WEBVTT - Yemi Oyediran 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:12.840 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefsetts Podcast. My 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:16.919 guest today is Yemi oh Yet it ran director of 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:20.800 King of them All, the Story of King Records. Yemmy, 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:23.239 how'd you decide to make this movie? 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:26.960 Well, I've been a jazz musician in the Cincinnati area 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:30.120 for about twenty years, and I've been hearing a lot 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:32.760 of old timers tell me about how James Brown still 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:36.680 owes the money. So finally, after kind of compiling the 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:38.800 stories together, I got into kind of the King thing, 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:42.279 and I started kind of doing different types of I 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:46.640 call them King experiments, from whether it was bringing my 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:50.120 entire recording studio into spaces and we recreated making a 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:54.440 King Records with an audience of three hundred people, and 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:56.840 then it kind of fell into a documentary from there. 0:00:57.800 --> 0:00:59.840 Okay, what's your history in filmmaking? 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.400 My history in filmmaking has been it started really as 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.319 a way to promote gigs. I tried to find different 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:09.560 creative ways of getting people to check out jazz gigs, 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:11.560 which is Bob, as you can imagine, is not the 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:16.000 easiest task. But yeah, from there, it kind of just 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:21.479 grew into storytelling and just getting interviews about different types 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:26.600 of things and different interests, and kind of combining music 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.200 and some filmmaking was kind of the path that led 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:29.720 me this way. 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.560 Okay, prior to this King Records documentary, what films had 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:35.840 you made? Oh? 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.880 Well, this is my first feature, but I'd made certain 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:45.400 shorts about different subjects around Cincinnati, talking about food sustainability, 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:50.000 talking about food insecurity in the area, highlighting different stories 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.560 for a lot of different nonprofits, working with homeless shelters 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.600 to get people to tell their stories. We looked for 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.280 kind of ways to empower stories that people otherwise don't 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:04.400 care about, and that from there kind of grew into filmmaking. 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:06.160 This is kind of a separate path to something else 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.639 that I was working on in my life, separate from music, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.680 and the combination of both of those paths led me 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:12.720 towards this film. 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:15.880 How much should it cost to make the film? 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.480 Oh? My lord, it cost me nine years of my 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.919 life for sure, which is priceless. A lot of it 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.800 was also self financed in there, with my money, my 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.640 business partner's money, my creative partner. Yeah, this was a 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.320 passion project. So you know, it's kind of hard to 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:39.760 specify how much it costs to buy this camera or 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.720 this thing that we've had for years. But yeah, it 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:44.239 was just a lot of love and labor and a 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.160 lot of support from foundations in Cincinnati. 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:49.560 So how did you end up making a deal for 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.280 it to be aired on PBS. 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:56.959 That's a great question. So PBS a couple of years 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.079 ago put out this campaign where they were looking to 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.320 highlight other types of filmmakers, and they put out an 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.120 open call and I found out about the open call 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.080 on the last day. I think that I actually submitted 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:14.280 like ten minutes before they were not taking any more submissions, 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.320 and I applied to this open call and it took 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:19.600 them a couple of years. I think they got a 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:22.280 little bit more than they bargained for, and it took 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:24.440 them a couple of years to go through all of 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:28.400 the submissions, and we just kind of stepped by step 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.600 worked through their process and we wanted the selected projects. 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:32.679 It was really amazing. 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.720 So they selected you before the film was done. 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.040 No, So the long story of the films, I've made 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:47.520 it five times already because I'm insane, Bob. So I 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:51.000 first started with my version of the film, which I 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:52.800 worked with. I didn't know how to edit film at 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:56.240 the time, so I worked with an editor who was 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.400 in college who didn't listen to anything that I wanted 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.000 to do. It was really frustrating and I didn't really 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.040 get the project that I wanted, but it gave me 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:05.360 enough of something to give people idea of what I 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.280 was going for. And then over the next several years, 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:13.200 I worked with either my business partner or myself when 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.280 I finally learned how to edit, but over kind of 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:17.720 like a five to six year period, I learned how 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.400 to basically do the full all the steps of production, 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:23.480 and once I kind of was empowered to do so, 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:25.599 I was able to submit that version, which was a 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:31.200 ninety minute version of the film. And then once PBS 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.000 came on board, I tried to see if I could 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.560 convince them to do the three and a half hour 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:37.880 version of the film that it really was. So I 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:39.680 stretched it all out and showed them all of it 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:41.800 and they got mad at me, So then it became 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:46.560 a seventy five minute Yeah, because for those this is 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.600 the notes of filmmakers out there, you need to do 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.120 something with fifty four minutes and forty eight seconds. That's 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.800 how much time PBS gives you. Unless you are super 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.360 special or ken Burns anybody outside of that, you get 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:01.880 an hour. So I had to bring the film down 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:03.880 to from seventy five minutes to an hour, and that's 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.360 the version that we put out, but the director's cut. 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.520 The seventy five minute version we have out. We share. 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:12.520 I share with my friends and you know, anybody else 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:14.360 who's bored enough to be interested. 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:19.960 Okay. Was the first time there was any public exhibition 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.440 when it went on PBS or did you go to 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.239 the film circuit film festival circuit? 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.200 Yeah, we tried our hand at the film festival circuit. 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.719 And one thing that I learned about film festivals is 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.160 that they're really hard to get into. Bob, I was 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:42.440 really shocked. We submitted at all of the film festivals, big, small, 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.799 and everything in between, and we weren't able to air 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:48.720 show at a lot of the film festivals that we'd 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.039 aimed for. But we did get to show at a 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.920 local festival here called the Over the Ryan Film Festival, 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.880 and then we showed at a film festival in Florida 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.080 called the Florida Film Festival. But the one that we 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.440 did here in Cincinnati, we showed it on It was 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:06.760 coincidentally the same day that said Nathan Died, who was 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.279 the subject of the film, and we also kind of 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:11.599 felt I felt that it was really important. You know, 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.320 it's a film about Cincinnati, where I live. It all 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:17.479 takes place in Cincinnati, and it felt right to kind 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.520 of open and have the first premiere, the public premiere, 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.560 be in Cincinnati. So we went with that route and 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:24.760 the rest is history. 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.480 As they say, Okay, when we're speaking, the film has 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:33.160 already started to air on PBS. What has the feedback 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.280 What is your experience been in the wake of the 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:37.799 movie finally going public. 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.120 First of all, I want to thank you so much 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:47.880 for talking about our film on your newsletter. That was 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.719 really amazing. I got a lot of reach out from 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.640 a lot of I told you, I'm a professional musician, 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.000 from a lot of people I respect in the industry 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.040 reached out to me and they're like, I can't believe it. 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:00.400 This is amazing, So I wanted that was one of 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.200 the first pieces of feedback that we actually received, and 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.279 it was really heartwarming. A lot of years went into 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:08.800 this and getting a review like that from you was 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.680 life changing. So thank you. We were able to get 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:13.400 a lot of great you know, the Wall Street Journal 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:15.640 gave us a wonderful review, as well as some other 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:20.560 outlets Billboard Magazine, which was really super special and amazing. 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:24.080 We got a lot of local love in Cincinnati. There 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.360 are some haters out there, and anybody who creates something, 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:29.720 you always pay attention to the haters in the comments section. 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.320 But most of that is from a lot of fellow 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:37.680 nerds who didn't see their favorite artists featured, which I 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:39.640 completely understand, which is why I made a three and 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.000 a half hour version of the film and I had 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.200 to have my heart broken by removing all of that, 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:47.559 so I understand where all of them were coming from. 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.400 That's just passion. I love it. But it's been an 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:54.960 overwhelmingly positive response. A lot of people didn't know about this. 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:57.520 This is kind of inject some things into the conversation 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.640 that a lot of people didn't think about out and 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:02.960 it kind of presents something that's new to people. So 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:04.800 I think that's kind of fresh and interesting to a 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:07.280 lot of people in music history, especially. 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.680 Okay, what is special about Cincinnati? 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.440 Oh my lord, A lot of things are special about Cincinnati, man. 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.880 First of all, the drinking that if you want to 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:21.520 find a great person to hang out with at a bar. 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:25.200 Any Cincinnatian will like fit the bill, I promise, So 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:27.720 if anybody comes in, you don't need to know anybody. 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.320 Just come down, find a nice bar, sit down, and 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:32.400 before you know it, you'll be best friends with half 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.760 the city. It's the city's kind of like Cheers, you know, 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.800 it's a city that is small enough but big enough 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.000 to kind of get some things done. That's one of 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.520 the things that's really special about it. The other thing 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:47.480 is that it really has a love for the arts, 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.079 which a lot of cities love arts, but Cincinnati is 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.360 invested into arts in a really deep and meaningful way. 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.840 So it's a place where, you know, as a musician, 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:58.840 you can live as a full time musician, you can 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:02.560 have a professional career as an artist and still live 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.120 and raise a family and have children. It's kind of 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.120 one of those few places in America where that still exists, 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.800 and it's kind of a nestled little secret in the 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.480 landscape of America, which is what kind of makes it cool. 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:18.560 But there's a lot of things that make Cincinnati special. 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.960 You know, the food scene here is amazing, which opens 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.280 for a lot of collaborations between restaurants and musicians that 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:30.040 always end up really special and meaningful. The people of 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.560 Cincinnati are just really cool people. If like I could 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.240 just kind of put it in like a very succinct way, 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:40.080 just a very interesting combination of different types of people 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:42.120 kind of coming together to create a community. It's cool. 