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The Rise and Fall of Ace Records: A Case Study in the Independent Record Business

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Donald J. Mabry
Donald J. Mabry
Affiliation:
Donald J. Mabry is professor of history at Mississippi State University.
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Abstract

The record industry in the United States was controlled until the 1950s by a half dozen major companies, which produced music directed primarily toward the white middle class. The following article uses the history of Ace Records, a small, regional, independent company, to examine the nature of the record industry in the 1950s and 1960s. The article explains the shifts in demography and technology that made possible the growth of the independents, as well as the obstacles and events that made their demise more likely. It also traces the changes that such companies, by recording and promoting rhythm and blues and early rock ‘n’ roll, introduced to the cultural mainstream.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 64 , Issue 3: Service Industries , Autumn 1990 , pp. 411 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1990

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References

1 Escort, Colin and Hawkins, Martin, Sun Records: The Brief History of the Legendary Recording Label (New York, 1980)Google Scholar, and Gillett, Charlie, Making Tracks: Atlantic Records and the Growth of a Multi-Billim-Dollar Industry (New York, 1974)Google Scholar are based primarily on interviews and have few, if any footnotes. Michel Riippli has compiled two discographies, with some narrative materials, of two other independents of the 1950s; see his The King Label: A Discography, comp. Michel Ruppli, with assistance from Bill Daniels (Westport, Conn., 1985) and The Savoy Label: A Discography, comp. Michel Ruppli, with assistance from Bob Porter (Westport, Conn., 1980). Motown, which began just as Ace was in decline, has received a lot of attention. See Benjaminson, Peter, The Story of Motown (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Bianco, David, Heat Wave: The Motown Fact Book (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1988)Google Scholar; Davis, Sharon, Motown, the History (Enfield, Middlesex, 1988)Google Scholar; George, Nelson, When Did Our Love Go? The Rise & Fall of the Motown Sound (New York, 1985)Google Scholar; Morse, David, Motown and the Arrival of Black Music (New York, 1971)Google Scholar; Taraborrelli, J. Randy, Motown Hot Wax, City Cool & Solid Gold (Garden City, N.Y., 1986)Google Scholar; Waller, Don, The Motown Story (New York, 1985)Google Scholar. Muirhead, Bert, Stiff: The Story of a Record Label, 1976–1982 (New York, 1983Google Scholar) is a superficial book on a British record company from a much later era.

2 Gillett, Charlie, The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll, rev. and expanded ed. (New York, 1983)Google Scholar.

3 Gillett, Sound of the City, 7; Chappie, Steve and Garofelo, Reebee, Rock ‘n’ Roll is Hen to Pay: The History and Politics of the Music Industry (Chicagp, III., 1979), 15Google Scholar; Denisoff, R. Serge, Solid Gold: The Popular Record Industry (New Brunswick, N.J., 1975), 114Google Scholar, list these as the major record companies. See Gillett, Sound of the City, 39, and Denisoff, Solid Gold, 113 for figures on sales.

4 Moore, Macdonald Smith, Yankee Blues: Musical Cultural and American Identity (Bloomington, Ind., 1985), 169–71Google Scholar.

5 As cited in Whitcomb, Ian, After the Ball (London, 1972), 209Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., 8–9.

7 Chapple and Garofalo, Rock ‘n’ Roll, 64.

8 U. S. House, Select Committee on Small Business, Policies of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers; Hearings before Subcommitte No. 5 of the Select Committee on Small Business, House of Representatives, 85th Cong., 2d sess. (Washington, D.C., 1958), 89 [hereafter cited as Policies of ASCAP].

9 Policies of ASCAP, 25–26.

10 Gillett, Sound of the City, 18–22; Chapple and Garofalo, Rock ‘n’ Boll, 64–68.

11 Peter Grendysa, “Origins of the Species: The Microgroove Revolution,” Goldmine (17 Jan. 1986), 50.

12 Malone, Bill C., Southern Music, American Music (Lexington, Ky., 1979)Google Scholar.

13 Chapple and Garofalo, Rock ‘n’ Roll, 13–15.

14 Ibid., 15.

15 John Angle, sales and distribution manager of Ace Records, 1958–62, interview with author, 22 Nov. 1985, in Jackson, Miss.; Angle, John, The Complete Changing of a Musical Era (Jackson, Miss., 1985)Google Scholar, and audio cassette; and John Vincent Imbragulio, founder and owner, Ace Records, interview with author, 17 Oct. 1987, in Jackson, Miss. From 1985 through 1987, I talked with Vincent numerous times in Jackson and took notes, but it was not until 17 October 1987 that I taped an interview. Citations refer to the taped interview.

