Sydney Nathan (April 27, 1904 – March 5, 1968) was an American

music business The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, ...

executive who founded King Records, a leading

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

, in 1943. He contributed to the development of

country & western Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ol ...

music,

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 ...

and

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

and is credited with discovering many prominent musicians, most notably

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the hono ...

, whose first single, "

Please, Please, Please "Please, Please, Please" is a rhythm and blues song performed by James Brown and the Famous Flames. Written by Brown and Johnny Terry and released as a single on Federal Records in 1956, it reached No. 6 on the R&B charts. The group's debut r ...

", was released by Federal Records, a subsidiary of King, in 1956. Nathan was described as "One of the truly

eccentric Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off-center, in geometry * Eccentricity (graph theory) of a v ...

figures of the record industry ... horuled his label like a dictator ... ndconstantly screamed and intimidated his artists and employees". He was posthumously inducted into the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), sometimes simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music and ...

, in the non-performer category, in 1997.

Biography

Nathan was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

. He left school in the

ninth grade Ninth grade, freshman year, or grade 9 is the ninth year of school education in some school systems. Ninth grade is often the first school year of high school in the United States, or the last year of middle/junior high school. In some countrie ...

, suffering from poor eyesight and

asthma Asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wheezing, co ...

. He played as a drummer in clubs and in early adulthood worked in a series of jobs in

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more genera ...

amusement parks An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

, and

pawn Pawn most often refers to: * Pawn (chess), the weakest and most numerous piece in the game * Pawnbroker or pawnshop, a business that provides loans by taking personal property as collateral Pawn may also refer to: Places * Pawn, Oregon, an his ...

and jewelry stores. In the mid-1930s, with his sister and her husband, he opened a radio and phonograph store, before moving to

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

to be with his brother and open a

photofinishing Photographic processing or photographic development is the chemical means by which photographic film or paper is treated after photographic exposure to produce a negative or positive image. Photographic processing transforms the latent image into ...

business.Biography at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Retrieved 26 July 2013.
Retrieved 26 July 2013. He moved back to Cincinnati in the early 1940s and opened a

record store A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells recorded music. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, record shops only sold gramophone records, but over the 20th century, record shops sold the new formats that were ...

, Syd's Record Shop, initially selling used

jukebox A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media. The classic jukebox has buttons, with letters and numbers on them, which are used to sele ...

records.Talevski, Nick (2010)
''Rock Obituaries: Knocking on Heaven's Door''
Omnibus Press. pp. 456–457. In 1943 he started King Records; after it failed initially, he refinanced it with the support of family members. The label was originally intended to produce

hillbilly Hillbilly is a term (often derogatory) for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in southern Appalachia and the Ozarks. The term was later used to refer to people from other rural and mountainous areas we ...

records, but Nathan diversified when he discovered the demands of African-American teenagers for what were then called

race record Race records were 78-rpm phonograph records marketed to African Americans between the 1920s and 1940s.Oliver, Paul. "Race record." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 13 Feb. 2015. They primarily contained race music, comprising various ...

s. Early records were pressed in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

, but because of their poor quality Nathan set up his own record-pressing plant in 1944 on the premises at 1540 Brewster Avenue in Cincinnati, the home of King Records for the next 25 years. He also set up a

recording studio A recording studio is a specialized facility for sound recording, mixing, and audio production of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enou ...

at that site and made his own distribution arrangements across the

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

rather than relying on national companies. He set up the Queen label to record R&B artists in 1945, but it was soon absorbed into the King label. Over the years, King assimilated many other smaller labels, including DeLuxe, and set up several subsidiaries, such as Federal. The company's

talent scout In professional sports, scouts are experienced talent evaluators who travel extensively for the purposes of watching athletes play their chosen sports and determining whether their set of skills and talents represent what is needed by the scou ...

s found many future recording stars. Early signings to the King label or its subsidiaries included

Bull Moose Jackson Benjamin Clarence "Bull Moose" Jackson (April 22, 1919 – July 31, 1989) Allmusic biography Accessed January 2008. was an American blues and rhythm-and-blues singer and saxophonist, who was most successful in the late 1940s. He is considered a ...

, Lucky Millinder,

Tiny Bradshaw Myron Carlton "Tiny" Bradshaw (September 23, 1907 – November 26, 1958)
- accessed July 2010 was an American

Earl Bostic Eugene Earl Bostic (April 25, 1913 – October 28, 1965) was an American alto saxophonist. Bostic's recording career was diverse, his musical output encompassing jazz, swing, jump blues and the post-war American rhythm and blues style, which he ...

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson (born Edward L. Vinson Jr.; December 18, 1917 – July 2, 1988) was an American jump blues, jazz, bebop and R&B alto saxophonist and blues shouter. He was nicknamed Cleanhead after an incident in which his hair was a ...

Wynonie Harris Wynonie Harris (August 24, 1915 – June 14, 1969) was an American blues shouter and rhythm-and-blues singer of upbeat songs, featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics. He had fifteen Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952. Harris is attributed by ...

, the

Dominoes Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also c ...

Little Willie John William Edward "Little Willie" John (November 15, 1937 – May 26, 1968) was an American R&B singer who performed in the 1950s and early 1960s. He is best known for his successes on the record charts, with songs such as " All Around the World" (1 ...

Bill Doggett William Ballard Doggett (February 16, 1916 – November 13, 1996) was an American pianist and organist. He began his career playing swing music before transitioning into rhythm and blues. Best known for his instrumental compositions "Honky Tonk" ...

