis Presley or talked to him on the phone, he did record two more of my selections. I suggested to Steve Sholes that he should have some of his talent, such as Hank Snow or Eddie Arnold, record That's A11 Right. He answered that he didn't have any talent that could compete with Elvis Presley. History has proven that he was right.
My record talent was obtained through just plain hard work. I used to visit clubs, taverns and booze joints in and around Chicago; also, I used to travel all through the southern states in search of talent, and sometimes I had very good luck. As a rule, I had considerable trouble with plantation owners, as they were afraid that I would be the cause of their help refusing to return. This did happen on several occasions.
(Ed. Note In his colorful autobiography, Big Bill Blues, the late Bill Broonzy describes such an encounter Melrose had when he went to Yazoo City, Miss., to bring singer-guitarist Tommy McClennan north to record. Broonzy describes it in these words:
"When Mr. Melrose, who is a white man, went to get Tommy, I told him what he should do to keep out of trouble in Mississippi, but he told me that he knew and that he was a white man, too.
"'It doesn't matter in Mississippi,' I told him. "You's a Northern white man and they don' like you down there ii they see you around Negroes, talking to them. Get some Negro out of town to go and talk to Tommy.'
'`But no, he wouldn't do like I told him and he did get in trouble--and a lot of it too, because he had to run and leave his car and send back after it and leave money for Tommy to come to Chicago. When I saw him he laughed and said:
"'Bill, you was damn right, they don't like me down there.'
'`Tommy lived on a farm about fifteen miles out of Yazoo City and there ain't but one road, that means one way to go out there and one way to come back and you have to pass the boss' house both times, so they know a stranger's there and they hate it.
"'They don't call me a white man down there,' Mr. Melrose told me. 'They call me a Yankee. What does that mean, Bill?'
" 'I told you they don't like a white man from the North out on their farm or anywhere they have five or six hundred Negroes working. I told you that you might get hurt out on one of them farms or camps.'
"'Get hurt, get hurt, hell, they nearly killed me, and they would have done it ii I hadn't run like hell. I'll certainly never go down there again.'
"So he used to send me all the time after artists. He never did go down South again." (Bill Blues, as told to Yannick Bruynoghe, Oak Publications, New York, 1964, pp. 141-142.)
In selecting the numbers to record, I had one thought in mind: the public. Some of the artists who could not read or write made it very difficult to record them. Every time they would record a number they could never repeat the same verses. The result would be to record the number about four times and select the one with the best verses, I have rehearsed some of them at least six times on four selections and when we reached the studios, they would sing two or three different verses nor each song. Of course, this was only a small percentage of the artists.
Now that I am seventy-five years old, I am enjoying the beautiful Florida climate. I am in excellent health. My wife and I really like Florida, and enjoy visiting our four children and eleven grand children located in different parts of the country.
(Belatedly published in American Folk Music Occasional 2, 1970 p. 59-61)
Here follows what he had to say for himself. Shortly after this Lester Melrose succumbed to a heart attack on Good Friday, April 12, 1968. He was 76 at the time of his death and had been enjoying a well-earned retirement in Florida. He is survived by his widow Blanche Melrose, four children and 12 grandchildren.
My Life In Recording By Lester Melrose
I was born Dec. 14, 1891, on a farm in southeast Illinois, about ten miles east of Olney. When I reached the age nineteen we moved to Sumner, Ill.
While there I worked at my dad's livery stable, from there moved to a job in a grocery store and also was catcher on the town baseball team. We had a great pitcher, so Henderson, Ky., signed us to a contract to play in the K LT. League. The league broke up a year later.
I got a job as a fireman on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, firing their compound engines, and that job lasted until they found out I was under twenty-one years of age. From there I decided to go to Chicago, because my brother was there and had a good job at Marshall Field's (a large department store) at about $15 per week That was in 1912. I landed there and got a job at Rothschild's department store at $9 per week. In 1914 I opened my own grocery and market at the corner on 37th St. and Vincennes Ave. That store was still there about ten years ago.
In May on 1918 I was called into the service and was shipped to France and thence to the front in August, 1918. I lost everything I had in the sale of the store. I arrived back in Chicago in June, 1919.
In 1922 my brother and I opened a small music store at 6309 Cottage Grove Ave. At that time the music business was very slow. We carried a full stock of pop sheet music, piano rolls, small musical instruments and records. Emerson and Gennett were the only records we could purchase at that time, so the going was pretty rough. Our rent was $40 per month and when the Tivoli Theater opened a few doors south of us the rent went to $350 per month!