16 Ed Ward, Geoffrey Stokes, and Ken Tucker, Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll (New York, 1986), 86Google Scholar; Gillett, Sound of the City, 10, 14.

17 The literature on the origins of the postwar baby boom and the empowerment of children is vast and beyond the scope of this study; see Hawes, Joe and Hiner, Ray, eds., Growing Up in America: Children in Historical Perspective (Urbana, III., 1985Google Scholar) for an introduction to this literature and its findings.

18 Vincent, interview with author. Dr. Dan E. Cox was kind enough to give me a typed copy of his January 1979 interview with Vincent.

19 John Vincent Imbragulio in the interview “Making a Hit,” Figaro [New Orleans], 1 Dec. 1980, 32–37Google Scholar.

20 Chapple and Garofelo, Rock ‘n’ Roll, 6.

21 Elvis Presley was deeply influenced by Crudup and chose Crudup's “That's All Right” as one of the first songs he recorded.

22 Vincent, interview with Cox, Jan. 1979.

23 “Making a Hit.”

24 Vincent's salary was generous; the median income in 1950 for white workers was $248.50 a month; see U.S. Bureau of the Census, The Statistical History of the United States, from Colonial Times to the Present (New York, 1976), 304Google Scholar.

25 Vincent, interview with author.

26 Dan Cox, in his January 1979 interview with Vincent, suggested to Vincent that the latter changed his name because he associated with Jews such as Leonard Chess and Art Rupe. Vincent agreed that he associated with Jews and noted that Rupe had changed his own surname to make it sound less Jewish, but Vincent did not assert that the Jewish issue was the reason he did not use Imbragulio professionally. Regardless of their ethnic identity, many people in the entertainment business commonly changed their names so they sounded more Anglo-Saxon, for such names were the only “acceptable” ones, another reflection of the cultural dominance of white Anglo-Saxons.

27 The musicians included Justin Adams (guitar), Lee Allen (tenor sax), Eddie “Little” Booker (piano), Salvador Doucette (piano), Wendel Duconge (alto sax), Frank Fields (string bass), Clarence Ford (baritone and tenor sax), Edward Frank (piano), Herb Hardesty (tenor sax), Earl King (guitar), Ernest McLean (guitar), Earl Palmer (drums), the young Malcolm John Rabennack (piano and guitar), Huey P. Smith (piano), the young Allen Toussaint (piano), Alvin “Red” Tyler (tenor sax), and Charles “Hungry” Williams (drums).

28 Berry, Jason, Foose, Jonathan, and Jones, Tad, Up from the Cradle of Jazz: New Orleans Musk since World War II (Athens, Ga., 1986), 54, 62Google Scholar.

29 Earl King, interview with Tad Jones, Living Blues, 38 (May–June 1978): 8.

30 Vincent, interview with author. Vincent said Rupe owed him between $15,000 and $20,000 in royalties, which would mean between 1.5 and 2 million records sold. Rupe denied that Vincent had sold that many. Since Specialty's account books are not available, it is not clear who is correct.

31 Berry, et al., Cradle, 81–85. Berry and his coauthors say that Slim had recorded for Imperial but “Making a Hit,” 33, says Bullet Records of Nashville.

32 Vincent, interview with author; Broven, John, Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans (Gretna, La., 1983), 50–53Google Scholar; Berry, et al., Cradle, 81–85; “Making a Hit,” 33–34. Broven asserts that Rupe told Vincent by phone how to record the session, but Vincent denies it. The record and the album have the Vincent touch. An unverified story about the session is that, to pacify Ray Charles, who was upset about the poor music quality of the session, Vincent and the others let the blind Charles drive Vincent's car around New Orleans in the middle of the night.

33 Vincent, interview with author; “Making a Hit,” 34. Again, the exact number of copies sold is impossible to ascertain.

34 Vincent, interview with Cox.

35 Broven, Rhythm and Blues, 113; Hannusch, Jeff, I Hear you Knockin': The Sound of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues (Ville Platte, La., 1985), 123Google Scholar.

36 The first Ace singles, numbers 500–508, were by Al Collins, Little Bo, Al Terry and the Louisiana Hayriders, Big Boy Crudup, Bobby Fields, Lightning Slim, Lou Millett, Jimmy and Jack, and Elmore James, respectively. See the back dust cover of Ace Story, Ace-Chiswick Records, vol. 5 (CH98), 1984 for a complete listing of Ace Records releases.