, and

Hank Ballard Hank Ballard (born John Henry Kendricks; November 18, 1927 – March 2, 2003) was an American singer and songwriter, the lead vocalist of The Midnighters and one of the first rock and roll artists to emerge in the early 1950s. He played an inte ...

and the Midnighters, whose song "

Work with Me, Annie "Work with Me, Annie" is a 12-bar blues song with words and music by Hank Ballard. It was recorded by Hank Ballard & the Midnighters (formerly The Royals) in Cincinnati on the Federal Records label on January 14, 1954, and released the following m ...

" was one of the label's biggest successes. Nathan successfully recorded

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, whi ...

performers, such as the Delmore Brothers, the Stanley Brothers,

Moon Mullican Aubrey Wilson Mullican (March 29, 1909 – January 1, 1967), known professionally as Moon Mullican and nicknamed "King of the Hillbilly Piano Players", was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and pianist. He was associated with t ...

Cowboy Copas Lloyd Estel Copas (July 15, 1913 – March 5, 1963), known by his stage name Cowboy Copas, was an American country music singer. He was popular from the 1940s until his death in the 1963 plane crash that also killed country stars Patsy Cline an ...

and

Grandpa Jones Louis Marshall Jones (October 20, 1913 – February 19, 1998), known professionally as Grandpa Jones, was an American banjo player and "old time" country and gospel music singer. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.McCall, Michael; ...

, and also

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 a ...

singers. He actively encouraged white performers to record R&B songs and black performers to record country songs, not as an attempt at integration but as a way of maximising his song publishing revenue. Nathan said:

We saw a need. Why should we go into all those towns and only sell to the hillbilly accounts? Why can't we sell a few more while we're there? So we got in the race business.

According to his citation at the

In the process of working with black R&B and white country artists, Nathan helped effect a cross-pollination of the two worlds, thereby helping lay the groundwork for the musical hybrid known as rock and roll.

In 1956, the talent scout

Ralph Bass Ralph Basso Jr. (May 1, 1911 – March 5, 1997), known as Ralph Bass,The birth surname of Ralph Bass's paternal grandfather, who was born in Italy, was DuBasso. was an American rhythm-and-blues record producer and talent scout for several indepen ...

signed James Brown to King, where Brown recorded "Please, Please, Please". Nathan reportedly commented at the time, "That's the worse piece of crap I've heard in my life. It's someone stuttering on a record only saying one word ...". However, the record was a success. Nathan and Brown had a volatile relationship over the years,Biography by Steve Kurutz at Allmusic.com
Retrieved 26 July 2013 but Brown later said of Nathan, "I would be telling a lie if I said I would be a world star without the help of men like Mr. Nathan. He was the first one willing to take a chance on me." Brown continued to record for King, despite occasional lawsuits between the two and Nathan's initial refusal to fund Brown's album '' Live at the Apollo'', recorded in 1962, which was one of his most successful and influential, reaching number 2 on the US album chart. King Records was noted as one of the first

racially integrated Racial integration, or simply integration, includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic racial segregation). In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity ...

companies in the US record business and as "one of the few recording companies to make a record from start to finish, all under one roof."International Bluegrass Music Museum: Syd Nathan
Retrieved 26 July 2013. This gave the company a strong competitive edge, as it could record a song and press and distribute the recording within a week. By the 1960s, it had become the sixth largest record company in the US, and was responsible for over 250 hits on the rock, pop, R&B and country charts.Blase, Darren (1999)

Cincinnati Entertainment Awards. Retrieved 26 July 2013. However, King's impact declined in the 1960s, after Nathan was implicated in the

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 ...

scandal. In addition to credits received in his own name, Nathan used the pseudonym Lois Mann for song publishing and copyrights in order to obtain a share of the songwriting royalties, a common practice among record company owners. Syd Nathan, Sydney Nathan, and Lois Mann are credited with writing 202 songs, including "

Annie Had a Baby "Annie Had a Baby" is a 1954 rhythm and blues song written by Henry Glover (co-credited to Lois Mann) and recorded by The Midnighters. The single was one of many answer songs to "Work With Me, Annie", a previous hit for The Midnighters. "Annie Ha ...

", " I'll Sail My Ship Alone", "

Signed Sealed and Delivered "Signed Sealed and Delivered" is a song by Cowboy Copas (co-credited to Lois Mann). Copas recorded a hit version for King Records, which reached number two on the Most Played Juke Box Folk Records chart in 1948. Copas re-recorded the song in 19 ...

", and "

Train Kept A-Rollin' "Train Kept A-Rollin'" (or "The Train Kept A-Rollin'") is a song first recorded by American jazz and rhythm and blues musician Tiny Bradshaw in 1951. Originally performed in the style of a jump blues, Bradshaw borrowed lyrics from an earlier son ...

". Nathan had long-standing health issues, and heart problems began to emerge during his fifties. He died of heart disease, complicated by pneumonia, in

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

, in 1968 at the age of 63. He was buried at the Judah Touro Cemetery, in Cincinnati.

Legacy

Nathan was posthumously inducted into the

in 1997 and the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2007. In the

biopic '' Get on Up'', Nathan is portrayed by the actor

Fred Melamed Fred Melamed (born May 13, 1956) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is best known for portraying Sy Ableman in the Coen Brothers' ''A Serious Man'' (2009). He is also known for his collaborations with Woody Allen appearing in seven o ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nathan, Syd 1904 births 1968 deaths Record producers from Ohio American music industry executives 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American businesspeople