Business boomed and word got around to the record and music publishing companies that we were doing a tremendous business. Our store was too small to handle our business so we moved across the street to 6318 Cottage Grove Ave. This store was 20 by 80 feet. The Victor, Columbia and Brunswick record companies each had an agency in our territory, so we were unable to buy records directly from them.
However, within three months we carried a full line of their pop records, along with Gennett, Emerson, OKeh and, a little later, Paramount. In the meantime we were getting inquiries from various composers, including colored, about publishing their music or getting it recorded on phonograph records. It was impossible for us to publish pop tunes at that time, so we decided to take a whirl at the blues. The blues selections started coming in and we soon had ten or twelve selections that we thought were good material.
In the meantime, King Oliver arrived with his New Orleans Jazz Band and opened up at the Lincoln Gardens at 31st St, and Cottage Grove Ave, Louis Armstrong was playing second cornet for the King, with Johnny Dodds on clarinet. We had arrangements made on three selections-one was Wolverine Blues for the King, and his band featured them every night. Wolverine Blues was making a hit there, so we convinced the Gennett record company they should record King Oliver. The recording was made in Richmond, Ind., and the first pressings were released about three weeks later. King's first record featured Wolverine Blues and Dipper Mouth Blues, the latter being composed by Oliver, The title was later changed to Sugar Foot Stomp. (Ed. Note: Mr. Melrose is in error here. Oliver and his band did not record Wolverine Blues at this Gennett session or, for that matter, at any other recording session. During 1923 three Oliver recording dates were held in Richmond, at which seventeen selections were waxed, all but three being issued. Wolverine was not one of these seventeen titles. Dipper Mouth Blues was recorded at Oliver's second session, in April, 1923, and was coupled with Weather Bird Rag, recorded at the same session.)
The record was selling well at our store and soon Columbia and Victor outlets were getting plenty of calls for a record by King Oliver. One day a man wearing a Western-style hat with a red bandanna around his neck walked into our store and announced that he was Jelly Roll Morton, the greatest stomp and blues piano player this side oi New Orleans. Cassius Clay had nothing on Jelly Roll!
He had a flock of numbers, including Milenberg Joys. A1 Short and his tivoli Orchestra were featuring several of our blues selections and we arranged for the orchestra to go to New York to record for Vocalion Records, They were called the Tivoli Syncopators, and Wayne King was the lead sax player. They recorded eight selections, including four of our blues numbers, Wolverine Blues was their best seller. (Ed. Note Among other selections recorded by the 15-piece band at its March, 1923, session were Bugle Call Rag, Sobbin' Blues and Long-Lost Mama.)
Later we recorded the Friars Inn Orchestra for Gennett Records and a few weeks later recorded the New Orleans Rhythm Kings for the same label, The New Orleans Rhythm Kings made a big hit with all musicians with their Tin Roof Blues. The clarinet solo by Leon Rappolo was something to listen to! (Ed. Note: The front line on Rappolo, cornetist Paul Mares and trombonist George Brunies was present in both of these important groups.) Our store was headquarters for many musicians, who came in to listen to the various new records being released,
In 1926 I sold my interest in Melrose Bros. Music Co. to my brother Walter. I started out on my own, and things were pretty rough for a few years. I recorded the Jelly Roll Morton Trio on Victor Records, and the first record was a tremendous seller. The trio consisted of Jelly Roll on piano, Johnny Dodds on clarinet and his brother Baby on drums. I recorded a number of blues for Gennett Records and a few for Paramount. I believe it was in the later part of 1928 that I met up with Thomas Dorsey, who was quite a composer as well as the leader of the Hokum Boys. They recorded the selections Beedle Um Bum and Sellin' That Stuff on Paramount and the record was a tremendous seller. About a year later McKinney's Cotton Pickers recorded the same selections for RCA Victor. I also recorded Big Bill Broonzy on Paramount and Gennett Records.
In 1930 I received a request from the American Record Corp. to record some of my blues talent. This company had various labels for chain stores. I got together a dozen musicians and vocal artists and went to New York City and recorded about thirty selections for them. The vocalists consisted of the Famous Hokum Boys (Georgia Tom Dorsey, piano; Big Bill Broonzy and Frank Brasswell, guitars). The records turned out very well and I made several more trips with artists to New York for recording sessions. There was very little recording being done in 1932 and 1933 due to the effects of the Depression.