37 The record became a bone of contention between Earl King and Vincent. King in his interview with Living Blues, 17, argued that he produced the record, not Vincent, that Vincent's ineptitude was responsible for the poor technical quality of the record, and that the record sold more copies than Vincent ever admitted. Vincent argues that he produced the record, and that, if it were true that King was the producer, then King is responsible for releasing a record on which instruments are outof tune. How many records were sold is hard to determine. In his interview with Cox, Vincent asserts that it sold 125,000–150,000 but in “Making a Hit,” 34, he says about 80,000. The difference can be explained by the time of the interviews. The song has continued to sell over the years, mostly to collectors. In later years, Vincent's decision to try to cash in on the rising feme of Fats Domino by putting “piano by Fats” on the label also drew criticism. Vincent, of course, was primarily concerned with selling the record. Vincent's comments can be found in Vincent, interview with Cox.

38 Gillett, Sound of the City, 472; Joel Whitburn's Top Pop, 1955–1982 (Menominee Falls, Wis., 1983), 327–31Google Scholar, provides the data on Presley's records.

39 Billboard's rankings of record popularity were determined by a variety of imprecise indices. The number of units shipped (as reported by the record company and sometimes verified by pressing plants) was used instead of the number of records sold. Because distributors could return unsold records ninety days after receiving the original shipment, record companies often did not know how many records they were selling. Given the short life of most popular records, Billboard rarely had any interest in most records after three months. In addition, Billboard also asked some DJs how often they played a record stores how many copies of a record was being sold. Neither of these two techniques was precise. A common record company tactic was to create the illusion that a record was a hit in hopes of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sometimes expensive advertisements were bought in Billboard in the hope that the periodical would raise the ranking of a record. Industry standards for a “gold” record ($1 million in sales based on list price) were created in 1958. There was no system to verify these sales, and it was in the interestof a record company to try to assert that a record was “gold” because doing so would spur further sales. See Rachin, Harvey, The Encyclopedia of the Musk Business (New York, 1981), 163–64Google Scholar. Vincent asserted that selling 200,000 copies would put a record above #50 on the Billboard chart. See the discussion in the text about the volume of record sales and what constituted a hit.

40 Vincent, interview with author.

41 Secretary of State, State of Mississippi, Charter of Incorporation of Ace Record Company, Inc., 26 June 1958; Secretary of State, State of Mississippi, Charter of Incorporation of Ace Publishing Company, Inc., 25 March 1959.

42 See Whitburn, Top Pop, 1955–82.

43 Cosimo Recording Studios bill to Ace Records, 11 Nov. 1959; recording contract between Huey P. Smith and Ace Records, 21 Dec. 1959; Phonograph Recording Contract between American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, Local #174 and Vin Records, 29 Aug. 1960; Phonograph Recording Contract between American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, Local #174 and Vin Records, 29 Oct. 1960; Crescent City Concerts Association bill to John Vincent, Vin Records, 7 Sept. 1960. Copies of these documents are in the business files of Ace Records, Inc., and in possession of the author.

44 Vincent, interview with author; “Making a Hit, “ 34; Hannusch, Hear you Knockin' 132.

45 Angle, interview with author, 22 Nov. 1985.

46 Many of those who performed blues, rhythm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s knew or cared little about the business side of recording; many of them were also adolescents, inexperienced in the ways of the world or overconfident in the future. The glitter and fame of having a hit record was often sufficient motivation to get them into a recording studio. Vincent asserts that he always paid his performers all of their royalties and often more than they ever actually earned but thatother independents often did not. See Vincent, interview with author. Atlantic Records, originally a New York-based independent, enjoyed the rare reputation of paying its performers their legitimate due; see Gillett, Making Tracks.

47 Ward, et al., Rock of Ages, 86, 188; Vincent, interview with author.

48 Vincent, interview with author. On Ace and the payola hearings, see U.S. House, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, Responsibilities of Broadcasting Licensees and Station Personnel, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, 86th Cong., 2d sess., on Payola and Other Deceptive Practices in the Broadcasting Field (Washington, D.C., 1960), 668, 1479.

49 Vincent, interview with author; House Subcommittee, Responsibilities. See also Clark, Dick and Robinson, Richard, Rock, Roll, and Remember (New York, 1976), 193–225Google Scholar, for Clark's comments on the incident. The payola controversy, including Clark's role, deserves a study of its own.

50 Broven, Rhythm and Blues, 131–32; Vincent, interview with author.

51 Contract between Ace Music Company, Inc., and Huey P. Smith and John Vincent, 15 Nov. 1964; for $3,500 to Smith and $3,500 to himself, Vincent bought “Don't You Just Know It,” “High Blood Pressure,” “Roberta,” and “Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogje Flu.” On the contemporary problems facing small companies, see Denisoff, R. Serge, Tarnished Gold: The Record Industry Revisited (New Brunswick, N.J., 1986)Google Scholar.