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.559 Okay, Ohio in the last half century is gone through 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.320 the mill, which is funny. I'm using that term telling 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:55.840 me about the steel mills, Columbus, Cleveland, etc. What is 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:58.760 the economy of Cincinnati and how is it doing? 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.040 Wow? So I used to live in the Cleveland I 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:04.760 actually went to boarding school outside of Cleveland, and I 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.840 grew up in Moorland Hills in Beechwood and outside of Cleveland. 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:12.000 And so coming down to and seeing there's a different vibe. 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:13.520 You know, Cleveland has a lot of old money. You 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:15.760 still have a lot of that Rockefeller existence in the 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:20.000 Cleveland area, and in Cincinnati it's a little bit different, 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.160 but it's really based. You know, Procter and Gamble is here, 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.880 which is a powerhouse part of the community, as is Kroger, 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.560 which opens a lot of opportunities for advertising. For example. 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.840 You know, there's actually a really strong advertising business community 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.640 here as well as consumer product goods. You know a 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:43.080 lot of these businesses around that the consumer product goods 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.320 are important. We also have a really important railway. This 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.440 is kind of a nerd fact. One of the biggest 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.760 railports is still in Cincinnati. Cincinnati really left its rail 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.920 system intact and that allowed for a lot of companies 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:57.760 because we still move a lot of things by freight 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.559 by rail, and that allowed a lot of companies who 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.000 were involved in the consumer product goods business to also 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.200 continue to thrive here. So there's kind of this underbelly 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:09.600 that even like a lot of Cincinnatians don't know, but 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:13.120 all these support structure of all these businesses that are 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:18.000 built around supporting consumer product goods groceries. But then there's 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:19.960 also a wide variety of other things. There's a tech 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:23.720 industry here. I could go on and on, but Cincinnati's 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:24.200 dope Man. 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:29.600 Also Cincinnati's famous for Greaters ice cream too, right. 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.200 Yeah, Greater's ice Cream, Skyline Chili Man. Those are the 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.199 two things and I used early in my career. I'm 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.479 also a software developer. I worked on both of their websites. 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:42.600 So it wasn't very long before my doctor and I 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:46.520 had to have a conversation about diabetes. Because every day 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:48.520 in and out. All I could do is like eat 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.360 and like work on skyline and Greaters. Greaters is amazing 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.439 ice cream. If you've never had it before, like, let 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:56.760 me know and I will send it out to you. 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.240 It is the best. Have you ever tried it before? 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:01.679 Bob Oh, Yeah, I have. 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:03.880 That's why I mentioned it. I heard about it. 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:06.000 But I mean, what's your favorite? What's your favorite flavor? 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:08.000 I can't tell you, tell you the truth. I was 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.280 at a food festival. I love ice cream. I tried 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:15.440 multiple flavors. I can't tell you. And Cincinnati, I don't 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.280 think I've ever been to Cincinnati. But going back to 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.200 the street, since you're from the Cleveland area, how did 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:22.520 gend up in Cincinnati? 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:27.079 I'm actually so. My family's orisually from Nigeria, and I 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.880 moved around a lot. So my father was doing a 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:32.520 PhD in Cornell, and then we moved back to Nigeria. 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.800 I'm kind of a weird generational type of thing because 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:39.360 I spent a significant part of my childhood in Nigeria, 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.320 so I speak the language and everything. And then we 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.480 moved to the hospital, Alabama area where my father. My 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:49.240 father was an essence of rocket scientist, so and then 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.679 we moved to Cleveland, and then I came to Cincinnati 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:56.040 for college. I was looking for a program that had 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.280 a solid engineering program and a solid music program. And 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:00.720 there are a lot of these other programs that I 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:04.199 got into, but one would be better in one or 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.240 not good enough in the other, and Cincinnati kind of 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.040 had a good program in both. So I came here 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.080 and studied jazz, and I studied computer science and computer engineering, 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:15.040 and I continue to do both of those things here. 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:23.480 Okay, forgetting the film for a second. What's keeping you alive? Software? Music? 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:28.480 Oh lord, that's a good question. So what's keeping me 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:33.040 emotionally alive is definitely the music. I learned very early 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.160 in my career that if I tried to not if 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:36.920 I try to not have music in my life and 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.800 I couldn't create music, I turned into a dick. So 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:44.520 that wasn't working. And it also actually helps my software 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:46.760 career because I'm a lot more creative I think about. 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.080 It puts me in different scenarios to work out problems 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:51.600 because you just can't. It's just a different type of 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.880 problem solving. But I live off of in my family, 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.199 we live off of my computing career. But my music 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:01.959 career and my teacher career. My music teaching career also 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.800 is very very helpful and very very important. As you know, 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:08.600 the ranch is too damn high. 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.400 Okay, And how old are you today today? 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.000 I believe I am forty four years old, Bob. 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.080 Well, as I say this is audio only, you don't 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.040 look forty four. I thought you were going to say 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:22.000 like thirty something. 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.080 But at any event, you know, people like to say 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.600 black don't crack, and you know, I hope that continues 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:31.160 to be true through you know, however long i'm here. 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.600 One of the big points you make about King Records 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.920 is how integrated it was as a black man living 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:52.440 in Cincinnati today and in America, how do you experience racism? 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.800 Ooh, you're hitting right to the tabasco sauce right now, 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:03.840 getting spicy. That's a really good question. You know, race 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:06.880 and talking about race and King Records is challenging because 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:14.360 King Records offers a great example for why the complexities 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:19.720 around how America came about our racial integration. You know, 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:21.920 it wasn't done. You know, King Records shows that it's 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.360 very business driven. But even King Records, you know, they 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:27.840 start with a guy named Ben Siegel, who's the personnel director, 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:31.320 and he comes in and he wants to have a 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.960 you know, equal opportunity hiring policy and is able to 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:38.200 convince the owner, Sid Nathan, to go along with this. 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:40.440 And he's able to convince him because you know, he's like, 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:43.520 we're both Jews, and you know, we've just seen and 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.880 experience in Europe because again, this is the nineteen forties 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:51.000 where we were treated in a particular way. The takeaway 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.520 from this is we should probably not do the same thing. 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.400 And this aligned with Sid's beliefs, and so they try 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:02.600 an equal hiring policy into the production about I think 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:04.880 maybe about a year ago or two years ago, his 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:06.880 daughter I was able to finally get in touch with 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.960 Ben Siegel's daughter, Deborah, and she was able to share 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:14.480 some letters, some correspondence between Sid Nathan and her father. 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.600 And what we find over time is that there's more 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.560 complexity to this. When they have this policy at King Records, 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:26.800 not everybody is into this policy. There starts to be 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:32.160 conflicts between workers, you know, just inner office politics, and 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.480 it's not as kumbaya as we would want it to be. 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.320 It is still a product of the nineteen forties. So 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.040 they first tried with a very progressive approach, and in 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.520 a couple of years into this, they have to scale 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:47.280 back some of it and they start realizing there's just 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:50.640 not everybody gets along. So from a musical perspective, with 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.760 people like Henry Glover, who is the first black music executive, 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.080 that and King brings them on board and gives him 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:00.800 stock in the company. So you have great examples of 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:06.560 things like that that are really indicative of progressive racial ideas. 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.080 But then over time you start to see that there 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.560 is a separation. They stop having African Americans in the 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:16.520 office towards the fifties after Ben Siegel leaves, and then 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:18.960 in the sixties you start seeing a really much more 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.359 stark separation of where African Americans are working in the 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:24.960 pressing plants and not in the office. And there really 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:29.040 is kind of a more classic Jim Crow segregation in 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.320 the office, But it's not happening from the musical perspective, 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:35.960 because again, you know there's going to be that. It's 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:38.240 very back and forth. So we had to kind of 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:42.240 wrestle with this as we were making the film because 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:45.880 it is more indicative of what I see in America 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:49.800 and my experiences of race in America, which are complex. 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.760 You know, in some areas it's accessible and very easy 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:58.960 to navigate and work through being a black person in America. However, 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:02.800 there are some places is still today where navigating or 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:06.639 some situations where navigating is problematic, where not everybody is 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:11.320 comfortable where there should be access, but somebody is uncomfortable 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:14.439 with something and instead of directly saying it, you know, 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:18.640 there's going to be passive, aggressive behaviors that come out 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.280 and you've got to work it through inter office politics 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.239 or some sort of political situation. Some places. Sometimes some 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.080 situations it's great. In some situations it's not so great. 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:31.200 And you know, this film was able to kind of 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:37.280 really articulate to me how there are differences in race, 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.840 you know, especially watching One thing I did is that 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:44.120 I went back all the way to the history of 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.359 looking at some of the arrests of some of the 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.640 people in around King records and some of the owners 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.160 and a lot of the owners were from the Jewish community, 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.359 and you see a policing of Jews in the Cincinnati 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:59.200 area that I really didn't expect. It really started to 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:04.280 dawn on me that what we have in America is 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:07.600 more of a cast system, you know, and in the 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:11.000 nineteen fifties you really see this. You see if you 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:16.560 are Wasp, Western European, Anglo Saxon Protestant, that is the 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:18.959 definition of whiteness in that area. And then if you're 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:22.080 Eastern European, if you're Italian, if you're Irish, if you're 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.119 pretty much anything else, you kind of fall on a 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:27.760 sliding scale. And we see a lot of the policing, 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:29.600 and we see a lot of these things that we're 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:32.560 talking about in society. A lot of these communities were 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:34.639 also talking about that then as well. You see a 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.040 lot of Italian names in the arrest record, a lot 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.840 of Jewish names, a lot of African American names, and 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:42.520 what It just kind of shows that there's a lot 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:44.600 more complexity to our racial story, just like there was 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.760 a lot more complexity to the story at King Records. And yeah, 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.040 it's been an illuminating process learning these things. 