However, in February of 1934, taverns were opening up and nearly all of them had juke-boxes for entertainment, I sent a letter, which was just a feeler, to both RCA Victor and Columbia Records, explaining that I had certain blues talent ready to record and that I could locate any amount of rhythm-and-blues talent to meet their demands. They responded at once with telegrams and long distance phone calls. From March, 1934, to February, 1951, I recorded at least 90 percent of all rhythm-and-blues talent for RCA Victor and Columbia Records,
Along with the Famous Hokum Boys and Big Bill Broonzy, I recorded Washboard Sam, the Yas Yas Girl (Merline Johnson), Tampa Red, Lil Green, the Four Clefs, Big Boy Crudup, St, Louis Jimmy, Roosevelt Sykes, Memphis Minnie, Curtis Jones, the State Street Ramblers, Roy Palmer, Jimmy Yancey, Joe Williams, Walter Davis, Sonny Boy Williamson, Doctor Clayton, Lonnie Johnson, Peter Chatman (Memphis Slim), Tommy McClennan, Big Maceo Merriweather, Amos(Bumble Bee Slim) Easton, the Cats and the Fiddle, the Dixie Four, Leroy Carr, Junie Cobb, Lovin' Sam Theard, Jimmy Blythe, Victoria Spivey, Johnny Temple, Dorothy Donegan, the Big Three Trio (Leonard Caston, piano; Bernard Dennis or Ollie Crawford, guitar; Willie Dixon, bass), Jazz Gillum, and many others.
I retired from the music business in February, 1951, and at the time was living in Tucson, Ariz. I moved back to Chicago in 1954 and was contacted at once by Steve Sholes of RCA Victor. He informed me that a fellow by the name of Elvis Presley had recorded one of my blues selections on the Sun label and that the record was selling like wild-fire. The selection was That's A11 Right (composed by Arthur Crudup), and that is the selection that got Presley off to a good start. Even though I have never met Elvis Presley or talked to him on the phone, he did record two more of my selections. I suggested to Steve Sholes that he should have some of his talent, such as Hank Snow or Eddie Arnold, record That's A11 Right. He answered that he didn't have any talent that could compete with Elvis Presley. History has proven that he was right.
My record talent was obtained through just plain hard work. I used to visit clubs, taverns and booze joints in and around Chicago; also, I used to travel all through the southern states in search of talent, and sometimes I had very good luck. As a rule, I had considerable trouble with plantation owners, as they were afraid that I would be the cause of their help refusing to return. This did happen on several occasions.
(Ed. Note In his colorful autobiography, Big Bill Blues, the late Bill Broonzy describes such an encounter Melrose had when he went to Yazoo City, Miss., to bring singer-guitarist Tommy McClennan north to record. Broonzy describes it in these words:
"When Mr. Melrose, who is a white man, went to get Tommy, I told him what he should do to keep out of trouble in Mississippi, but he told me that he knew and that he was a white man, too.
"'It doesn't matter in Mississippi,' I told him. "You's a Northern white man and they don' like you down there ii they see you around Negroes, talking to them. Get some Negro out of town to go and talk to Tommy.'
'`But no, he wouldn't do like I told him and he did get in trouble--and a lot of it too, because he had to run and leave his car and send back after it and leave money for Tommy to come to Chicago. When I saw him he laughed and said:
"'Bill, you was damn right, they don't like me down there.'
'`Tommy lived on a farm about fifteen miles out of Yazoo City and there ain't but one road, that means one way to go out there and one way to come back and you have to pass the boss' house both times, so they know a stranger's there and they hate it.
"'They don't call me a white man down there,' Mr. Melrose told me. 'They call me a Yankee. What does that mean, Bill?'
" 'I told you they don't like a white man from the North out on their farm or anywhere they have five or six hundred Negroes working. I told you that you might get hurt out on one of them farms or camps.'
"'Get hurt, get hurt, hell, they nearly killed me, and they would have done it ii I hadn't run like hell. I'll certainly never go down there again.'
"So he used to send me all the time after artists. He never did go down South again." (Bill Blues, as told to Yannick Bruynoghe, Oak Publications, New York, 1964, pp. 141-142.)
In selecting the numbers to record, I had one thought in mind: the public. Some of the artists who could not read or write made it very difficult to record them. Every time they would record a number they could never repeat the same verses. The result would be to record the number about four times and select the one with the best verses, I have rehearsed some of them at least six times on four selections and when we reached the studios, they would sing two or three different verses nor each song. Of course, this was only a small percentage of the artists.
Now that I am seventy-five years old, I am enjoying the beautiful Florida climate. I am in excellent health. My wife and I really like Florida, and enjoy visiting our four children and eleven grand children located in different parts of the country.
(Belatedly published in American Folk Music Occasional 2, 1970 p. 59-61)