Specialty Records was an American

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

founded in Los Angeles in 1945 by Art Rupe. It was known for

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

, and early

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...

, and recorded artists such as

Little Richard Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), known professionally as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Described as the " ...

Guitar Slim Eddie Jones (December 10, 1926 – February 7, 1959), better known as Guitar Slim, was an American guitarist in the 1940s and 1950s, best known for the million-selling song " The Things That I Used to Do", for Specialty Records. It is listed in t ...

, Percy Mayfield, and

Lloyd Price Lloyd Price (March 9, 1933May 3, 2021) was an American singer-songwriter, record executive and bandleader, known as "Mr. Personality", after his 1959 million-selling hit, "Personality". His first recording, "Lawdy Miss Clawdy", was a hit for Spe ...

. Rupe established the company under the name Juke Box Records but changed it to Specialty in 1946 when he parted company with a couple of his original partners. Rupe's daughter, Beverly, restarted the label in the 1980s. The major producers for the label were Rupe,

Robert "Bumps" Blackwell Robert Alexander "Bumps" Blackwell (May 23, 1918 – March 9, 1985) was an American bandleader, songwriter, arranger, and record producer, best known for his work overseeing the early hits of Little Richard, as well as grooming Ray Charles ...

Johnny Vincent John Vincent Imbragulio (October 3, 1927 – February 4, 2000), known as Johnny Vincent, was an American record producer for Art Rupe at Specialty Records. He founded Ace Records in 1955 in Jackson, Mississippi, 165 miles away from New Orlea ...

and J. W. Alexander. Rupe was known for hating the practice of

payola Payola, in the music industry, is the illegal practice of paying a commercial radio station to play a song without the station disclosing the payment. Under US law, a radio station must disclose songs they were paid to play on the air as spons ...

, but by 1953, "the only way for Specialty to remain competitive was to pay like everybody else." Specialty owned music publishing companies: Venice Music for BMI-licensed songs, and Greenwich Music for

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...

-licensed songs. The record label was sold to

Fantasy Records Fantasy Records is an American independent record label company founded by brothers Max and Sol Stanley Weiss in 1949. The early years of the company were dedicated to issuing recordings by jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, who was also one of its inves ...

in 1991 and is now part of the Concord Music Group. The music publishing unit was sold to

Sony/ATV Music Publishing Sony Music Publishing (formerly Sony/ATV Music Publishing) is the largest music publisher in the world, with over five million songs owned or administered as of end March 2021. US-based, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is itself owned ...

Roster

The Blind Boys of Alabama The Blind Boys of Alabama, also billed as The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, and Clarence Fountain and the Blind Boys of Alabama, is an American Gospel music, gospel group. The group was founded in 1939 in Talladega, Alabama, and has featured a ch ...

Alex Bradford Alex Bradford (January 23, 1927 – February 15, 1978) (professionally known as Professor Alex Bradford) was a multi-talented Gospel music, gospel composer, singer, arranger and choir director, who was an influence on artists such as Little Rich ...

* Wynona Carr *

Clifton Chenier Clifton Chenier (June 25, 1925 – December 12, 1987), was an American Creole musician known as a pioneer of zydeco, a style of music which arose from Creole music, with R&B, blues, and Cajun influences. He sang and played the accordion and w ...

Eugene Church Eugene Church (January 22, 1938 – April 3, 1993) was an American R&B singer and songwriter. Church was born in St. Louis, Missouri. In the 1950s, he collaborated with Jesse Belvin releasing singles on Modern Records as The Cliques. Their 1 ...

Dorothy Love Coates Dorothy Love Coates (January 30, 1928 – April 9, 2002) was an American gospel singer.

* Sam Cooke *

John Lee Hooker John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often ...

Camille Howard Camille Howard (March 29, 1914 – March 10, 1993) was an American rhythm and blues pianist and singer, who first came to prominence in Roy Milton's Solid Senders in the 1940s. Her most successful recordings included "R. M. Blues" (as Milton's pi ...

* Roddy Jackson *

Jimmy Liggins Jimmy Liggins (born James L. Elliott; October 14, 1918 – July 21, 1983) was an American R&B guitarist and bandleader. His brother was the more commercially successful R&B/blues pianist, Joe Liggins. Career The son of Harriett and Elijah Elli ...

Joe Liggins Joseph Christopher Liggins, Jr. (born Theodro Elliott; July 9, 1916 – July 26, 1987) was an American R&B, jazz and blues pianist and vocalist who led Joe Liggins and his Honeydrippers in the 1940s and 1950s. His band appeared often on the ''B ...

Roy Milton Roy Bunny Milton (July 31, 1907 – September 18, 1983) was an American R&B and jump blues singer, drummer and bandleader. Career Milton's grandmother was Chickasaw. He was born in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, and grew up on an Indian reservation bef ...

* Percy Mayfield *

* Frankie Lee Sims *

Soul Stirrers 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 musi ...

Larry Williams Larry Williams (born Lawrence Eugene Williams, a.k.a. Lawrence Edward Williams; May 10, 1935 – January 7, 1980) was an American rhythm and blues and rock and roll singer, songwriter, producer, and pianist from New Orleans, Louisiana. Williams ...

* Lester Williams

References

External links

Official website

Specialty Records
on the Internet Archive'
Great 78 Project
{{Authority control Specialty Records artists with Wikipedia pages Record labels established in 1946 Record labels disestablished in 1991 Rhythm and blues record labels Blues record labels Rock and roll record labels Defunct record labels of the United States Concord Music Group 1946 establishments in California

Roster

See also

References

External links