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:56.000 So when did you first hear about Sid Nathan? 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:05.040 So the first time I heard about Sid Nathan was yikes, 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.000 at a at a gig, somebody telling me about the 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:14.240 fights between him and James Brown. It was about the 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:18.440 song I Feel Good and how James had gone to Smash, 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:20.879 which was owned by Mercury at the time, and he 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:23.080 thought that his contract with King Records was over. So 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.040 he goes over to make a deal with Mercury and 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.960 they release a song I Feel Good, and it pairs 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.720 and they pair it with the film Ski Party. Have 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:35.359 you ever seen that movie before, Bob? Which film Ski Party? 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.399 It's like a net Funicello film back in Uh. 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:41.639 Yeah, you know, yeah, you say, yes, yes I did. 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.720 It was a very famous film. Bring me to Another era. 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:48.600 I've been living in that era for about ten years. 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.640 So he does Ski Party and it's huge and Sid 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:53.840 Nathan gets wind of this and is like, what the 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:57.320 hell you still? Like, Oh, you're on my contract. So 0:20:57.359 --> 0:20:59.760 Sid has to put an embargo on the record. They've 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:01.840 got a work it out and sue each other and 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:04.200 it's intense, you know. And I was able to actually 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:09.400 get a hold of some of the send each other 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:10.919 telegrams and I was able to get some of the 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.920 copies of the telegrams. But it was intense, like harsh talk. 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.679 But they were able to work it out and James 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:19.640 was able to come back and they released I Feel 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:21.800 Good and became a huge hit for King. But that 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:23.600 was the first time I heard about said Nathan, his 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:27.200 harascible nature in working with James Brown. 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.280 Okay, just stay on that one thing, because I'm old 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:35.120 enough to remember what I feel good with the Gigantic Kid. 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.200 Do you know how that worked out? Did Mercury actually 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:41.840 who was based in Chicago at that point, did they 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:46.080 actually release it? Because you know, normally you know who 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:49.679 ended up making it a hit, Mercury or King and 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:50.679 how did that happen? 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:53.840 So, yeah, it got released on Smash because I was 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:58.560 able to find the publicity shots. So there's a publicity 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.720 shot where it's James performing, So the James of the 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.440 Famous Flame, Bobby Bird and all those guys, they're all 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:06.720 doing I Feel Good in the dance number on there, 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:11.080 and they have they have a promo shot where it 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:13.080 has Smashed Records right there on the bottom. So they 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:16.120 released it under Smash. But once the release came out, 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:19.600 King came in right away and they had to work 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:20.960 that deal out very quickly. 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:27.080 Okay, you know, I was thrilled to see an experiencial film, 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:31.000 which is fantastic. Everybody literally should see so much. But 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.400 I knew about Sid Nathan from Seymour Stein. You could 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:40.240 not sit with se without Sid coming up. You made 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:44.399 this film at the end of the day, how do 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:46.280 you feel about Sid the Man? 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:52.200 Uh, that's interesting, you know. I, first of all, seymour 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.639 Stein one of the best interviews I've ever had in 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:58.040 my life. He fell asleep in it twice, but he 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.040 was determined to get every question answered. He wanted to 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:03.199 make sure he went on record everything you need to 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:07.280 know about Sid Nathan, which was amazing. And I also 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:10.600 got like a lot of advice, just like music business 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:14.359 advice and how to navigate. The guy is really really deep, 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:18.280 So it was really amazing to be able to get 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:20.520 spent some time with him, And yeah, he had a 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:23.480 lot of interesting things to say about Sidneathan. He gave 0:23:23.520 --> 0:23:27.159 me a different color of Sidnathan. I'm very close with 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:31.000 Sid Nathan's family, his nephew in particular, so I've gotten 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:33.080 to have a lot of viewpoints from a lot of 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:37.720 people who knew Sid personally. And Sid's kind of an 0:23:37.720 --> 0:23:45.119 interesting guy, you know, Sid the man, very principled, very stubborn. 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:48.119 He's a classic metch you know, like it's that's the 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:50.200 best way that I can kind of describe it. And 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:52.359 that's something I'm I grew up in a Jewish community 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:55.120 in Cleveland, so I understand what that means and who 0:23:55.160 --> 0:23:58.200 that guy is. But he's very much that classic guy 0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:02.480 smokes cigars, said the first thing on his mind is 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:05.080 always kind of like making a joke, making a dirty joke, 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:09.600 you know, but on you know, so like there's that 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:13.760 kind of lovable side to him. He was very big 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:15.880 with giving gifts. Sid would go out and he'd find 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:18.440 a deal on something and he'd buy twenty of them, 0:24:18.680 --> 0:24:20.960 and he's so he like, there's one time he found radios. 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:24.160 So he found this new fangled radio, so he bought 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:27.040 twenty new fangled radios. He'd have people to his house. 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:29.439 He had a pool, he was always throwing parties, and 0:24:29.520 --> 0:24:31.600 he'd give them these radios. Man, so you come into 0:24:31.640 --> 0:24:33.520 the house and you get this like new fangled radio 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:36.440 from Sid and this other type of cigar. So I 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:40.400 connected with him on those types of things. But then 0:24:40.440 --> 0:24:42.640 on the same side, you know, he's this cranky guy 0:24:42.680 --> 0:24:46.800 who's constantly fighting with like Nina Simone, and he's fighting 0:24:46.800 --> 0:24:49.040 with Otis Williams, and he's fighting with all these artists 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:52.040 and he has favorite artists who he loves, but he's 0:24:52.119 --> 0:24:55.120 kind of a jerk to some of these people, and 0:24:55.480 --> 0:24:57.680 so that's kind of like an interesting dichotomy to kind 0:24:57.680 --> 0:24:59.959 of pull at, to kind of figure out with Sid. 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:03.919 But you know, he's kind of an interesting, hilarious character. 0:25:03.960 --> 0:25:08.479 He's kind of every man. He's a knockabout, and I 0:25:08.480 --> 0:25:10.919 think he's kind of a character that everybody has a 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:14.360 little bit of Sid Nathan inside of him. 0:25:14.520 --> 0:25:19.560 Okay, the business has evolved, oh my gosh, but even 0:25:19.560 --> 0:25:25.080 at this date, the terms are on the record company's side. 0:25:26.000 --> 0:25:28.359 Back in Sid Nathan's date, there are a lot of 0:25:28.480 --> 0:25:32.760 very famous labels that never paid royalties. In addition to 0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:36.760 the fact that the royalty rates were very low. To 0:25:36.880 --> 0:25:42.280 what degree were the acts angry that when they had success, 0:25:42.440 --> 0:25:44.840 the lion's share of the money went to the label 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:45.880 as opposed to them. 0:25:46.040 --> 0:25:50.159 Wow, it is a subject matter that keeps coming, that 0:25:50.240 --> 0:25:53.360 came up in every interview with every artist or anybody's 0:25:54.160 --> 0:25:59.320 every artist interview comes up. So Sid was very, very 0:25:59.359 --> 0:26:03.040 scrupulous and very you know on the negotiations. You know, 0:26:03.119 --> 0:26:05.840 he'd come at you hard on the negotiations, and it 0:26:05.880 --> 0:26:08.240 was mainly because you know, Grandpa Jones talks about this 0:26:08.280 --> 0:26:12.320 in an interview he you know, he would come at 0:26:12.359 --> 0:26:14.800 you hard, but once you made the deal, he would 0:26:14.840 --> 0:26:16.480 stick to the end of the deal. You know, Grandpa 0:26:16.560 --> 0:26:20.840 Jones played four cents aside, which is a terrible deal, 0:26:21.720 --> 0:26:26.320 you know, and you know four cents is nothing, but 0:26:26.880 --> 0:26:28.959 you know, Grandpa Jones said nobody was going to give 0:26:29.000 --> 0:26:31.160 him a deal of any kind. And without that deal, 0:26:31.280 --> 0:26:33.360 you know, a couple of years later he moved to RCA. 0:26:34.280 --> 0:26:35.760 He would have never gotten the RCA deal if he 0:26:35.760 --> 0:26:38.480 didn't get the King deal. And he's able to move on. 0:26:39.119 --> 0:26:42.159 There's some artists, particularly African American artists, that their ability 0:26:42.200 --> 0:26:47.400 to move on wasn't easy and wasn't as there wasn't 0:26:47.400 --> 0:26:49.960 a path for them that they could easily move on 0:26:50.040 --> 0:26:53.560 to another label. Some there were, but a lot of 0:26:53.560 --> 0:26:56.960 people really did feel that Sid Nathan didn't do them right. 0:26:57.720 --> 0:26:59.760 But James, you know, there's an interview with James Brown 0:26:59.760 --> 0:27:02.760 where he kind of clarifies the situation. You know, James 0:27:02.800 --> 0:27:05.000 Brown is an international star. The first time I heard 0:27:05.000 --> 0:27:08.240 about James Brown was in my grandmother's records in Nigeria 0:27:08.280 --> 0:27:11.199 as a kid, and it wasn't a King record. I 0:27:11.240 --> 0:27:13.600 don't remember the name of the label, but I definitely 0:27:13.640 --> 0:27:18.240 remember it wasn't King because I definitely would have recognized it. 0:27:18.240 --> 0:27:22.480 It was, you know, a bootleg probably, and what James 0:27:22.560 --> 0:27:26.840 space was internationally, there wasn't anybody who could control his royalties. 0:27:27.040 --> 0:27:30.600 Sid Nathan couldn't collect royalty. You know, collecting royalties back 0:27:30.680 --> 0:27:33.320 then especially was really tough. You had to be the 0:27:33.359 --> 0:27:35.320 one to go out there and figure out who's making 0:27:35.400 --> 0:27:37.119 your stuff or playing your stuff, and you got to 0:27:37.200 --> 0:27:40.399 figure the money out, which was a lot tougher, you know. 0:27:40.640 --> 0:27:44.680 So the ability to collect all the royalties was difficult 0:27:44.680 --> 0:27:46.600 in the first place, and in James Brown's case, it 0:27:46.680 --> 0:27:49.439 wasn't possible, which was one of the things he wanted 0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:51.919 from a Polydor. So when he moved to an international 0:27:51.960 --> 0:27:56.120 German company like Polydor in seventy one, you know, he's 0:27:56.160 --> 0:27:58.560 now able to get the full He's now able to 0:27:58.600 --> 0:28:01.679 collect royalties. And along the way, James been able to 0:28:01.680 --> 0:28:04.320 renegotiate his deal, but not every artist was able to 0:28:04.320 --> 0:28:08.159 renegotiate their deal. So you have artists like Otis Williams 0:28:08.600 --> 0:28:11.879 and the Charms who lives here in Cincinnati, and he 0:28:11.960 --> 0:28:14.679 had the biggest doop group in the nineteen fifties. They 0:28:14.680 --> 0:28:16.760 were huge, and they had hit after hit after hit. 0:28:17.560 --> 0:28:20.840 You know, Sid would do things like, you know, his 0:28:20.960 --> 0:28:23.600 mom got married, so Sid would pay for the wedding 0:28:24.240 --> 0:28:27.480 and then Sid would then turn around and charge Otis's 0:28:27.520 --> 0:28:31.119 account for it. Or Sid would buy cars for people. 0:28:31.160 --> 0:28:33.840 So Sid had a relationship with a car dealership down 0:28:33.840 --> 0:28:37.920 the street from the studio, which was so he would 0:28:37.960 --> 0:28:40.400 go there and make a deal. I'll purchase these cars 0:28:40.400 --> 0:28:42.880 at this rate near cost, you make a little bit 0:28:42.880 --> 0:28:45.280 of money over it, and I'll sell it to the artists, 0:28:45.440 --> 0:28:49.400 which then gets him because it's depreciating asset. He's able 0:28:49.440 --> 0:28:51.480 to then make more money off the top of paying 0:28:51.520 --> 0:28:54.280 the artist these deals with the Cadillac, for example, and 0:28:54.320 --> 0:28:56.480 a lot of these artists didn't understand that that was 0:28:56.520 --> 0:28:58.760 going on, so a lot of them felt screwed over. 0:28:59.320 --> 0:29:01.880 But Sid would find these ways of being able to, 0:29:02.360 --> 0:29:07.760 you know, increase his profit by doing things like paying 0:29:07.800 --> 0:29:10.280 for events or paying for like your baby shower, things 0:29:10.320 --> 0:29:13.440 like that, which a lot of artists didn't appreciate because 0:29:13.440 --> 0:29:16.080 he wasn't really upfront with what was happening there. So 0:29:16.120 --> 0:29:18.720 there's a lot of that type of stuff. But you know, 0:29:18.760 --> 0:29:21.520 that was just record business back in the nineteen fifties 0:29:21.560 --> 0:29:25.360 and sixties, which, to be honest, Bob hasn't changed a 0:29:25.480 --> 0:29:27.840 whole lot. To be honest, you know, the deals are 0:29:27.840 --> 0:29:30.880 pretty much the same. Artists are getting the same type 0:29:30.920 --> 0:29:33.880 of you know, artists are coming to these deals with 0:29:34.040 --> 0:29:37.480 the same amount of education, and record labels are in 0:29:37.600 --> 0:29:40.200 essence doing the same version of what they've always been doing. 0:29:48.160 --> 0:29:54.120 So in terms of his business savvy, was Sid totally 0:29:54.400 --> 0:29:57.479 a man of experience or were there things in his 0:29:57.600 --> 0:30:00.840 family or other things that happened that gave insight into 0:30:00.880 --> 0:30:02.080 how to run a business? 0:30:02.080 --> 0:30:05.400 Oh, my lord, No, Sid was a knockabout man like. 0:30:05.480 --> 0:30:08.800 So he had his bookie. This guy named Howard Kessel 0:30:09.160 --> 0:30:12.480 was the family bookie, you know, and you know he 0:30:12.520 --> 0:30:15.120 was kind of he had like mob relations man, but 0:30:15.240 --> 0:30:18.240 he was like the local bookie. And he puts in 0:30:18.360 --> 0:30:22.280 ten grand But Howard's wife like is railing against him 0:30:22.280 --> 0:30:25.320 because he's Sid's cousin and he's saying, don't put much. 0:30:25.400 --> 0:30:27.760 She's like, don't put money into this. I can't believe it. 0:30:28.320 --> 0:30:32.600 And Howard was not the world's I met his granddaughter. 0:30:32.760 --> 0:30:35.360 She let me know that he was a horrible husband's 0:30:35.640 --> 0:30:38.160 very very mean man. So the fact that his wife 0:30:38.280 --> 0:30:42.240 wasn't into this really got Howard to double down. But 0:30:42.760 --> 0:30:45.440 you know, Sid was known as somebody who you weren't 0:30:45.440 --> 0:30:48.800 going to necessarily invest into. Sid was also really sick. 0:30:48.880 --> 0:30:51.480 He had a lot of health problems, so you know, 0:30:51.560 --> 0:30:54.200 he went into business with his brother in law. They 0:30:54.240 --> 0:30:57.360 started a that's actually how the idea of getting into 0:30:57.400 --> 0:31:03.120 the record business started. He thought that, hey, if I 0:31:03.240 --> 0:31:05.520 go into the record business, I can do this. They 0:31:05.520 --> 0:31:08.360 start a whole record shop and Sid ends up having 0:31:08.400 --> 0:31:10.600 some health issues and has to go down to Florida 0:31:10.920 --> 0:31:12.640 with his guy as a brother who's a doctor in 0:31:12.680 --> 0:31:14.800 Florida who has to nurse him back to health and 0:31:14.840 --> 0:31:18.200 it takes like two years. So Sid can get into stuff, 0:31:18.320 --> 0:31:20.280 but you know, because of his health, he might have 0:31:20.280 --> 0:31:23.120 to pull out of it because of all kinds of circumstances. 0:31:23.240 --> 0:31:27.640 Whether you know, he was sometimes not always on the 0:31:27.680 --> 0:31:30.840 top or on the table. Everything wasn't, you know, on 0:31:30.880 --> 0:31:33.360 the up and up as they say, so some things 0:31:33.360 --> 0:31:35.760 would fall apart. But he had different He was a 0:31:35.840 --> 0:31:38.560 he had a pawn shop, he was a wrestling promoter. 0:31:39.640 --> 0:31:41.880 He had a shooting gallery. He got arrested for that. 0:31:43.160 --> 0:31:45.480 He got arrested for crossing the street and getting a 0:31:45.560 --> 0:31:50.400 jaywalk coming out of a movie theater once. That was fun. Yeah, 0:31:50.440 --> 0:31:53.360 he was involved in all kinds of different schemes and 0:31:53.400 --> 0:31:56.040 they would always fall apart, so people didn't really see 0:31:56.080 --> 0:31:59.880 him to be a sure bet. But you know, he 0:32:00.120 --> 0:32:02.240 was able to get family. It was getting enough friends 0:32:02.280 --> 0:32:04.240 to kind of put money. They all put ten thousand 0:32:04.280 --> 0:32:07.040 dollars each in nineteen forty three. That's a ton of money, 0:32:07.920 --> 0:32:10.880 and they're able to get this record business started. But 0:32:11.000 --> 0:32:12.800 everybody was kind of dubious that he was going to 0:32:12.840 --> 0:32:14.080 be able to make anything out of it. 0:32:15.560 --> 0:32:19.160 Okay, at what point did it look like it was 0:32:19.200 --> 0:32:20.160 going to be a business? 0:32:20.520 --> 0:32:25.239 Oh, you know, that's a great question. You know, I 0:32:25.320 --> 0:32:28.320 would argue that from day one it looked like it 0:32:28.360 --> 0:32:32.040 was going to be a business. You know, WLW, which 0:32:32.080 --> 0:32:36.840 is this record, which is this radio station here in Cincinnati. 0:32:36.920 --> 0:32:39.880 It's still around, but it was one of the first 0:32:39.920 --> 0:32:43.840 big radio stations in America. They were able to broadcast 0:32:43.920 --> 0:32:48.800 at fifty thousand jigawatts. I'm making that word up, but 0:32:48.960 --> 0:32:53.640 they were able to broadcast at the highest level. Then 0:32:53.680 --> 0:32:55.720 they had to get government permission. It was a big 0:32:55.760 --> 0:32:59.040 deal and which allowed them to broadcast. Basically they could 0:32:59.040 --> 0:33:01.479 be heard through the HEMISPR. So a lot of the 0:33:01.480 --> 0:33:05.320 first places where you hear jazz is from this radio 0:33:05.360 --> 0:33:08.840 station WLW Jazz in the Midwest. That's what really distributes it. 0:33:09.920 --> 0:33:13.719 So this this radio station is right around the corner 0:33:13.880 --> 0:33:16.560 from his record shop, and a lot of these guys 0:33:16.600 --> 0:33:19.320 come into the record shop looking for music. They're looking 0:33:19.600 --> 0:33:22.520 In their interviews, they talk about looking for black music. 0:33:22.520 --> 0:33:24.400 They're looking to cover black music because they got to 0:33:24.440 --> 0:33:26.680 like come up with new songs after new songs after 0:33:26.760 --> 0:33:30.000 new song every day on the radio. So all these artists, 0:33:30.040 --> 0:33:34.000 Grandpa Jones, Cowboy Kopis, all these artists are coming through 0:33:34.400 --> 0:33:36.440 and they're buying records and they're learning these tunes, and 0:33:36.440 --> 0:33:39.320 they're saying, hey, why don't you None of them are 0:33:39.320 --> 0:33:41.400 at this point I'm capable of. They're not the big 0:33:41.440 --> 0:33:44.479 stars at WLW. They can't get record labels, you know, 0:33:45.080 --> 0:33:46.800 they're not like the Clooney sisters. You know, this is 0:33:46.800 --> 0:33:49.240 how Rosemary Clooney gets her starts from this radio station 0:33:49.320 --> 0:33:52.400 in fifties. So we're not the big ones. Hey, how 0:33:52.400 --> 0:33:54.320 about we connect. How we get this guy who's doing 0:33:54.360 --> 0:33:56.720 the record shop, How we get him to help us out. 0:33:56.760 --> 0:33:59.360 So he kind of came in with knowing what the 0:33:59.400 --> 0:34:01.920 client tell look like from people he was selling records to. 0:34:02.400 --> 0:34:04.560 And then he had all these artists that are sitting 0:34:04.640 --> 0:34:08.359 right there at WLW, and he kind of puts two 0:34:08.360 --> 0:34:12.160 and two together. I've got, you know, a hungary audience, 0:34:12.200 --> 0:34:14.400 and then I also have these musicians who are looking 0:34:14.760 --> 0:34:18.040 for outlets, and two and two together. He kind of 0:34:18.080 --> 0:34:20.279 had a built in situation. He was just kind of 0:34:20.320 --> 0:34:23.640 able to slot himself in. But you know what's interesting 0:34:23.640 --> 0:34:26.520 about WLW is that after they stopped having live on 0:34:26.600 --> 0:34:29.320 air talent, all of the acts go down to Nashville 0:34:29.360 --> 0:34:33.000 because the next station that's able to allow to broadcast 0:34:33.000 --> 0:34:37.160 at this level is WSM, which is that's the home 0:34:37.280 --> 0:34:40.319 of the grand Ole Opry. So that's when we now 0:34:40.360 --> 0:34:43.160 see the rise of grand Ole operating the rise of Nashville. 0:34:43.400 --> 0:34:46.440 After all of these musicians leave the prestige job of 0:34:46.560 --> 0:34:49.719 WLW because they're not doing live talent, and Nashville is 0:34:49.760 --> 0:34:53.560 able to keep this tradition going and keep it alive 0:34:53.680 --> 0:34:55.839 to what we see here and the celebration we see 0:34:55.840 --> 0:34:59.200 in the Ryeman and how Nashville is Nashville. 0:34:59.560 --> 0:35:02.719 So how does Sid get in the record business. 0:35:03.480 --> 0:35:06.919 Yeah, So he takes these guys from WLW and they're 0:35:06.920 --> 0:35:10.799 not allowed to record in Cincinnati. WLW has an embargoo 0:35:11.320 --> 0:35:13.960 on how they're allowed to and where they're allowed to record. 0:35:14.320 --> 0:35:17.280 So they have to drive up to Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, 0:35:17.320 --> 0:35:19.839 which is about an hour away, and they go there 0:35:19.840 --> 0:35:22.440 and they make a recording and it's a crappy recording. 0:35:23.360 --> 0:35:24.960 I was actually able to get a copy of that. 0:35:25.040 --> 0:35:27.440 It's really bad. We had to do a lot of 0:35:27.520 --> 0:35:30.759 music editing to get all the noise and all like. 0:35:30.840 --> 0:35:34.840 It's just not a good recording. And he puts this 0:35:34.960 --> 0:35:38.120 together and he's able to get it started, so he's 0:35:38.160 --> 0:35:40.520 able to kind of figure out a way of being 0:35:40.560 --> 0:35:43.640 able to record in Cincinnati. And these guys there's a 0:35:43.640 --> 0:35:47.520 guy named Bucky Herzog who did a lot of work 0:35:47.640 --> 0:35:53.239 with other main other major country acts here in here 0:35:53.239 --> 0:35:58.920 in Cincinnati area, and he starts working with them and 0:35:59.080 --> 0:36:02.160 Sid's like it's crazy. Sid like breaks into their sessions. 0:36:02.360 --> 0:36:04.680 He's screaming his head off, He's yelling at people, I 0:36:04.719 --> 0:36:07.440 want you to do this. And finally this guy Herzog 0:36:07.440 --> 0:36:10.000 has enough of it and kicks sit out, and Sid 0:36:10.080 --> 0:36:12.799 has to find a place to record. So that's when 0:36:12.800 --> 0:36:15.880 he finds his own recording studio and he sets up 0:36:15.960 --> 0:36:18.600 all of it. He sets up his own company. And 0:36:18.760 --> 0:36:21.080 because he's such a pain in the ass to deal with, 0:36:21.800 --> 0:36:24.720 and you know, he has to do it all by himself. 0:36:24.719 --> 0:36:26.600 So he has to have the recording studio by himself, 0:36:26.600 --> 0:36:28.759 he has to press the records by himself, and he 0:36:28.840 --> 0:36:32.279 ends up ending up at zero integration to solve the 0:36:32.360 --> 0:36:36.560 problems of the fact that he's a difficult he's an asshole, 0:36:36.640 --> 0:36:38.120 you know, like if I was just gonna put it 0:36:38.160 --> 0:36:42.120 like bluntly, he just isn't really able to play well 0:36:42.120 --> 0:36:44.200 with others. And because of that, he has to have 0:36:44.280 --> 0:36:46.919 everything in house, which ends up being his superpower. 0:36:49.800 --> 0:36:54.480 So when he built his own studio, I mean Atlantic Records, 0:36:54.800 --> 0:36:56.959 they used to record in the office. They would push 0:36:57.040 --> 0:36:59.719 the desks into the corner. Yeah, get up at night. 0:37:00.120 --> 0:37:03.440 So what kind of recording facilitated sid build? 0:37:07.200 --> 0:37:09.440 That's true. Yeah, you know they started just like that 0:37:09.680 --> 0:37:12.640 Ed King where they first started by doing things in 0:37:12.680 --> 0:37:15.160 the office. And so a lot of I've got these 0:37:15.160 --> 0:37:21.520 great interviews with with the office workers, and they would 0:37:21.560 --> 0:37:24.520 talk about the fact that they'd come in the next 0:37:24.560 --> 0:37:27.000 morning and they'd be boozed. So like the song good 0:37:27.080 --> 0:37:29.880 Rocking Tonight. They came in and they had to record 0:37:29.920 --> 0:37:32.200 because there's a band coming through. The Petrillo Band's about 0:37:32.239 --> 0:37:35.480 to come through, which is the first strike by the 0:37:35.719 --> 0:37:40.400 Musicians Union, and they are striking because of jukeboxes are 0:37:40.400 --> 0:37:42.799 taking a lot of their gigs away. So because of this, 0:37:42.920 --> 0:37:46.840 the record companies can't get artists to record. So before 0:37:46.880 --> 0:37:50.879 this in nineteen forty seven, in the December forty seven, 0:37:50.880 --> 0:37:53.680 they quickly have this marathon recording session and they bring 0:37:53.719 --> 0:37:55.960 in with Nony Harris and they record in the office. 0:37:56.640 --> 0:37:58.759 So that version of good Rocking Tonight that you hear 0:37:59.120 --> 0:38:01.839 is them in the office, and they'd have to go 0:38:01.920 --> 0:38:03.840 clean up after, you know, like he got booze and 0:38:03.880 --> 0:38:06.080 cigarettes all over the place and all these like office 0:38:06.120 --> 0:38:07.919 ladies have to clean it up, and they're finally sick 0:38:07.920 --> 0:38:10.840 of it. So Sid has to go build a recording studio. 0:38:10.920 --> 0:38:16.759 So he has his family has bad eyesight cataracts, so 0:38:16.760 --> 0:38:20.400 he has cataract surgery and all of them, all of 0:38:20.440 --> 0:38:22.720 his family members, they all this was like his sister 0:38:22.719 --> 0:38:26.839 had cataract surgery and actually made her vision worse. Every 0:38:26.880 --> 0:38:29.000 member of their family still to this day. They all 0:38:29.040 --> 0:38:32.280 have bad eyesight. So he goes in for cataract surgery 0:38:32.440 --> 0:38:35.160 and and then you had to stay in the hospital 0:38:35.239 --> 0:38:36.680 for I think like two weeks. So he gets out 0:38:36.719 --> 0:38:40.719 of the hospital after this forty eight session and they 0:38:40.800 --> 0:38:43.080 can't really do anything. So he starts. He decides that 0:38:43.120 --> 0:38:44.520 he's going to go out and he's going to build 0:38:44.520 --> 0:38:46.799 a recording studio. He doesn't know how to do one, 0:38:47.160 --> 0:38:49.840 and he's classic. Sid goes out there, takes his shovel 0:38:49.920 --> 0:38:54.040 and starts digging. He's got like bandages still on, so 0:38:54.120 --> 0:38:56.480 everybody's looking like Henry Glover is looking like what the 0:38:56.520 --> 0:38:59.160 hell is he doing. They go out and they figure 0:38:59.160 --> 0:39:03.120 out what's going on. They're finally able to get contractors 0:39:03.160 --> 0:39:06.160 and get the situation, but they didn't particularly get it's 0:39:06.200 --> 0:39:10.000 not on the same d because he did this, and 0:39:10.239 --> 0:39:13.239 it's separate from the building, so it causes all in 0:39:13.440 --> 0:39:16.160 King history and like in the efforts of saving the building, 0:39:16.920 --> 0:39:19.200 the fact that he did this actually ended up being 0:39:19.239 --> 0:39:22.520 the reason why they're actually able to preserve one large 0:39:22.560 --> 0:39:25.239 part of the King Building because Sid went ahead and 0:39:25.400 --> 0:39:27.840 just built it and without asking any permission or getting 0:39:27.840 --> 0:39:30.880 any kind of legals around. It actually ended up being 0:39:30.880 --> 0:39:33.040 to the benefit of rescuing it in the long run. 0:39:33.080 --> 0:39:35.320 But he just did whatever the hell he wanted, whenever 0:39:35.360 --> 0:39:40.400 he wanted, And that is how Sid started his record studio. 0:39:41.880 --> 0:39:45.799 Okay, for those who haven't seen the movie, tell us 0:39:45.800 --> 0:39:49.239 a story of how Sid even falls into the music business. 0:39:50.239 --> 0:39:54.919 Yeah, so Sid had been So there was a big 0:39:54.960 --> 0:39:59.399 flood in nineteen thirty seven in Cincinnati. If you look 0:39:59.440 --> 0:40:02.280 at any archive footage, you will find hours and hours 0:40:02.280 --> 0:40:06.120 and hours talking about this flood. It's like hilarious. It 0:40:06.160 --> 0:40:09.560 was huge news. And there was a jukebox operator in 0:40:09.600 --> 0:40:12.600 the flood who lost everything and the only thing he 0:40:12.640 --> 0:40:16.879 had left was records. So he'd owed Sid money from 0:40:16.880 --> 0:40:19.959 the pawnshop and from the record shop. So he goes 0:40:19.960 --> 0:40:22.759 in from the pawn shop rather and he says, he man, like, 0:40:23.000 --> 0:40:24.920 I can't pay you back this six bucks. I just 0:40:24.960 --> 0:40:28.640 lost everything. Here are all my records. If you put 0:40:28.680 --> 0:40:31.439 these out and you sell them, you'll make more than 0:40:31.760 --> 0:40:35.160 enough of the six bucks back. So you know, Sid 0:40:35.200 --> 0:40:36.920 takes the deal and they put them out and they 0:40:36.960 --> 0:40:39.560 sell like hotcakes. They sell all of the records really quickly, 0:40:39.600 --> 0:40:42.799 so quickly they understand that there's a market here, so 0:40:43.080 --> 0:40:47.200 he gets into the record shop business that way. Over 0:40:47.280 --> 0:40:49.200 time he ends up having to leave it. As I 0:40:49.239 --> 0:40:51.160 said before, he gets sick, and then he comes back 0:40:51.160 --> 0:40:53.719 to Cincinnati and he's got this idea of this record shop. 0:40:53.760 --> 0:40:56.720 So he starts a record shop right next to WLW 0:40:57.080 --> 0:40:59.320 and he gets to the artists, and so these artists 0:40:59.320 --> 0:41:03.799 convince him to get into the record making business. And 0:41:04.040 --> 0:41:08.360 from the record making business he basically works because his 0:41:08.880 --> 0:41:12.160 struggles with working with others. He works himself into a 0:41:12.200 --> 0:41:15.840 situation where he is now he has to have vertical 0:41:15.880 --> 0:41:19.319 integration to be able to operate. And from there he 0:41:19.440 --> 0:41:23.360 starts looking for African American artists, and he starts looking 0:41:23.400 --> 0:41:27.360 for hillbilly at artists. There was really, you know, back then, 0:41:27.520 --> 0:41:30.200 a lot of the major record labels, RCA, Decca, all 0:41:30.239 --> 0:41:35.640 those guys weren't doing country. Forties country was really outrey 0:41:35.760 --> 0:41:39.000 back then. It wasn't in. Being a hillbilly wasn't cool. 0:41:40.239 --> 0:41:44.080 So King Records because of that kind of captures bluegrass 0:41:44.239 --> 0:41:47.560 mountain music turning into bluegrass turning into country, and they 0:41:47.600 --> 0:41:50.200 get these artists who were kind of like having this 0:41:50.360 --> 0:41:56.360 migration into nineteen forties country, which eventually becomes huge with 0:41:56.719 --> 0:41:59.600 nineteen fifties and once kind of these record labels show 0:41:59.719 --> 0:42:02.800 that country music is hip, you start seeing the majors. 0:42:02.920 --> 0:42:05.719 RCA starts swooping in taking some of these guys, and 0:42:05.760 --> 0:42:07.600 a lot of these guys have a resurgence. So you 0:42:07.719 --> 0:42:11.040 see guys like Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Copis. They both 0:42:11.120 --> 0:42:15.719 pass away famously on the flight with Patsy Klein at 0:42:15.719 --> 0:42:18.760 the time. Both of them were bigger stars than Patsy 0:42:18.840 --> 0:42:22.799 Klein was in the fifties because they were the bigger acts. 0:42:22.800 --> 0:42:24.879 You know, they had this big They became huge on King, 0:42:25.400 --> 0:42:29.279 went to RCA and then eventually Starday Records, which was 0:42:29.280 --> 0:42:32.840 a famed label in Nashville. But you have these guys 0:42:32.880 --> 0:42:35.640 are huge, you know, country's big, and Sid gets into it, 0:42:35.719 --> 0:42:37.960 then he gets out of it. You have guys that 0:42:38.000 --> 0:42:40.480 are like the Stanley Brothers who were over at Capital. 0:42:41.520 --> 0:42:45.759 They moved to King because the majors leave bluegrass, bluegrasses 0:42:45.800 --> 0:42:48.440 in this cool country becomes the cool thing and Sid 0:42:48.560 --> 0:42:51.040 decides to invest into that, and he's also then investing 0:42:51.040 --> 0:42:53.760 in the black music at the time, because the majors 0:42:53.800 --> 0:42:56.400 weren't everybody's trying to do pop. Everybody's trying to have 0:42:56.440 --> 0:42:59.840 a pop break, and Sid, you know, he starts bringing 0:42:59.880 --> 0:43:03.839 some of these early Detroit artists like Hank Ballard and 0:43:03.960 --> 0:43:06.280 Little Willie John because there wasn't any place to record. 0:43:06.360 --> 0:43:08.719 Motown wasn't a thing yet, so a lot of these 0:43:08.719 --> 0:43:10.879 black artists like John Lee Hooker, they've got to find 0:43:10.880 --> 0:43:14.040 all these places to record. From Detroit, they come down 0:43:14.160 --> 0:43:17.719 three hours south to Cincinnati. Sid gets these guys too, 0:43:19.000 --> 0:43:21.359 and he's getting guys like Hank Ballard, which leads him 0:43:21.400 --> 0:43:24.360 to guys like James Brown, and James Brown's able to 0:43:24.440 --> 0:43:28.440 kind of carry the business forward through the sixties. But 0:43:28.520 --> 0:43:32.080 that's kind of like their arc you know, through American music, 0:43:32.080 --> 0:43:35.160 they kind of capture these they're in the spaces where 0:43:35.160 --> 0:43:39.000 nobody else is in because they're able to find an 0:43:39.040 --> 0:43:42.799 audience kind of you know, they had vertical integration. So 0:43:43.200 --> 0:43:45.120 Sid had no problem giving it a try. So he 0:43:45.160 --> 0:43:47.799 had guys like Otis Redding. Otis Redding recorded with King 0:43:47.920 --> 0:43:50.600 before his Stax days, and he has a great song 0:43:50.640 --> 0:43:54.200 Shout Bamlama. I highly recommend checking it out. It's super 0:43:54.239 --> 0:43:57.320 dope and it's like powerful. Otis Redding. You hear Otis 0:43:57.320 --> 0:43:59.680 Redding is fully formed. You know, he was a journeyman 0:43:59.760 --> 0:44:02.799 singing or going from label to label. He stops at King. 0:44:03.239 --> 0:44:05.239 Sid's like, why not, let's give it a try. Let's 0:44:05.239 --> 0:44:08.520 put it out and see what happens. Nothing happens, but 0:44:08.640 --> 0:44:10.560 you have you know, he has he's able to capture 0:44:10.560 --> 0:44:13.080 people like Patty Labelle's first record with the Blue Belts 0:44:13.680 --> 0:44:17.040 when she's fourteen, because she's a good singer. Let's give 0:44:17.080 --> 0:44:19.760 it a try and let's see what happens. And Sid 0:44:19.840 --> 0:44:23.520 ends up capturing a lot of these huge musical acts 0:44:23.560 --> 0:44:26.040 while they were young, while they were just getting started 0:44:26.440 --> 0:44:29.719 early in their career, because he has vertical ingration and 0:44:29.920 --> 0:44:32.080 he's he's willing to kind of take a shot, you know, 0:44:32.120 --> 0:44:34.360 you take a shot of these musicians. See what happens. 0:44:34.400 --> 0:44:37.120 If anything huge happens, go for it. If nothing happens, 0:44:37.200 --> 0:44:39.319 then you move on to the next guy. But that 0:44:39.400 --> 0:44:41.160 was kind of his arc in the music business. 0:44:43.480 --> 0:44:46.480 Why was it called King record, That's. 0:44:46.360 --> 0:44:49.360 A great question. He was driving to that first recording 0:44:49.400 --> 0:44:52.480 session in Dayton and Grandpa Jones had kind of been 0:44:52.560 --> 0:44:56.680 doodling this character. So Grandpa Jones had this he was 0:44:56.760 --> 0:44:58.480 a really he was really good at drawing. So he's 0:44:58.600 --> 0:45:01.919 like making this little cartoon and they're making jokes and 0:45:02.520 --> 0:45:06.120 finally the conversation shifts to, Okay, so you're starting this 0:45:06.200 --> 0:45:08.840 record company. What are you gonna call it? And Sid decides, 0:45:08.840 --> 0:45:11.520 I'm gonna call it King Records because I'm gonna be 0:45:11.560 --> 0:45:14.520 the King of them all and that was his goal 0:45:14.520 --> 0:45:15.800 and that's how he came up with it, and that 0:45:15.880 --> 0:45:18.240 was their first slogan. They put it on their first records. 0:45:18.239 --> 0:45:21.600 It's actually the title of our film, and that is 0:45:21.600 --> 0:45:24.040 why he named the King. He started Queen Records soon 0:45:24.080 --> 0:45:27.560 after that, which was the African American label, but he 0:45:27.640 --> 0:45:31.120 kind of starts with that King Queen thing. They're pressing 0:45:31.120 --> 0:45:34.239 companies called Royal Plastics, so he kind of has this 0:45:34.320 --> 0:45:36.200 theme that he's doing for the first couple of years 0:45:36.280 --> 0:45:39.319 of King, and then he kind of merges everything under 0:45:39.320 --> 0:45:43.440 there and eventually brings in other labels under his control 0:45:43.520 --> 0:45:44.040 over time. 0:45:52.080 --> 0:45:55.680 Why were James Brown's records put out on Federal Records? 0:45:55.960 --> 0:45:58.280 And do you have any idea where that name came from? 0:45:58.719 --> 0:46:03.440 Yeah, so Federal label. So Federal. That label was started 0:46:03.680 --> 0:46:08.160 by I'm seeing his face and I am blanking on 0:46:08.239 --> 0:46:14.920 his name. I can't believe it. Not Henry Stone. Uh, 0:46:14.960 --> 0:46:17.040 there was a produce iowall blank, I'm so sorry. There 0:46:17.040 --> 0:46:22.839 was a producer that that they'd started Federal under and 0:46:23.120 --> 0:46:26.680 Sid kind of came to the situation as a partner, 0:46:26.920 --> 0:46:31.120 and that is that was their label for African American music, 0:46:31.160 --> 0:46:34.000 one of the labels that he picked up. So they 0:46:34.200 --> 0:46:37.319 had put different African American artists on there, like Hank 0:46:37.360 --> 0:46:41.640 Ballard was on Federal and they'd moved different people. They 0:46:41.640 --> 0:46:43.839 had Deluxe Records, which another record label that they had 0:46:43.840 --> 0:46:47.440 there was African American Focus that was with Henry Stone. 0:46:47.680 --> 0:46:50.040 They had different labels that were kind of focused for 0:46:50.080 --> 0:46:54.600 different target areas, and Federal was kind of their Southern music, 0:46:54.680 --> 0:46:57.080 so African American Southern label, because there was a lot 0:46:57.080 --> 0:47:00.279 of the producers that worked through there were working through 0:47:00.360 --> 0:47:05.120 the Chitlin circuits basically, and that's what that label's focus was. 0:47:05.200 --> 0:47:07.640 So when it came under the when Sid Nathan bought 0:47:07.719 --> 0:47:11.040 it and came under its ownership, all those artists kind 0:47:11.040 --> 0:47:15.120 of were put under that label. So a lot, yeah, 0:47:15.200 --> 0:47:18.840 a lot of the famous Flames were originally done under Federal, 0:47:19.000 --> 0:47:20.800 but then later in the sixties, they move under the 0:47:20.880 --> 0:47:21.839 King umbrella as well. 0:47:24.080 --> 0:47:27.640 Okay, he has the record shop right next to the 0:47:27.760 --> 0:47:32.240 radio station. What are literally the first acts he cuts? 0:47:32.520 --> 0:47:35.000 And what is the first one or the first couple 0:47:35.040 --> 0:47:36.040 that start to sell? 0:47:36.680 --> 0:47:39.880 So in forty three his first ones that he does. 0:47:39.960 --> 0:47:43.960 That's with Grandpa Jones and Merle Travis. Merle Travis, for 0:47:44.239 --> 0:47:48.960 any guitar fans out there, invented Travis picking. If you're 0:47:48.960 --> 0:47:50.960 familiar with that, it's with a thumb pick. He's one 0:47:51.000 --> 0:47:54.640 of the most important guitarists of all time. I got 0:47:54.680 --> 0:47:59.279 to have a whole rundown with Vince gil Vince Gill is, 0:47:59.320 --> 0:48:03.800 by the way, amazing. He knows everything about every guitar 0:48:03.880 --> 0:48:07.520 style and guitarist of country music lore, so he was 0:48:07.560 --> 0:48:09.239 really able to kind of like really color in a 0:48:09.280 --> 0:48:12.120 lot of those details for me. But Merle Travis is 0:48:12.200 --> 0:48:14.280 kind of the first guys. Then he's got the Delmore 0:48:14.320 --> 0:48:20.120 Brothers in there as well, and Cowboy copis hawkshaw Hawk 0:48:20.400 --> 0:48:23.120 Hawkins comes to the deal later. But it's a lot 0:48:23.120 --> 0:48:26.239 of these country guys, but a lot of them have 0:48:26.320 --> 0:48:27.960 to go to war, So a lot of them end 0:48:28.040 --> 0:48:30.439 up having to go to World War for World War two, 0:48:31.560 --> 0:48:34.040 which cuts kind of makes a break in their relationship. 0:48:34.040 --> 0:48:36.120 It's actually one of the reasons why they lose their 0:48:36.120 --> 0:48:38.919 deal with King. And when they come back, they see 0:48:38.920 --> 0:48:42.600 a resurgence because a lot of the big labels are 0:48:42.640 --> 0:48:44.960 now interested in these artists and a lot of them 0:48:45.000 --> 0:48:47.520 able to go on. So you see Grandpa Jones, for example, 0:48:48.640 --> 0:48:51.440 goes on to be on Hehaw. So anybody any fans 0:48:51.440 --> 0:48:53.839 of he Haw out there, Grandpa Jones from he Haw. 0:48:54.800 --> 0:48:56.279 But you see a lot of these artists. You know, 0:48:56.560 --> 0:48:58.120 World War Two kind of gets in the way, but 0:48:58.160 --> 0:49:01.200 the first stars that he gets are are these guys, 0:49:01.239 --> 0:49:04.960 and Cowboy Copus is his first hit. In nineteen forty eight, 0:49:05.000 --> 0:49:09.319 they have a hit with called Filipino Baby, which is 0:49:09.880 --> 0:49:13.160 looking back from the lens of understanding things now. It's 0:49:13.160 --> 0:49:16.600 a very kind of problematic song if you're a Filipino, 0:49:16.719 --> 0:49:19.920 I don't think it'd be your favorite song, but it is. 0:49:22.000 --> 0:49:23.520 It is a song of its time. But it was 0:49:23.560 --> 0:49:25.480 one of the first hits they have, and forty eight 0:49:25.560 --> 0:49:28.359 becomes their big year because they've got that song. They've 0:49:28.400 --> 0:49:31.880 got good rocking tonight, they've got a bull Moose Jackson hit. 0:49:32.640 --> 0:49:35.520 I think the forty eight forty eight. So Me and 0:49:35.600 --> 0:49:40.040 my ten inch record was like the big hit back then, 0:49:40.120 --> 0:49:42.879 which was a euphemism, you know, sexual euphemism back then. 0:49:44.200 --> 0:49:46.680 But yeah, so they in forty eight, they have a 0:49:46.680 --> 0:49:49.280 slew of hits with a lot of these artists. Tomorrow 0:49:49.360 --> 0:49:52.560 Night with is one big hit. They just kind of 0:49:52.560 --> 0:49:54.600 start having hits in the African American market, in the 0:49:54.600 --> 0:49:58.040 country market, first starting with Cowboy Copus, but then very 0:49:58.120 --> 0:49:59.879 quickly with a bunch of artists in forty eight. 0:50:02.000 --> 0:50:05.279 Let's be a little more granular. He opens the records store. 0:50:05.760 --> 0:50:09.759 They come from the radio station to buy records. The 0:50:09.800 --> 0:50:15.040 acts that played the radio station, are those the first 0:50:15.080 --> 0:50:16.200 acts he records. 0:50:17.200 --> 0:50:21.440 Yeah, the acts that are playing so Merle Travis, Grandpa Jones, 0:50:21.520 --> 0:50:24.880 the Delmore Brothers, they're all acts that are playing shows 0:50:24.960 --> 0:50:29.160 at WLW, also at some other radio stations. So like 0:50:29.160 --> 0:50:32.719 the Delmore brothers. Alton Delmore had a drinking problem, so 0:50:32.800 --> 0:50:35.799 they had they kind of were they bounced around from 0:50:35.880 --> 0:50:38.040 radio station to radio station. So at the time, I 0:50:38.080 --> 0:50:40.879 think they'd just been let go from WLW, but were 0:50:40.880 --> 0:50:43.120 picked up from one of the Kentucky radio stations. So 0:50:43.160 --> 0:50:45.920 they're in the area and they're able to work with Sid, 0:50:46.960 --> 0:50:49.600 but yeah, he's kind of farming from a lot of 0:50:49.640 --> 0:50:52.720 this talent that's kind of in the Cincinnati area because 0:50:52.760 --> 0:50:54.120 of the prestige radio jobs. 0:50:55.719 --> 0:50:58.880 Okay, how does the light bulb go off? These guys 0:50:58.920 --> 0:51:01.920 come to buy records bitching about the you know, the 0:51:01.960 --> 0:51:05.120 problems with the radio station. Did they say, hey, Sid, 0:51:05.680 --> 0:51:07.799 you should make a record with us. Where does light 0:51:07.840 --> 0:51:10.080 bulb go off? As Sid go wait a second here, 0:51:10.120 --> 0:51:11.400 I could make these records. 0:51:11.840 --> 0:51:15.240 Yeah. So I believe that it was the Delmore brothers 0:51:15.239 --> 0:51:19.759 who first hatched the idea because they needed like they 0:51:19.840 --> 0:51:24.920 needed some career help because I said, you know, one 0:51:24.960 --> 0:51:27.239 of the brothers had a really severe drinking problem. They 0:51:27.239 --> 0:51:30.560 got them in trouble, and they needed a way to 0:51:30.600 --> 0:51:33.600 be able to kind of advertise, and nobody was going 0:51:33.640 --> 0:51:36.120 to take a risk on them. So I believe it 0:51:36.160 --> 0:51:39.160 was first to Delmore brothers to kind of start the coercing, 0:51:39.600 --> 0:51:42.440 followed by Grandpa Jones and Merle Travis because none of 0:51:42.440 --> 0:51:45.480 them were going to get a record deal anywhere. And 0:51:45.719 --> 0:51:49.319 it's because of that that they kind of stay in 0:51:49.400 --> 0:51:51.840 Sid's ear and Sid's like, okay, I see there's a 0:51:51.880 --> 0:51:57.120 market here. Maybe you know, he SID was visually impaired, 0:51:57.120 --> 0:51:59.839 so allowed him to you know, he was familiar with 0:52:00.680 --> 0:52:03.759 Society for Blind made records for the blind, so he 0:52:03.840 --> 0:52:08.080 was kind of familiar with the process and had access 0:52:08.160 --> 0:52:11.480 to see how those records were pressed. So the combination 0:52:11.640 --> 0:52:13.720 of having access to see how the records were pressed 0:52:13.760 --> 0:52:16.960 allowed him to kind of say, Okay, so I had 0:52:17.040 --> 0:52:19.640 this access to seeing where the records are, I've got 0:52:19.640 --> 0:52:23.440 these artists, I've got this market. I think that I 0:52:23.480 --> 0:52:25.319 can pull this off, you know, and like a lot 0:52:25.360 --> 0:52:28.279 of these guys, you know, conversation kind of worked up. 0:52:28.320 --> 0:52:29.799 You know, these guys kind of worked them up to 0:52:29.800 --> 0:52:31.160 have the gumption to give it a try. 0:52:33.160 --> 0:52:38.760 Okay. So if you didn't make a record with SID, 0:52:40.000 --> 0:52:43.000 and you didn't make a record with the major companies 0:52:43.080 --> 0:52:47.760 like RCAA, did SID have any competition on the independent level? 0:52:48.440 --> 0:52:52.000 Oh? Absolutely, I mean there was a slew of independent 0:52:52.040 --> 0:52:56.120 record labels, particularly you know Chess, Leonard Chess, the Chess Brothers. 0:52:57.440 --> 0:53:00.719 One of the perfect examples again is with Jane The 0:53:00.800 --> 0:53:05.000 signing of James Brown is hilarious. And I just remember 0:53:05.000 --> 0:53:09.200 the name Ralph Bass over Federal Records, and Ralph Bass 0:53:09.239 --> 0:53:13.920 is a legendary for anybody who's familiar Ralph Bass is 0:53:14.239 --> 0:53:16.640 going through the South. You know, he's this Russian jew 0:53:17.120 --> 0:53:20.000 who was really really like had his pulse on African 0:53:20.080 --> 0:53:23.320 American music. He was the guy that would go into 0:53:23.480 --> 0:53:25.400 like the depths of it. There are a couple of 0:53:25.400 --> 0:53:27.799 guys like that around. King Moon Mulligan was another guy 0:53:27.800 --> 0:53:31.000 who was like this who they really were entrenched in 0:53:31.080 --> 0:53:36.160 African American music culture, and so he was like really 0:53:36.200 --> 0:53:38.920 he knew about James Brown, and you knew James Brown 0:53:39.040 --> 0:53:43.879 was happening. So he ends up heading to he gets 0:53:43.960 --> 0:53:47.080 wind of James Brown happening. James Brown was supposed to 0:53:47.120 --> 0:53:49.680 sign with Chess Brothers. In fact, a bunch of other 0:53:49.760 --> 0:53:53.040 record labels were snipping around James Brown around the time 0:53:53.120 --> 0:53:57.080 when James Brown becomes a hit the Chess Brothers, there's 0:53:57.120 --> 0:54:00.200 a huge snowstorm in Chicago, so the Chess Brothers an't 0:54:00.239 --> 0:54:03.680 able to get down to South to Georgia in time. 0:54:05.320 --> 0:54:08.200 Bass hears about this and hurries up and gets to 0:54:08.280 --> 0:54:10.400 these guys, and then he throws in a little bit 0:54:10.440 --> 0:54:13.879 of extra cash, so it kind of likes smooth it over, 0:54:14.160 --> 0:54:17.719 and he's able to get James Brown to sign the 0:54:18.160 --> 0:54:20.880 Federal contract, and even though he had already planned and 0:54:20.960 --> 0:54:23.400 agreed to sign the Chess contract. So there was a 0:54:23.440 --> 0:54:27.640 competition for artists between them, and there's also a competition 0:54:27.680 --> 0:54:31.359 for music. So I read once that Doctor John. One 0:54:31.400 --> 0:54:36.000 of Doctor John's first gigs was to transcribe records, and 0:54:36.040 --> 0:54:41.919 he would transcribe like King records, so you would see 0:54:42.000 --> 0:54:44.439 hits that were coming up in different cities. So you'd 0:54:44.440 --> 0:54:47.080 see hits coming up in New Orleans, you'd quickly come in, 0:54:47.239 --> 0:54:50.240 transcribe it, get the music out, get your own artists 0:54:50.280 --> 0:54:52.480 to record your version of it, and you'd put it 0:54:52.480 --> 0:54:54.719 out on the market. And that was a common thing. 0:54:55.920 --> 0:54:57.759 You know, we don't have holds. So the last time 0:54:57.800 --> 0:55:01.720 I think we saw this was that Rhyanne a Leanne 0:55:01.800 --> 0:55:04.200 rhyme song with Trisha Yearwood. They came out with the 0:55:04.200 --> 0:55:07.520 same song, what like ninety six how Do I Live 0:55:07.600 --> 0:55:10.160 Without You? That song. That's the last time we've seen 0:55:10.160 --> 0:55:12.640 this in like modern music. But that used to be 0:55:12.640 --> 0:55:14.720 a thing all the time. You'd had all these answer 0:55:14.760 --> 0:55:17.600 songs and people covering songs, and there was this kind 0:55:17.600 --> 0:55:19.600 of industry around who could kind of beat each other 0:55:19.680 --> 0:55:22.839 to the market, and so that was kind of the market. 0:55:22.920 --> 0:55:25.560 That was the competition. But Sid, because he had vertical integration, 0:55:25.960 --> 0:55:27.960 he could beat everybody in the market. He could get 0:55:28.000 --> 0:55:31.240 to like you could record a song in the morning 0:55:31.640 --> 0:55:33.920 and you could have that on the trucks in the 0:55:34.000 --> 0:55:37.120 cities in the next within forty eight hours of recording. 0:55:37.560 --> 0:55:40.239 Nobody else had that speed in the music business. So 0:55:40.280 --> 0:55:42.120 it made it really hard for people to stay in. 0:55:42.200 --> 0:55:45.400 So that's why King is around for fifteen years. You know, 0:55:45.440 --> 0:55:48.000 if you look at all these other record labels, Chess, 0:55:48.080 --> 0:55:50.480 it's a very short line run. You look Sun Records, 0:55:50.520 --> 0:55:53.279 it's five years. You look in at Atlantic, you know, 0:55:53.400 --> 0:55:56.560 all of these runs the companies are five, six years, 0:55:56.760 --> 0:55:59.359 seven years here and there. Stax kind of has a 0:55:59.400 --> 0:56:03.719 second wing after their vote years. But you know, each 0:56:03.719 --> 0:56:06.000 one of these record labels, they're very they're in and out. 0:56:06.040 --> 0:56:08.080 You know, it's a short part of American history. King 0:56:08.200 --> 0:56:11.640 Records is able to stay from the Roosevelt administration to 0:56:11.680 --> 0:56:15.120 the Nixon administration because of being able to do this, 0:56:15.239 --> 0:56:17.160 They're able to be quick to market in the first 0:56:17.160 --> 0:56:20.120 one to market and that's kind of really what kept 0:56:20.120 --> 0:56:23.080 them floating, and that's what kept SID special in the marketplace. 0:56:24.760 --> 0:56:27.319 How did Sid get along with the Chess brothers and 0:56:27.360 --> 0:56:28.880 the rest of his contemporaries. 0:56:31.480 --> 0:56:35.080 I mean, I would love to be a fly in 0:56:35.160 --> 0:56:38.520 the wall between a meeting between Leonard Chess and Sid Nathan. 0:56:39.120 --> 0:56:45.560 That would make great TV America. You know, I assume 0:56:46.040 --> 0:56:50.200 that it would have been congenial but different, you know, 0:56:51.719 --> 0:56:53.839 I that's a good question because you know, a lot 0:56:53.840 --> 0:56:56.319 of these guys they had to work together. Sim could 0:56:56.320 --> 0:56:59.120 press his own records, so a lot of these companies 0:56:59.280 --> 0:57:02.880 would press their records with other record labels. So you 0:57:02.920 --> 0:57:06.040 would work with Sid. Other record labels were you know, 0:57:06.080 --> 0:57:12.280 there's a there's all these different artists that would use 0:57:13.000 --> 0:57:16.959 the record pressing business as their label. So some places 0:57:17.000 --> 0:57:19.480 would go to RCA. RCA had a spot in Indiana 0:57:19.640 --> 0:57:21.840 outside of Indianapolis that they would pressed a lot of 0:57:21.880 --> 0:57:24.160 their records. You'd have to get in line, and it 0:57:24.240 --> 0:57:26.560 wasn't very quick, you know, sometimes it'd be a month 0:57:26.680 --> 0:57:29.920 long turnaround, so you'd have to find all these other 0:57:30.000 --> 0:57:33.120 companies that did different parts of the business. Sid did 0:57:33.120 --> 0:57:35.160 his own stuff in house, so some of these record 0:57:35.240 --> 0:57:37.840 labels would have to rely on Sid and that's how 0:57:37.880 --> 0:57:40.320 they came into you know, like Bethlehem Records, which is 0:57:40.360 --> 0:57:43.200 a jazz label. We're pressing their records, and eventually, when 0:57:43.200 --> 0:57:46.600 they started running into problems, Sid buys the record label. 0:57:47.520 --> 0:57:50.320 He's working with people like there's a wonderful lady named 0:57:50.440 --> 0:57:55.160 Ruth Wallace. She is an artist. She used to do 0:57:55.280 --> 0:57:58.400 kind of like comedy songs. So like, uh, there's some 0:57:58.440 --> 0:58:03.880 of these great like tunes that they would talk about 0:58:04.040 --> 0:58:10.640 like homosexuality, or there's one song called boobs. But they 0:58:10.640 --> 0:58:13.720 are these like nineteen fifties songs talking about things that 0:58:14.000 --> 0:58:16.040 would be shocking. You know, you'd think that people didn't 0:58:16.040 --> 0:58:18.480 talk about this stuff in the fifties, but Sid wouldn't 0:58:18.480 --> 0:58:20.640 put his label on it, but he would press the records. 0:58:21.600 --> 0:58:23.320 So a lot of these other people, you know, you 0:58:23.440 --> 0:58:27.120 had to have working relationship with everybody because Sid had 0:58:27.160 --> 0:58:30.400 the full spectrum of the business around him. And because 0:58:30.440 --> 0:58:32.920 of that, it allowed him to kind of have a 0:58:33.040 --> 0:58:37.240 unique relationship with the Leonard Chess, with with an Urtigan. 0:58:38.600 --> 0:58:41.040 But you know, over time in the nineteen sixties, he's 0:58:41.080 --> 0:58:43.560 not able to kind of move along with the new 0:58:43.600 --> 0:58:47.600 independence that you see the next generation of guy Stacks Motown. 0:58:47.880 --> 0:58:49.640 He's not able to keep up with them because you know, 0:58:49.680 --> 0:58:53.440 he's an older generation. But that older generation of like 0:58:53.560 --> 0:58:58.600 you know, the dirty, grungy guys like Sam Phillips and 0:58:59.040 --> 0:59:03.200 those characters. They're all kind of similar, harassable personality types. 0:59:03.240 --> 0:59:05.720 And Sid's able to kind of navigate it because you know, 0:59:05.840 --> 0:59:07.800 he's a king of his own castle, as it were. 0:59:10.240 --> 0:59:13.760 Okay, what is the timeline both the order of the 0:59:13.840 --> 0:59:17.080 number of years he starts to make records in Dayton. 0:59:17.760 --> 0:59:20.760 How long after that does he build his own studio. 0:59:21.200 --> 0:59:24.360 How long after that does he buy his own pressing machines? 0:59:25.520 --> 0:59:28.720 Ooh, good question. Let me see. So forty three starts 0:59:28.760 --> 0:59:34.360 the business. Then he does the Dayton thing. In forty three, 0:59:34.480 --> 0:59:37.080 I think I believe they only do that once, maybe twice. 0:59:38.560 --> 0:59:44.280 From there, they start recording with Bucky Herzog, and they 0:59:44.320 --> 0:59:47.120 do that, I believe, for a couple months, maybe a year, 0:59:47.800 --> 0:59:54.880 and by I want to say forty five, forty four, 0:59:55.000 --> 0:59:57.880 forty five, I think he's moving into his own office. 0:59:57.960 --> 1:00:00.400 You know, there's and then the he starts having to 1:00:00.400 --> 1:00:04.480 press his own records because during the war, there's slack 1:00:04.760 --> 1:00:07.240 is being is being used for the war efforts, so 1:00:07.320 --> 1:00:10.560 they aren't able to press records at a cheap cost 1:00:10.680 --> 1:00:13.920 any longer, so he runs. He finds the cost to 1:00:14.040 --> 1:00:16.200 to be astronomical. They go up to Chicago to try 1:00:16.240 --> 1:00:19.200 to report the fact that there's bribery in this whole scheme, 1:00:19.800 --> 1:00:22.560 and finally coming back from Chicago, he decides that he's 1:00:22.600 --> 1:00:26.000 just going to make his own records. And that's happening 1:00:26.080 --> 1:00:31.400 between between forty Between forty four to forty seven is 1:00:31.480 --> 1:00:34.919 when he's kind of maturing into doing his own thing. 1:00:36.880 --> 1:00:39.800 Where does he get the money to buy these machines 1:00:39.840 --> 1:00:41.520 and where does he buy him? And how many does 1:00:41.560 --> 1:00:44.440 he buy? And how many records get he press on? Committally? 1:00:44.760 --> 1:00:47.800 Oh wow? So they first they first start out with 1:00:48.080 --> 1:00:52.120 one record press, and it's not a very good one. 1:00:52.160 --> 1:00:55.520 You know, they've got to find it from different broken parts. 1:00:56.040 --> 1:01:00.840 Like I said before, they are looking at the Society 1:01:00.880 --> 1:01:03.600 for the Blind and they're getting these specs for these parts. 1:01:04.480 --> 1:01:06.720 They're trying to find broken parts here and there, and 1:01:06.760 --> 1:01:11.000 they kind of frankenstein some together. And the first ones 1:01:11.200 --> 1:01:12.800 I mean, as I said, that's why the records they 1:01:12.800 --> 1:01:15.800 first do are terrible. They have no idea what they're doing, 1:01:16.280 --> 1:01:18.840 but they've gotten in deep enough that they're able to 1:01:18.880 --> 1:01:21.200 bring in some people who do know what they're doing 1:01:21.520 --> 1:01:24.720 and eventually help them put like a proper business together. 1:01:25.080 --> 1:01:27.280 But at first they had one press and then they 1:01:27.360 --> 1:01:31.960 eventually I've got a picture in the film where they 1:01:31.960 --> 1:01:35.280 have a full pressing facility, and I want to say 1:01:35.480 --> 1:01:37.600 something to the order if off the top of my head, 1:01:37.840 --> 1:01:41.000 I think six to eight presses is what I was 1:01:41.040 --> 1:01:43.560 able to see kind of their height. Maybe more, but 1:01:43.600 --> 1:01:46.960 I've only been able to see about six d eight presses. 1:01:46.960 --> 1:01:48.800 But you know, pressing records back in there, I mean 1:01:48.880 --> 1:01:53.160 it's like science, you know. In the research of this film, 1:01:53.200 --> 1:01:56.080 I went and I actually put a how to make 1:01:56.120 --> 1:01:59.560 a record film together that starts from the very beginning 1:01:59.600 --> 1:02:02.360 of the process of how you dip it in nickel caadium, 1:02:02.360 --> 1:02:04.000 and then how you did You did it with a nickel, 1:02:04.000 --> 1:02:05.800 then you dig in cadium, then you do You've got 1:02:05.800 --> 1:02:08.360 to deep, and you've got to make all these copies 1:02:08.400 --> 1:02:11.480 of a copy of a copy in different metals before 1:02:11.480 --> 1:02:14.360 you're actually able to make a metal stamper, and then 1:02:14.400 --> 1:02:17.320 you start stamping them out. It is like a twelve 1:02:17.360 --> 1:02:20.560 sep process. I mean, how they figured this out is amazing, 1:02:21.680 --> 1:02:24.680 but it's not the world's easiest process. And it takes 1:02:24.720 --> 1:02:26.760 a couple of years before they're able to make it happen. 1:02:27.160 --> 1:02:29.360 But Sid is able to figure it out. But the 1:02:29.400 --> 1:02:31.600 first couple of them are terrible. They're bad, They're not 1:02:31.600 --> 1:02:35.080 good at Okay. 1:02:35.120 --> 1:02:38.760 At the time, if you were an independent label, you 1:02:38.880 --> 1:02:44.640 used independent distributors were regional. But from what I can 1:02:44.680 --> 1:02:49.120 tell from your film, Sid didn't use them. He distributed 1:02:49.160 --> 1:02:51.280 the records himself. Correct, Is that true? 1:02:51.520 --> 1:02:55.800 Yep. They had offices all around the country. It's why 1:02:55.880 --> 1:02:58.880 you will find King records. A friend of mine sent 1:02:58.920 --> 1:03:02.919 me King Records from Iowa. I think it's I can't 1:03:02.920 --> 1:03:05.400 remember the number, but they had like twenty seven or 1:03:05.440 --> 1:03:07.920 something offices around the country. 1:03:07.960 --> 1:03:08.120 You know. 1:03:08.160 --> 1:03:11.760 They also even had a studio in New York. Henry 1:03:11.760 --> 1:03:14.919 Glover was dispatched to New York City and a lot 1:03:14.960 --> 1:03:18.200 of the you know, Fever, they did a lot of 1:03:18.200 --> 1:03:22.000 the They recorded Fever in Cincinnati, but a lot of 1:03:22.040 --> 1:03:24.640 the prep work for Fever was done with Henry when 1:03:24.640 --> 1:03:27.880 he lived in New York City. They were they were 1:03:27.880 --> 1:03:30.240 a bigger, you know, right in America. It's hard for 1:03:30.280 --> 1:03:33.320 us to kind of think about everything so regionally, but 1:03:33.400 --> 1:03:35.440 America used to be a lot more regional. You know, 1:03:35.920 --> 1:03:38.800 you had beer that you could only get in your region, 1:03:38.840 --> 1:03:40.880 and you were very proud of it. You know, Guys 1:03:40.920 --> 1:03:43.360 from the South were all about the South. Guys from 1:03:43.360 --> 1:03:46.320 the Midwest, you were all about your region of where 1:03:46.360 --> 1:03:50.760 you came from. And businesses operated regionally and the ways 1:03:50.800 --> 1:03:55.080 that you worked to kind of national was was working 1:03:55.080 --> 1:03:58.040 through different relationships. But everything was very you know, even 1:03:58.120 --> 1:04:00.120 like wrestling, and we kind of take this for a 1:04:00.400 --> 1:04:03.760 but wrestling was was regional operations. You know, a lot 1:04:03.800 --> 1:04:06.920 of things in America were very regional based. That was 1:04:06.960 --> 1:04:11.840 the big game. So sid was able to expand outside 1:04:11.880 --> 1:04:15.360 of that was really impressive because it allowed him to 1:04:15.440 --> 1:04:17.680 kind of be in a place where the major players were. 1:04:17.680 --> 1:04:20.920 But he was largely a regional player who could extend 1:04:20.960 --> 1:04:23.960 into California, who could extend into the South, and he 1:04:24.120 --> 1:04:27.000 absorbed companies that kind of already had RESO. Again, as 1:04:27.000 --> 1:04:31.040 I said, Federal before was based in the South. Deluxe 1:04:31.440 --> 1:04:33.160 was also big. He had these companies who were based 1:04:33.160 --> 1:04:36.640 in Florida. That's how we picked up Hank Ballard. For example. 1:04:37.000 --> 1:04:40.680 You had artists there were that he get from the 1:04:40.720 --> 1:04:43.480 New York area, artists from different parts of the Midwest, 1:04:43.760 --> 1:04:47.360 and that's what really gave him the impetus to pick 1:04:47.440 --> 1:04:50.120 up different record labels because it gave him much more 1:04:50.160 --> 1:04:53.360 regional advantages. And that's what he was able to do 1:04:53.440 --> 1:04:55.919 to kind of plug all these networks together into one 1:04:56.120 --> 1:05:04.240 large network for himself for King Records. 1:05:06.840 --> 1:05:08.600 Did he know anything about music? 1:05:09.640 --> 1:05:13.479 Oh, my lord, that's a great question, uh, Philip Paul, 1:05:13.560 --> 1:05:14.920 who was one of the studio there was a lot 1:05:14.920 --> 1:05:19.000 of these studio drummers, Philip Paul, Henry Glover. A lot 1:05:19.040 --> 1:05:21.560 of the people talk about the fact that Sid was 1:05:21.560 --> 1:05:24.560 a drummer, you know, and he or a purported drummer, 1:05:25.160 --> 1:05:28.840 and he believed that he was a musician, and he 1:05:28.920 --> 1:05:31.880 believed he had the ear. A lot of people talk 1:05:31.920 --> 1:05:33.800 about the fact that he didn't really have the ear, 1:05:33.800 --> 1:05:36.880 but he knew record business and he had Henry Glover 1:05:37.040 --> 1:05:39.040 was kind of the guy that knew the music. So 1:05:39.040 --> 1:05:43.280 that's why that relation relationship between those two gentlemen was 1:05:43.360 --> 1:05:46.520 important because he needed somebody who knew the music. But 1:05:46.840 --> 1:05:50.360 Sid knew what sold and he had the business instincts 1:05:50.760 --> 1:05:53.600 to figure that out. Henry knew what was good and 1:05:53.640 --> 1:05:55.560 what people wanted, and where the market was and where 1:05:55.560 --> 1:05:59.000 it was going, and you see this with Henry because 1:05:59.040 --> 1:06:02.160 Henry Glover, you know, Levon helm and the band go 1:06:02.200 --> 1:06:05.439 on to work with him. Henry Glover ends up being 1:06:05.440 --> 1:06:09.480 one of the most important background characters in American rock 1:06:09.520 --> 1:06:11.960 and roll. But that was the guy you know when 1:06:12.000 --> 1:06:14.520 we look, you know, when you're looking for the hidden 1:06:14.560 --> 1:06:16.840 figure of the African American. We always talk about how 1:06:17.080 --> 1:06:19.880 African Americans created rock and roll and whether it's this 1:06:20.040 --> 1:06:23.160 or that. Henry Glover is really the African American. He's 1:06:23.240 --> 1:06:27.840 kind of the Lewis Latimer who was the assistant that 1:06:27.920 --> 1:06:30.080 worked with Edison. He's kind of like the similar type 1:06:30.080 --> 1:06:33.680 of hidden figure character in American music. He's the guy 1:06:33.760 --> 1:06:38.200 who takes kind of that generational jump from jump blues. 1:06:38.240 --> 1:06:41.439 The previous generation had the blues, the next generation's coming 1:06:41.560 --> 1:06:45.360 up with something a little grungier, a little dirtier. Henry's 1:06:45.400 --> 1:06:48.360 the one who kind of codifies the musical form, the 1:06:48.440 --> 1:06:52.000 hand claps, where the sax solo goes in the form. 1:06:52.080 --> 1:06:54.560 You know, it's very rock and roll. The style of 1:06:54.680 --> 1:06:57.800 music is very specific. You know, you've got your A section, 1:06:57.840 --> 1:06:59.520 you got your B section, then you go to that 1:06:59.640 --> 1:07:02.520 sax solo. You can do different things in that sax 1:07:02.600 --> 1:07:04.920 solo depend like if your vocalist sings too low of 1:07:04.960 --> 1:07:08.320 a key, you modulate, which is a trick that you 1:07:08.360 --> 1:07:10.480 see in that R. E. S P E C T 1:07:10.720 --> 1:07:14.680 with Aretha hit. That's a Henry Glover trick that still 1:07:14.720 --> 1:07:18.280 exists in music. There's a lot of things that Henry 1:07:18.400 --> 1:07:21.320 kind of did that like codified what ended up being 1:07:21.320 --> 1:07:24.560 the definition of the style of music of rock and roll, 1:07:24.840 --> 1:07:27.800 which is a difference from blues and jump blues and 1:07:27.800 --> 1:07:31.160 all these other styles. And he's able to codify it. 1:07:31.200 --> 1:07:33.840 And rock and roll is also and I'm sure you 1:07:33.880 --> 1:07:36.840 know this, Bob, isn't the guitar? A lot of people 1:07:37.320 --> 1:07:40.960 at like highlight when we see the first distorted guitar, 1:07:41.000 --> 1:07:43.920 which is with Rocket eighty eight. You know they're traveling 1:07:44.000 --> 1:07:47.120 and going into this record session and somebody busts the 1:07:47.160 --> 1:07:51.160 Gibson amp. I think it was a drum stand goes 1:07:51.240 --> 1:07:53.280 through it, and it's a to go into the recording 1:07:53.280 --> 1:07:56.160 session and it's a distorted amp. And because of that, 1:07:56.200 --> 1:07:58.600 people point that to be rock and roll, or people 1:07:58.640 --> 1:08:01.200 will say somebody like sister Rosetta Tharp is the start 1:08:01.200 --> 1:08:03.560 of rock and roll because she played the guitar well, 1:08:03.720 --> 1:08:07.800 ciner Rosetta Tharp is playing blues and the guitar doesn't 1:08:07.840 --> 1:08:10.080 make it, and a distorted guitar doesn't make it rock 1:08:10.120 --> 1:08:14.880 and roll. Interestingly enough, Henry Glover worked with sister Rosetta 1:08:14.960 --> 1:08:18.800 Tharp when she worked with Lucky Millinder. Lucky Millinder was 1:08:18.840 --> 1:08:21.960 the artist that King Records brought on, and that's what 1:08:22.080 --> 1:08:27.000 brought King Records into rock, into black music. But you 1:08:27.080 --> 1:08:30.320 have Lucky Millinder and his band are doing these interesting things, 1:08:31.280 --> 1:08:34.120 and from there, Henry Glover comes from that and says, Okay, 1:08:34.120 --> 1:08:36.320 I'm going to start taking all of these things that 1:08:36.400 --> 1:08:39.000 we worked with. These artists we worked with bull Muse Jackson, 1:08:39.400 --> 1:08:41.439 we worked and he starts doing these experiments with the 1:08:41.479 --> 1:08:44.320 Delmore Brothers. So Blue Stay Away for Me is one 1:08:44.320 --> 1:08:46.720 of the songs that's a contender for the first rock 1:08:46.760 --> 1:08:50.880 and roll song, as is Good rockin Tonight, which we 1:08:50.960 --> 1:08:53.120 say in the film is the first one, because you 1:08:53.240 --> 1:08:56.800 really see the full formal, you know, with Blue Stay 1:08:56.840 --> 1:09:00.000 Away from Me, we see Henry Glover takes a blue 1:09:00.000 --> 1:09:04.519 whose like Basseline, applies it into a country song and 1:09:04.560 --> 1:09:07.599 it's great, it's slamming, it sounds so good. You take 1:09:07.680 --> 1:09:11.240 him take that idea even further with Good Rocking Tonight. 1:09:11.439 --> 1:09:13.320 You see the original version and you see how he 1:09:13.439 --> 1:09:15.679 changes it up and all these details that he adds 1:09:15.720 --> 1:09:19.280 to it codifies the style of rock and roll. And 1:09:19.720 --> 1:09:22.800 from there you see Sun Records take it and then 1:09:22.880 --> 1:09:26.479 advertise it to kids, the emerging teenage market, and that 1:09:26.600 --> 1:09:29.559 explodes a rock and roll. But at every point in 1:09:29.640 --> 1:09:32.920 time and anything that you find to tie back to 1:09:32.960 --> 1:09:35.920 the early points of rock and roll, it really ties 1:09:36.000 --> 1:09:39.000 back to Henry Glover. And it's like, whether it's through 1:09:39.080 --> 1:09:42.160 Sister Rosetta Tharp and the work with Lucky Millinder, or 1:09:42.240 --> 1:09:46.120 whether it's going forward with American rock and roll with 1:09:46.479 --> 1:09:49.439 Levon Helm and the band and all the other actu 1:09:49.439 --> 1:09:52.920 that he works with. It's not Sid Nathan, but it's 1:09:52.960 --> 1:09:56.519 actually Henry Glover is the one who really starts like 1:09:56.880 --> 1:09:59.960 American music in this direction, and he's the ear that's 1:10:00.040 --> 1:10:03.040 said Nathan depends on to move the music forward. 1:10:05.880 --> 1:10:09.240 Okay, I wrote about your film and I started getting 1:10:09.280 --> 1:10:13.439 email from all these people linking me to YouTube and 1:10:13.479 --> 1:10:17.240 the speeches Sid made. Yeah, can you speak to that? 1:10:18.080 --> 1:10:22.920 Yeah. So we use those recordings in the film and 1:10:23.640 --> 1:10:29.920 they are some of my favorite recordings. Ever, Sid is hilarious, 1:10:31.000 --> 1:10:33.120 so he would come in. You know, it's a recording company. 1:10:33.200 --> 1:10:35.400 So like from time to time they grab a microphone 1:10:35.720 --> 1:10:38.719 and they recorded. So one of them, Sid goes to Europe, 1:10:39.360 --> 1:10:41.600 and Sid decides he comes back to Europe at the 1:10:41.680 --> 1:10:44.720 team meeting with all the producers and he's going to 1:10:44.800 --> 1:10:47.640 talk about his trip. So he talks about all the 1:10:47.640 --> 1:10:51.559 things that he sees, and I recommend people going and 1:10:51.600 --> 1:10:55.280 checking them out because it really shows Sid's personality. He 1:10:55.360 --> 1:10:59.760 talks about how how he thought he was cheap, but 1:10:59.800 --> 1:11:02.240 then he sees these like European people and some of 1:11:02.280 --> 1:11:04.559 them are even cheaper than he was. And he's coming 1:11:04.640 --> 1:11:07.559 up with all these jokes and talking about like all 1:11:07.640 --> 1:11:09.839 of the things that he's seeing and all the places 1:11:09.840 --> 1:11:12.040 that he went and different acts that he checked out 1:11:12.080 --> 1:11:15.439 and was considering signing, actually one of them being the 1:11:15.479 --> 1:11:18.320 Beatles that he did not sign on that trip. Funny enough, 1:11:19.760 --> 1:11:22.160 and then he has others where he's talking about so 1:11:22.280 --> 1:11:24.360 like they come back. He tells the story in one 1:11:24.360 --> 1:11:28.120 of these recordings about Wennoni Harris. We actually didn't put 1:11:28.120 --> 1:11:33.080 this in the film, but he so they are they 1:11:33.080 --> 1:11:35.000 have to find that he's trying to like have these 1:11:35.080 --> 1:11:38.120 marathon sessions because again they can't record. You know they're 1:11:38.120 --> 1:11:39.840 about to they know everybody's going to go on strike. 1:11:40.320 --> 1:11:42.599 He needs to pull in an artist. They find Wenoni Harris. 1:11:42.600 --> 1:11:44.760 He's performing somewhere in New York. So they go up 1:11:44.760 --> 1:11:47.280 there and they knock on the door in the hotel. 1:11:47.479 --> 1:11:52.560 Now Wenoni is having a great time. Sid describes the 1:11:52.680 --> 1:11:55.479 story as he goes in and they knock on the 1:11:55.479 --> 1:12:01.760 door and Winoni's in there with three other women and 1:12:02.520 --> 1:12:07.839 they're entertaining themselves. Sid interrupts this session to talk business. 1:12:08.040 --> 1:12:09.880 One of the women has a problem with this is 1:12:09.960 --> 1:12:12.200 what's going on. Wenoni kicks her out, So now he's 1:12:12.200 --> 1:12:15.280 with these two. He's now got Weinoni and these two ladies. 1:12:16.040 --> 1:12:18.879 And the point that Sid likes to recount to everyone 1:12:19.120 --> 1:12:21.280 is that they're coming in there and they have to 1:12:21.320 --> 1:12:25.040 do their negotiations for the business. And Menoni is there. 1:12:25.320 --> 1:12:28.760 He's shirtless and the only thing that he's wearing is 1:12:28.880 --> 1:12:33.160 his underwear with pink hearts on them. And he makes 1:12:33.200 --> 1:12:36.120 a big deal to be like, and olid were these 1:12:36.280 --> 1:12:39.400 pink on the head pink hearts on them? Can you 1:12:39.479 --> 1:12:41.240 believe it? And he reaches over to one of the 1:12:41.280 --> 1:12:44.280 producers and like one of the producers like yes, Sid, 1:12:44.360 --> 1:12:46.120 like because one of the guys was like no way, 1:12:46.439 --> 1:12:48.720 and like he's like tell him, tell him, and the 1:12:48.720 --> 1:12:52.080 guy's like, yes, this actually happened. He came in, we 1:12:52.120 --> 1:12:54.040 had a talk. They were definitely having a good time 1:12:54.080 --> 1:12:56.360 with these ladies. We had to work out the deal. 1:12:56.520 --> 1:12:59.200 We did the deal in his underwear. We get up, 1:12:59.280 --> 1:13:02.320 we leave, and he continues about his business that he 1:13:02.439 --> 1:13:05.840 was doing before we left, and that is how they 1:13:05.880 --> 1:13:08.880 signed Menony Harris, and he records us and he tells 1:13:08.880 --> 1:13:10.880 the story like right when they come back. So he 1:13:10.920 --> 1:13:14.879 has all these epic stories that they that they collect. 1:13:15.280 --> 1:13:17.759 There's all these other ones too, like sit in the session. 1:13:17.800 --> 1:13:21.719 You can hear Like saying there's an engineer who's talking 1:13:21.800 --> 1:13:25.080 back and forth between James Brown and Sid and you'll 1:13:25.120 --> 1:13:29.080 hear Sid say something like, mister Nathan would like you to, 1:13:29.600 --> 1:13:31.320 you know, sorry, if you guys can tighten it up 1:13:31.320 --> 1:13:32.720 a little bit or do this or something it and 1:13:32.720 --> 1:13:34.400 then you'll hear James be like, what what are you 1:13:34.439 --> 1:13:36.680 talking about? You want me to tighten up talk? And 1:13:36.720 --> 1:13:38.920 you see this back and forth with this engineer having 1:13:38.920 --> 1:13:42.240 to be the intermediary of these guys arguing. But yeah, 1:13:42.240 --> 1:13:44.920 he's got all these recording of his voice, and he's 1:13:44.920 --> 1:13:48.040 got this crazy vote atal like this, and he's big, 1:13:48.120 --> 1:13:52.320 and it's like he's braggadocious and he's constantly yelling and 1:13:52.360 --> 1:13:55.240 so he's got a cigar in his mouth and he's hilarious. 1:13:55.240 --> 1:13:57.000 But if anybody ever gets a chance, and if you've 1:13:57.000 --> 1:14:01.160 got time to kill, go listen to these recordings. He's 1:14:01.160 --> 1:14:03.400 got him on a disc. They're on a disc set, 1:14:03.439 --> 1:14:05.799 a compilation disc set that you can find on Amazon. 1:14:06.240 --> 1:14:08.120 It's called The Complete King and it's got all those 1:14:08.160 --> 1:14:09.040 recordings on them. 1:14:10.520 --> 1:14:15.080 Okay, you go through the arc of James Brown's career 1:14:15.520 --> 1:14:21.519 in Tenury King. James Brown an American icon. But he 1:14:21.640 --> 1:14:25.600 did spend time in jail. Was that an anomaly? Was 1:14:25.640 --> 1:14:29.479 that driving while black? Or was James hothead a little 1:14:29.560 --> 1:14:30.519 crazy himself? 1:14:31.000 --> 1:14:35.680 Ooh, that's a really great question. So the first thing 1:14:35.720 --> 1:14:37.040 that I think that you have to start with in 1:14:37.160 --> 1:14:39.800 understanding James Brown is that he is a product of 1:14:39.800 --> 1:14:42.920 his environment. And his environment was he was born, he 1:14:42.960 --> 1:14:46.120 was raising a whorehouse. You know, his mother abandoned him 1:14:46.439 --> 1:14:48.200 at a very early age and he went to live 1:14:48.240 --> 1:14:51.960 with an aunt and the aunt was, you know, a 1:14:51.960 --> 1:14:54.680 tough environment and he had to shine shoes, you know, 1:14:54.760 --> 1:14:56.680 like he had to earn his keep while living in 1:14:56.720 --> 1:14:59.120 this environment from a very young age, so he had 1:14:59.160 --> 1:15:01.200 a shine shoe. He learned how to be an entertainer, 1:15:01.280 --> 1:15:02.760 He learned how to be a hustler, he learned how 1:15:02.760 --> 1:15:06.800 to work hard. But it creates a personality type that 1:15:06.920 --> 1:15:10.439 is that is very, very troubled and has a very 1:15:10.479 --> 1:15:13.519 different way of looking at the world. You know, we 1:15:13.600 --> 1:15:18.080 see this. You know, Richard Pryor also came from similar backgrounds. 1:15:18.080 --> 1:15:20.800 You know, he was raised in a whorehouse and you know, 1:15:21.120 --> 1:15:24.880 it leaves a traumatic scar on them that you see 1:15:24.960 --> 1:15:28.680 through their artistry. There brilliant artists who learn how to 1:15:28.680 --> 1:15:30.800 perform at a very you know, it's intrinsic to them, 1:15:31.160 --> 1:15:33.840 but they have a lot of issues and very early 1:15:33.880 --> 1:15:36.519 you know, he had issues with the law very early on. 1:15:36.960 --> 1:15:41.439 And Bobby Byrd's family, you know, James is he's a 1:15:41.920 --> 1:15:47.120 tremendous athlete. He's he's a golden glove boxer, which I 1:15:47.240 --> 1:15:48.960 believe I was able to find proof that he was 1:15:48.960 --> 1:15:52.120 a golden but he definitely was a boxer, but he 1:15:52.200 --> 1:15:57.439 was in jail. He played baseball, and the church had 1:15:57.479 --> 1:16:00.000 an arrangement with kind of like trying to help these 1:16:00.080 --> 1:16:04.400 young people and the Bird family. Bobby Bird meets James 1:16:04.400 --> 1:16:06.840 Brown this way, and they're able to kind of get 1:16:06.920 --> 1:16:09.040 him to turn his energy towards music and they're able 1:16:09.040 --> 1:16:12.400 to sponsor him and get him out of prison. So 1:16:12.640 --> 1:16:16.200 James really starts, you know, music gives him this outlet 1:16:16.360 --> 1:16:21.160 and he really builds this discipline into this band Bobby Bird, 1:16:21.240 --> 1:16:24.480 and Bobby Bird's family gives him this like this spiritual 1:16:24.520 --> 1:16:27.800 discipline on top of like a real family. It's like 1:16:27.840 --> 1:16:30.400 the first time he has this experience with a real 1:16:30.920 --> 1:16:31.479 black family. 1:16:31.479 --> 1:16:31.640 You know. 1:16:31.680 --> 1:16:34.080 At a point, you know, James Mary's Bobby Bird's sister, 1:16:35.439 --> 1:16:38.160 which ends up being one of the reasons their relationship 1:16:38.240 --> 1:16:42.920 falls apart, one of many later, but you know, James's 1:16:43.000 --> 1:16:46.120 this becomes their family. You know, the Birds really help 1:16:46.200 --> 1:16:50.160 him out and give him direction, and from there James 1:16:50.200 --> 1:16:52.400 is able to kind of hit his hit from there. 1:16:52.439 --> 1:16:54.639 You know, James had a strong similar to Miles Davis, 1:16:54.800 --> 1:16:58.240 had a strong anti drug policy, so his guys didn't 1:16:58.560 --> 1:17:01.760 didn't do drugs, which is one of the issues that 1:17:01.800 --> 1:17:03.760 he had with Bootsy. I don't know if you've heard 1:17:03.800 --> 1:17:06.520 the story before. So one of the gigs when Bootsy's 1:17:06.560 --> 1:17:11.040 banned comes on board, they are out messing with some 1:17:11.080 --> 1:17:14.559 liquid LSD on a gig and James comes outside and 1:17:14.560 --> 1:17:16.720 he's like, what's that orange drink you guys messing with? 1:17:17.280 --> 1:17:21.879 And they not wanting to explain this. Knowing James's policy, 1:17:22.400 --> 1:17:25.080 they decide to have him share some of this drink 1:17:25.720 --> 1:17:29.479 and James Brown goes out on the gig and you 1:17:29.520 --> 1:17:31.599 know the moment when the acid hits in the middle 1:17:31.600 --> 1:17:36.719 of the performance, and yeah, so James performs. The audience 1:17:36.720 --> 1:17:39.920 is none the wiser because James Brown Hell or high 1:17:39.960 --> 1:17:42.479 Water will perform and put on a good show, but 1:17:42.600 --> 1:17:45.879 comes off the bandstand and soon after that fires Bootsy 1:17:45.920 --> 1:17:48.599 and his boys because he had a strong anti drug policy, 1:17:48.680 --> 1:17:52.280 which starts to change in the eighties after James's sun 1:17:52.360 --> 1:17:55.080 passes away, that's when we start seeing the change. But 1:17:55.280 --> 1:17:57.680 you know, like just like Miles, you know, like he 1:17:57.720 --> 1:18:01.240 has a traumatic thing later which changed his viewpoint on drugs. 1:18:01.240 --> 1:18:03.439 But during the height of it, you know, he had 1:18:03.479 --> 1:18:08.439 a real strong policing of his band, which, yeah, which 1:18:08.720 --> 1:18:11.160 you see again after the Bird family gets involved in 1:18:11.200 --> 1:18:13.840 He ass issues early with the law. He really kind 1:18:13.840 --> 1:18:15.960 of turns around. He turns his life around. 1:18:18.080 --> 1:18:21.479 Okay, you tell the story of Sid not wanting to 1:18:21.560 --> 1:18:26.120 record James's live at the Apollo. James records it on 1:18:26.160 --> 1:18:29.960 his own mode. Sid puts it out. It's gigantic hit. 1:18:31.640 --> 1:18:38.360 Did James continue to be resentful about Sid's disbelief, not 1:18:38.400 --> 1:18:40.920 believing in him, not paying that money? How did James 1:18:40.960 --> 1:18:42.280 feel about Sid after that? 1:18:42.520 --> 1:18:47.200 Oh that's hilarious. So yeah, So they put out Please 1:18:47.240 --> 1:18:50.840 Please Please, and it's a medium hit. He the first 1:18:50.840 --> 1:18:54.280 thing that happens is that please Please Please. If the 1:18:54.280 --> 1:18:58.280 session is happening, Sid gets on the call and immediately 1:18:58.320 --> 1:19:02.600 fires Bats says, what is this shit? What have you 1:19:02.680 --> 1:19:05.320 brought me? All he says is please Please Please? One word? 1:19:05.360 --> 1:19:09.599 That's not a song. You are a fool. So Ralph 1:19:09.640 --> 1:19:11.160 Bass says, hey, man, I know this is going to 1:19:11.200 --> 1:19:13.759 be a hit. This was a hit when they recorded 1:19:13.800 --> 1:19:17.040 their first demo. How about we just release in Atlanta, 1:19:17.080 --> 1:19:19.360 Georgia and we see what happens. So there's a month 1:19:19.400 --> 1:19:23.800 long process where Hank Ballard is trying to convince Sid 1:19:23.800 --> 1:19:26.519 to release it. Otis Williams from Otis Williams in the 1:19:26.600 --> 1:19:28.800 Charms here is trying to convince Sid to release it. 1:19:29.080 --> 1:19:34.599 Sid's not having it, and finally they're able to convince him, 1:19:34.600 --> 1:19:37.080 and Ralph Bass says, releasing Atlanta, Let's see what happens, 1:19:37.320 --> 1:19:38.920 and then Sid says, you know what I'm gonna do. 1:19:39.040 --> 1:19:41.559 I'm gonna release it nationwide to show everybody what a 1:19:41.600 --> 1:19:44.640 fool you are. So he releases it nationwide and it 1:19:44.680 --> 1:19:47.880 becomes a medium hit. It's huge in Atlanta, it's a 1:19:47.960 --> 1:19:51.320 hit in It's a hit in these different markets. It's 1:19:51.400 --> 1:19:53.840 hitting New Orleans. I read through I went through every 1:19:53.840 --> 1:19:57.280 single page of Billboard magazine from nineteen forty to nineteen 1:19:57.320 --> 1:20:00.200 seventy two to look at all the different ads, look 1:20:00.200 --> 1:20:01.880 at all the different stories. So I just kind of 1:20:01.880 --> 1:20:05.000 went page for page on everything, and you start seeing 1:20:05.040 --> 1:20:07.439 there's this section in Billboard where you would see like 1:20:07.520 --> 1:20:10.679 the different markets where things would hit, and please, please please, 1:20:10.720 --> 1:20:12.960 there's a huge it's a pretty good hit for several 1:20:13.000 --> 1:20:16.120 weeks in the black market, especially and especially in the South, 1:20:16.640 --> 1:20:19.479 so it's enough to convince Sid, Okay, there's something here. 1:20:19.960 --> 1:20:22.599 But then they have about a six year period where 1:20:22.880 --> 1:20:26.240 Sid records, a whole bunch of stuff, and they all flop, 1:20:26.400 --> 1:20:28.720 every one of them. In fact, they put all of 1:20:28.760 --> 1:20:31.040 them onto a forty five and I've listened to them. 1:20:31.640 --> 1:20:33.600 I collect I now collect records to go to this 1:20:33.680 --> 1:20:37.480 and they're terrible. Every one of those songs are bad. 1:20:37.960 --> 1:20:42.840 But then so Sid's getting ready to drop drop James 1:20:42.840 --> 1:20:47.439 Brown from his label, and James is able to convince 1:20:47.520 --> 1:20:49.519 him to give him one last try. If you give 1:20:49.520 --> 1:20:51.840 me one last try, I'll pay for it myself. How 1:20:51.840 --> 1:20:54.360 about that. So Nathan's like, all right, if you pay 1:20:54.400 --> 1:20:57.360 for it yourself, you pay for the studio time. Fine. So, 1:20:57.520 --> 1:20:59.880 like you know, James works out the deal. This is 1:21:00.000 --> 1:21:02.240 one of the reasons why he believes he's done with 1:21:02.320 --> 1:21:06.880 his record label, with his record requirements after because he 1:21:07.400 --> 1:21:10.759 renegotiates and they come out with try Me, and try 1:21:10.840 --> 1:21:13.559 Me becomes a hit, and that's really the first one. 1:21:13.680 --> 1:21:17.439 That really is when James Brown starts to become James Brown. 1:21:17.760 --> 1:21:20.920 But he's got to convince Sid to get on board. 1:21:21.479 --> 1:21:23.840 And because he has to kind of negotiate his way 1:21:23.880 --> 1:21:27.760 through it, James believes that he has more freedom than 1:21:28.160 --> 1:21:31.680 he otherwise would because he came into the deal with 1:21:31.720 --> 1:21:35.120 his own money, so is James is constantly looking for 1:21:35.280 --> 1:21:38.519 opportunities where he can put his own seed money to 1:21:38.680 --> 1:21:42.200 start projects. And every single time that there would be 1:21:42.280 --> 1:21:44.280 any kind of issue, James would just kind of saying, 1:21:44.280 --> 1:21:45.960 how about if I put my own money into it. 1:21:46.360 --> 1:21:48.880 So finally, you know, Sid gets Winn into this, They 1:21:48.920 --> 1:21:52.479 work it into kind of the negotiations, and James slowly 1:21:52.560 --> 1:21:56.040 ekes out by basically you know, Sid not believing him 1:21:55.760 --> 1:21:59.840 in him or things falling apart. He negotiates a way 1:22:00.080 --> 1:22:03.280 to get more power in his record contracts and his business. 1:22:03.720 --> 1:22:06.040 And this is why we see James Brown go from 1:22:06.040 --> 1:22:09.120 the hardest working men in show business to the godfather 1:22:09.200 --> 1:22:12.720 of soul, because you don't get there without Ben Bart, 1:22:12.920 --> 1:22:17.639 who with these two principal actually these three principal Jewish men, 1:22:18.000 --> 1:22:20.880 Jack Pearl who was his lawyer, Ben Bart who ran 1:22:22.000 --> 1:22:25.640 Universal Attractions, his booking company, and then Sid Nathan who 1:22:25.720 --> 1:22:29.040 ran the record label. Because these men who were connected 1:22:30.080 --> 1:22:32.640 through their business connections and their community connections in the 1:22:32.720 --> 1:22:36.799 Jewish community, are able to kind of give James Brown 1:22:37.080 --> 1:22:40.760 the framework to kind of paint his own business, and 1:22:40.800 --> 1:22:43.000 that empowers James to get to the next level. 1:22:44.240 --> 1:22:48.680 Okay, so how does it end for King Records? 1:22:50.439 --> 1:22:53.439 So, as I mentioned, you know, Sid's got all these 1:22:53.439 --> 1:22:56.240 health issues, he's got heart, he's got bad art, he's 1:22:56.280 --> 1:23:00.559 got bad eyes and excuse me, everything to go along 1:23:00.640 --> 1:23:03.320 with that, and his health really starts to fade in 1:23:03.360 --> 1:23:07.120 the late sixties. But also in the sixties they start 1:23:07.200 --> 1:23:12.080 running into a payola scandal. And these are two things. 1:23:12.080 --> 1:23:14.600 So the first thing is Henry Glover, who's working in 1:23:14.640 --> 1:23:19.639 the company, runs he wants to expand to a multi 1:23:19.680 --> 1:23:22.320 track recording setup. So I think they were the two 1:23:22.400 --> 1:23:24.240 track and they want to move to a four track. 1:23:25.439 --> 1:23:31.200 At this point in time, Sid isn't convinced, and Sid 1:23:31.400 --> 1:23:37.280 relies on one of the other business people who doesn't 1:23:37.280 --> 1:23:41.240 have a music background to make the decision, and basically 1:23:41.280 --> 1:23:44.880 he doesn't side with Henry. He basically sides with this 1:23:44.960 --> 1:23:49.120 other music executive who was associated with Ging Records, and 1:23:49.360 --> 1:23:53.240 they don't follow that. So Henry feels that they're a 1:23:53.280 --> 1:23:57.120 little shorthanded and not being able to make these follow 1:23:57.160 --> 1:23:59.640 the new sound of the sixties in essence. And then 1:23:59.680 --> 1:24:02.759 on top of that, Sid also kind of threw Henry 1:24:02.800 --> 1:24:06.120 under the bus for the payola stuff, you Knowola, the 1:24:06.120 --> 1:24:11.640 Payola scandal starts happening, and King isn't really what's the 1:24:11.680 --> 1:24:15.160 word King is a part of it. King's affected by this, 1:24:15.880 --> 1:24:19.280 and Henry kind of kind of gets thrown under the bus. 1:24:19.320 --> 1:24:21.000 He feels kind of gets thrown under the bus because 1:24:21.000 --> 1:24:25.200 of this. So Henry leaves the company and so the 1:24:25.360 --> 1:24:29.720 artistic direction in the company isn't as progressive. They're not 1:24:29.920 --> 1:24:33.200 able to jump into the sixties. You know, Little Willie 1:24:33.280 --> 1:24:37.600 John starts having problems, you know, he starts having drinking problems, 1:24:37.720 --> 1:24:39.760 and the director's cut of the film goes through this. 1:24:39.840 --> 1:24:41.479 The PBS we had to pull some of this out, 1:24:41.920 --> 1:24:44.160 but you start seeing problems in the sixties with Little 1:24:44.160 --> 1:24:46.080 Willie John. So he was going to be there for 1:24:46.320 --> 1:24:50.120 Frank Sinatra. Before Little Willie John goes to jail, he 1:24:50.160 --> 1:24:53.080 records this record with Capital that's amazing. I think it's 1:24:53.080 --> 1:24:56.240 called nineteen sixty eight or something like that. Highly check 1:24:56.720 --> 1:24:59.280 people checking it out. But you see the direction that 1:24:59.400 --> 1:25:01.879 King would have eventually gone with him, and it's amazing, 1:25:01.960 --> 1:25:05.680 luscious strings and beautiful all that type of stuff. You know, 1:25:05.840 --> 1:25:08.879 they couldn't go into that space. They didn't have enough tracks. 1:25:09.160 --> 1:25:11.439 Henry wasn't there to kind of push that any longer, 1:25:12.520 --> 1:25:15.639 and they kind of become kind of the old man's label, 1:25:16.920 --> 1:25:20.240 and they don't really recover well from Paolan. They limped 1:25:20.280 --> 1:25:23.320 their way through the sixties, but James Brown is able 1:25:23.360 --> 1:25:24.240 to keep them going. 1:25:24.960 --> 1:25:26.000 So in the late. 1:25:25.800 --> 1:25:29.120 Sixties Sid starts getting sicker and sicker and sicker, and 1:25:29.520 --> 1:25:34.400 ultimately he passes away. And when he passes away, there 1:25:34.439 --> 1:25:39.360 wasn't anybody left to run the company. There wasn't anybody 1:25:39.360 --> 1:25:41.439 who's trained. You know, seymour Stein at this point in 1:25:41.439 --> 1:25:44.920 time is in New York. He is in the last 1:25:44.960 --> 1:25:48.519 several years of his life. He allowed Sid allows Seymour 1:25:48.560 --> 1:25:52.000 to set up shop in the New York studios. So 1:25:52.120 --> 1:25:56.000 Seymour is actually getting because he has free rent, is 1:25:56.040 --> 1:25:59.320 able now to start his career. So Seymour would have 1:25:59.360 --> 1:26:01.760 actually been the perfect person to pass that on to. 1:26:02.680 --> 1:26:05.320 But there were some of these other people that were 1:26:05.360 --> 1:26:09.439 working around King Records that didn't really know what they 1:26:09.439 --> 1:26:12.439 were doing. And Sid kind of trusted a lot of 1:26:12.479 --> 1:26:16.600 these figures who didn't really understand the music business, but 1:26:16.600 --> 1:26:18.960 they had a lot of bravado and they got into 1:26:19.000 --> 1:26:21.920 his face about stuff. So they kind of had they 1:26:22.520 --> 1:26:25.120 you know, they kind of spoke to the to the 1:26:25.120 --> 1:26:28.439 guy's guy type of attitude that Sid had. So Sid 1:26:28.520 --> 1:26:30.519 ended up trusting some of these people that didn't know 1:26:30.560 --> 1:26:33.080 what they were doing, and they ran the business into 1:26:33.120 --> 1:26:39.639 the ground, and very quickly they merged with They start 1:26:39.720 --> 1:26:42.120 looking for options to get out of the business. Basically, 1:26:42.200 --> 1:26:44.840 so Henry Glover comes back to kind of help the 1:26:44.880 --> 1:26:48.439 business shut down. In essence, they sell to start a 1:26:48.560 --> 1:26:52.840 Records in Nashville, which is a record label that is 1:26:53.560 --> 1:26:56.160 basically it's kind of the same record label, but in 1:26:56.240 --> 1:27:00.640 Nashville they start the same way. They have the same Actually, 1:27:00.760 --> 1:27:03.759 a lot of the former King artists moved the Country artists, 1:27:03.960 --> 1:27:06.599 they moved to Star Day, So there's a relationship between 1:27:06.640 --> 1:27:09.640 the two labels, and the merger was kind of a 1:27:09.760 --> 1:27:13.200 natural of those guys, so King and start a merge. 1:27:14.320 --> 1:27:17.719 James Brown stays on through this. James Brown now has 1:27:17.840 --> 1:27:21.960 full control because in sixty eight Sid dies, as does 1:27:22.080 --> 1:27:25.240 Ben Bart at this time, so James is now free. 1:27:25.360 --> 1:27:27.799 He now is running he's booking side of his business. 1:27:27.800 --> 1:27:30.559 He's running the record label side of this business. Because 1:27:30.560 --> 1:27:34.600 nobody can stop James any longer. So this is like 1:27:34.680 --> 1:27:39.719 James's best year. This is when you start getting say loud, 1:27:39.720 --> 1:27:41.559 I'm Black and I'm proud, you start getting all these 1:27:41.600 --> 1:27:44.320 things in like the late sixties early seventies that are 1:27:44.320 --> 1:27:49.840 really progressive. James Brown super bad, all these tunes and 1:27:52.320 --> 1:27:56.320 a lot of these records. Yeah, they start the business. 1:27:56.360 --> 1:27:58.479 So the business basically figures out that they need to 1:27:58.560 --> 1:28:01.360 sell James Brown's track because he's the only thing that 1:28:01.400 --> 1:28:04.639 has value. So they sell it to Polodor and it's 1:28:04.720 --> 1:28:10.040 a multimillion dollar deal. James goes to Polydor within two years. 1:28:10.040 --> 1:28:13.360 He hates Polydor. The Germans want to make everything the same. 1:28:13.560 --> 1:28:17.040 They don't want they want everything process driven. They don't 1:28:17.120 --> 1:28:19.519 let James do whatever he wants. You know, he no 1:28:19.600 --> 1:28:23.680 longer has that freedom of king. King then sells to Starday. 1:28:23.880 --> 1:28:28.479 They sell everything in Cincinnati. They take whatever they find 1:28:28.560 --> 1:28:32.120 valuable in the process, they take down to Nashville. Some 1:28:32.160 --> 1:28:35.960 of the pressing pressing stuff goes down to Nashville. Starday 1:28:36.000 --> 1:28:38.360 goes out of business the following year because they again 1:28:38.439 --> 1:28:40.960 were also in a similar situation and they were also 1:28:41.040 --> 1:28:43.040 listening to the same idiot that Sid was listening to. 1:28:43.720 --> 1:28:48.880 So that business falls apart and the business basically gets split. 1:28:49.000 --> 1:28:51.799 They sell the publishing aspect of the business to liber 1:28:51.840 --> 1:28:56.679 and Stoler and that starts their licensing business. Liber and Stoller. 1:28:56.720 --> 1:28:58.559 Their business goes on to be one of the biggest 1:28:58.600 --> 1:29:04.280 licensing companies, which still exists today. And then they sold 1:29:04.360 --> 1:29:07.040 the mechanical rights to a company called Gusto, which is 1:29:07.080 --> 1:29:13.400 also still in Nashville. And yeah, so a lot of 1:29:12.439 --> 1:29:16.240 the mechanical rights go in one direction and the publishing 1:29:16.320 --> 1:29:18.519 rights go in another. They get split up. They basically 1:29:18.560 --> 1:29:23.000 sell the business. You have parts of the business still exist. 1:29:23.120 --> 1:29:26.880 So for example, the lathe that is in Jack White's 1:29:27.200 --> 1:29:29.280 Blue Room Jack White has got inducted into the National 1:29:29.320 --> 1:29:33.120 Hall of Fame, big shout out. The lathe that is 1:29:33.320 --> 1:29:38.320 in the Third Man Records room is the lathe from 1:29:38.400 --> 1:29:43.120 King Records. They were able to get the same laid 1:29:43.160 --> 1:29:46.000 the King Records. It went to Starday and that's how 1:29:46.040 --> 1:29:48.720 it got to Nashville, the Oregon. I traced down some 1:29:48.760 --> 1:29:50.320 of the parts. I was able to find some of it. 1:29:50.720 --> 1:29:52.599 There are some of the record presses. There's a couple 1:29:52.640 --> 1:29:56.080 of them that ended up in Jamaica, which is super interesting. 1:29:56.479 --> 1:29:58.920 A lot of them covered like early SKA, so like 1:29:59.240 --> 1:30:02.360 the King Records, like presses ended up going on to 1:30:02.439 --> 1:30:06.840 press life early Jamaican music. But you see the parts 1:30:06.880 --> 1:30:09.240 of King like it gets split up and it ends 1:30:09.280 --> 1:30:14.599 up actually continuing to exist in modern American music. It 1:30:14.600 --> 1:30:19.320 continues to be the it's parts ends up being fueling 1:30:19.360 --> 1:30:21.280 different parts of music. You start sing the birth of 1:30:21.360 --> 1:30:23.960 hip hop when people start scratching their records. The next 1:30:24.000 --> 1:30:27.280 generation starts doing that, and you kind of just see 1:30:27.280 --> 1:30:29.960 its influence continue to kind of continue. But the business 1:30:29.960 --> 1:30:33.639 itself basically comes to an end soon after Sid's death. 1:30:42.040 --> 1:30:43.120 So how'd you learn all this? 1:30:43.760 --> 1:30:50.360 Cud? I am an obsessive person, so I so this 1:30:50.400 --> 1:30:53.479 isn't the first record label where I've dug into listening 1:30:53.520 --> 1:30:56.599 to everything and learning all about their history. I've got 1:30:56.640 --> 1:31:00.879 a similar relationship with ECM Records, for example. I'm a drummer, 1:31:01.760 --> 1:31:05.839 so I've listened to every Jack Djionnette record, for example, 1:31:06.040 --> 1:31:10.439 every Miles Davis record, every Tony Williams record, every Elvin Jones, 1:31:10.479 --> 1:31:13.000 like every one of these guys. I've gone into a 1:31:13.040 --> 1:31:16.920 deep dive of like jazz labels, where I listened to 1:31:16.920 --> 1:31:21.519 everything and I do obsessions about every record and all 1:31:21.520 --> 1:31:23.879 the things that they that were done with these records 1:31:23.880 --> 1:31:27.360 and record labels, so it was kind of a natural 1:31:27.439 --> 1:31:31.839 thing for me. I had a great teacher. I studied 1:31:31.880 --> 1:31:34.519 with a guy who teaches at Berkeley School of Music, 1:31:35.000 --> 1:31:38.320 Ian Frohman, and he got me really into this idea. 1:31:38.360 --> 1:31:42.759 And the jazz saxophonist who I worked with, J D. Allen, 1:31:42.840 --> 1:31:45.920 they got me really into this idea of digging into 1:31:46.240 --> 1:31:50.240 records and digging into learning everything, like you learn about 1:31:50.240 --> 1:31:52.880 what they had for breakfast before they made this record. 1:31:53.760 --> 1:31:55.880 So I think very early in my twenties, the first 1:31:55.920 --> 1:31:58.280 one was kind of Blue that I got super into, 1:32:00.800 --> 1:32:04.760 and from that that led me into other records and 1:32:04.760 --> 1:32:08.200 more and more records and more like eras of music. 1:32:09.360 --> 1:32:14.680 So from everything from the roots and Biangelo and questlove 1:32:15.000 --> 1:32:19.000 in like the early two thousands to like eighties funk 1:32:19.120 --> 1:32:25.320 in like Dayton, Ohio, to Cincinnati King records to ECM 1:32:25.400 --> 1:32:29.400 records in Germany and jazz records. All of these things 1:32:29.439 --> 1:32:31.880 are things that drive me and fuel me to make 1:32:31.920 --> 1:32:34.599 me a better music producer, to make me a better musician. 1:32:35.920 --> 1:32:37.760 That it is kind of where I derived, you know, 1:32:37.800 --> 1:32:40.000 I started this record, I started this film to learn 1:32:40.000 --> 1:32:42.200 how to be a better music producer, how to make 1:32:42.240 --> 1:32:45.559 better records, and also how to advise people on making 1:32:45.600 --> 1:32:50.880 better records. And from the process of doing this, I 1:32:51.000 --> 1:32:53.320 ended up having all this information about that fit into 1:32:53.360 --> 1:32:55.840 a documentary, but the real purpose was to be a 1:32:55.840 --> 1:32:59.439 better music maker, better music creator. And I've been fortunate 1:32:59.520 --> 1:33:01.160 enough to work with some of the best artists and 1:33:01.200 --> 1:33:04.560 musicians in the world in like either consulting capacity or 1:33:04.600 --> 1:33:09.120 in a playing capacity. But you know, hopefully I'm hoping 1:33:09.160 --> 1:33:11.200 to be able to tell more of these stories about 1:33:11.560 --> 1:33:13.720 all of this information about music that I've learned. I 1:33:13.720 --> 1:33:17.000 have lots and lots like you can tell, I have 1:33:17.120 --> 1:33:20.600 a lot of information about very obscure record labels and 1:33:20.680 --> 1:33:23.040 musicians that I'd like to share and find ways to 1:33:23.040 --> 1:33:27.280 share those stories, especially more modern stories and black Black 1:33:27.280 --> 1:33:32.679 American music, and then also different expirations as a musician myself. 1:33:32.720 --> 1:33:35.000 You know, I'm hoping be able to take this film 1:33:35.000 --> 1:33:37.080 and a lot of these like information I have from 1:33:37.080 --> 1:33:40.439 this be able to apply it to records and all 1:33:40.479 --> 1:33:43.240 the way from how you you know, I learned all 1:33:43.280 --> 1:33:45.680 about the processes that they used the King Records, from 1:33:45.720 --> 1:33:50.960 micing techniques to using soul feedge to help vocalists come 1:33:51.080 --> 1:33:54.360 up with different parts and harmony parts. Henry Glover, there's 1:33:54.360 --> 1:33:57.600 all these recordings of him talking about all of this 1:33:57.680 --> 1:33:59.599 stuff that they did and how they made records back 1:33:59.640 --> 1:34:02.240 in the day, man, and all that stuff still applies. 1:34:02.360 --> 1:34:04.880 You know, these old school guys in the fifties the 1:34:04.880 --> 1:34:08.400 fifties really figured out American music, and the way they 1:34:08.439 --> 1:34:10.799 do things inspires the way I do. So my record, 1:34:11.000 --> 1:34:15.200 my record studio, everything is pre nineteen eighty, like all 1:34:15.200 --> 1:34:19.000 my instruments, all my microphones. I do everything something there's 1:34:19.120 --> 1:34:21.880 I can do tape. Everything I do is kind of 1:34:21.880 --> 1:34:26.679 like the old school vintage sounds and vintage music. Organic music, 1:34:26.720 --> 1:34:29.639 I like to call it, because you can't ai that stuff. 1:34:29.680 --> 1:34:32.759 You know, it sounds different, it feels different, it's funky, 1:34:32.800 --> 1:34:36.240 it's grittier, it's dirty. You know, it's it has mistakes 1:34:36.240 --> 1:34:39.320 in it that are beautiful. And that's kind of the 1:34:39.320 --> 1:34:43.280 stuff that I learned of how how this music was made. 1:34:43.360 --> 1:34:46.080 You know, how American soul music was. It was gritty, 1:34:46.160 --> 1:34:50.439 it was nasty, it was it was beautiful and soul 1:34:50.560 --> 1:34:54.320 driven and not perfect. And that's my vibe. Man. I'm 1:34:54.400 --> 1:34:57.360 super into like finding that magic and being able to 1:34:57.479 --> 1:35:00.840 make that magic relevant today, whether it's a storytelling or 1:35:00.840 --> 1:35:01.560 in music. 1:35:01.320 --> 1:35:05.639 Making, specifically when it comes to Sid Nathan and King, 1:35:06.400 --> 1:35:10.360 was all this information hiding and plain sight? Where did 1:35:10.360 --> 1:35:13.040 you have to dig and make a lot of connections, 1:35:13.120 --> 1:35:15.599 do a lot of interviews to assemble all the information 1:35:15.680 --> 1:35:18.000 not only in the film but in your head. 1:35:19.360 --> 1:35:21.479 Uh yeah, I mean I had to do a lot 1:35:21.520 --> 1:35:23.080 of digging. I had to do a lot of interviews. 1:35:23.120 --> 1:35:26.439 It took a lot of research because, you know, like 1:35:26.479 --> 1:35:30.320 every record label, who did what and what did and 1:35:30.360 --> 1:35:33.720 when something happened is a little fuzzy because some of 1:35:33.720 --> 1:35:37.320 these people's memories are faded, some of the people are gone, 1:35:37.439 --> 1:35:40.280 some people take more credit than they're deserved. All kinds 1:35:40.280 --> 1:35:43.680 of issues come, and so there had to be a 1:35:43.720 --> 1:35:45.680 lot of you know, especially with like Hank Ballard is 1:35:45.760 --> 1:35:48.479 a you know, the recording of the Twist is super 1:35:48.479 --> 1:35:52.000 controversial with a lot of the people. There's a lot 1:35:52.040 --> 1:35:56.519 of apocryphal stories. A lot of people talk about how Hank. 1:35:56.560 --> 1:35:59.320 The stories I kept hearing was Hank Ballard had a 1:35:59.360 --> 1:36:02.880 wild night with a woman or partying the night before 1:36:02.880 --> 1:36:05.519 he was supposed to go on American Bandstand and because 1:36:05.520 --> 1:36:08.400 of that he missed his flight and couldn't get to 1:36:08.680 --> 1:36:12.200 Philadelphia to tape the show and missed his opportunity to 1:36:12.520 --> 1:36:15.519 do the twist. And this has kind of been the 1:36:15.600 --> 1:36:17.360 lore a lot of people have been telling the story 1:36:17.400 --> 1:36:21.000 for years. I you know, being on PBS, you have 1:36:21.080 --> 1:36:24.000 to fact check the hell out of everything. So we 1:36:24.080 --> 1:36:26.120 had to, like I had to go and like figure out, Okay, 1:36:26.160 --> 1:36:28.360 so what happened? I need to find proof of this, 1:36:29.080 --> 1:36:32.760 And what I actually ended up finding was interviews of 1:36:32.800 --> 1:36:37.200 Hank Ballard telling a different story, and everything that I 1:36:37.240 --> 1:36:39.320 was able to find out in the history backed up 1:36:39.360 --> 1:36:43.800 Hank's version of the events. So one in interviews I 1:36:43.840 --> 1:36:46.719 was able to find out with Seymour Stein, for example, 1:36:47.080 --> 1:36:51.200 that Hank Ballard was Sid's favorite artist. He showed up 1:36:51.240 --> 1:36:55.080 on time, he did everything perfect, he never was late 1:36:55.120 --> 1:36:57.600 to gigs, he never had issues with the drinking, he 1:36:57.640 --> 1:36:59.679 never had issues with he partied, He did all that stuff, 1:37:00.040 --> 1:37:02.240 all the women and all that stuff. But he was 1:37:02.320 --> 1:37:04.960 really like on his business. That's why Sid loved him. 1:37:04.960 --> 1:37:09.800 He always he was a guarantee and Seymour toured with him, 1:37:09.840 --> 1:37:11.200 you know, he was one of the artists that was 1:37:11.240 --> 1:37:14.280 his tour manager for the label. So Seymour got to 1:37:14.320 --> 1:37:17.280 really know Hank really well and like loved him so 1:37:17.560 --> 1:37:19.839 one it would be strange that Hank would have missed 1:37:19.920 --> 1:37:22.680 a flight to a gig since he wasn't known to 1:37:23.040 --> 1:37:25.120 you know, literal Willie John was known for that all 1:37:25.160 --> 1:37:27.920 the time, but Hank wasn't. Then the other thing was 1:37:27.960 --> 1:37:31.640 Hank actually performs on Bandstand. He performs on Bandstand in 1:37:31.840 --> 1:37:36.040 June of that year, and what the deal is that 1:37:36.640 --> 1:37:41.559 Dick Clark decides he hears the song in Baltimore because 1:37:41.680 --> 1:37:43.680 Dick Clark used to control. Dick Clark was kind of 1:37:43.720 --> 1:37:46.679 a mob figure. He controlled all the radio stations in 1:37:47.120 --> 1:37:50.240 Baltimore and Philly and a lot of the East Coast. 1:37:50.439 --> 1:37:53.080 And because he hears like Hank's versions becoming a hit, 1:37:53.840 --> 1:37:57.360 he doesn't really want to use Hank Ballard to make 1:37:57.400 --> 1:38:00.599 a global hit out of it because of the songs 1:38:00.640 --> 1:38:03.000 Hank had done. These anti had a baby songs which 1:38:03.000 --> 1:38:05.640 are outrey and they were kind of singing to be 1:38:05.760 --> 1:38:09.320 dirty and it was kind of against that squeaky clean 1:38:09.320 --> 1:38:13.559 image that Dick had back in the day. So they 1:38:13.600 --> 1:38:15.200 make it back. So he goes to sit and says, 1:38:15.240 --> 1:38:18.959 how about this, You basically don't charge me for publishing. 1:38:20.479 --> 1:38:22.160 I can't tell whether it was either for free or 1:38:22.240 --> 1:38:24.479 reduced rate. I assume it would be don't charge me 1:38:24.520 --> 1:38:27.759 for publishing for X number of years on this song, 1:38:28.320 --> 1:38:31.439 I'm gonna go re record it and release it. You 1:38:31.560 --> 1:38:33.960 come on my show and I'll give you a hit. 1:38:34.040 --> 1:38:36.680 I'll make you a hit out of something else. So 1:38:36.800 --> 1:38:39.599 he comes on and he does finger Popping Time in June, 1:38:40.040 --> 1:38:43.040 and Finger Popping Time becomes a huge hit Frank Ballard. 1:38:43.560 --> 1:38:48.120 In August of that year, they release the Twist. Chubby 1:38:48.160 --> 1:38:51.280 Tucker's version of the Twist comes out. So the reason why, 1:38:51.479 --> 1:38:55.040 like the apocryphal story doesn't work is because they would 1:38:55.040 --> 1:38:58.120 have needed time to record it. You couldn't just on 1:38:58.160 --> 1:39:01.439 a drop of a dime bring to checker in, record 1:39:01.520 --> 1:39:03.960 him and release it to the next day. That did. 1:39:04.040 --> 1:39:05.720 It worked that way for King, but it did not 1:39:05.840 --> 1:39:08.360 work that way for any other record label. It took 1:39:08.400 --> 1:39:10.800 months and months of planning, and it took a lot 1:39:10.880 --> 1:39:13.439 of prep to get that stuff moving and getting an emotion. 1:39:14.000 --> 1:39:16.439 So Dick Clark had planned in advance to make this 1:39:16.479 --> 1:39:19.360 a hit. He had planned to give Sid another hit 1:39:19.439 --> 1:39:21.200 with finger pop in Time, and he took all the 1:39:21.280 --> 1:39:23.960 royalties and all the money from the twist. And you 1:39:24.040 --> 1:39:26.600 see he plays the twist I think five times that 1:39:26.760 --> 1:39:29.800 year on bandstand because anything that played on Bandstand was 1:39:29.840 --> 1:39:32.320 going to be a hit. Everybody knew it. Dick Clark 1:39:32.360 --> 1:39:35.000 knew it. Sid knew it. So Sid knew that if 1:39:35.000 --> 1:39:36.679 I give you a deal for a couple of years 1:39:36.680 --> 1:39:39.880 on this, on this publishing for this tune, you make 1:39:39.920 --> 1:39:42.160 a hit about something else, I'll take the money and run. 1:39:42.640 --> 1:39:45.960 And that's the deal that they made. And actually, Hank, 1:39:47.120 --> 1:39:50.000 Hank Baler was able to make three hits that year. 1:39:50.040 --> 1:39:52.679 So he had the Twist, he had finger Pop in time, 1:39:52.760 --> 1:39:55.719 then he had Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go. Because 1:39:55.840 --> 1:39:57.400 he was of the twist, he was able to make 1:39:57.439 --> 1:39:59.760 three hits. And then he also was able to make 1:39:59.760 --> 1:40:03.200 more hits by the answer songs. He had an answer song, 1:40:04.080 --> 1:40:06.240 you know, Chubby Chucker, they did the Peppermint Twist as 1:40:06.240 --> 1:40:09.920 their answer song. But Henry also I'm Sorry, Hank Ballard 1:40:09.920 --> 1:40:12.680 also released his own answer songs as well. So they 1:40:12.680 --> 1:40:14.439 were able to get a whole bunch of money out 1:40:14.439 --> 1:40:16.679 of this, because that's how the business worked back then. 1:40:17.000 --> 1:40:18.439 But that's the type of stuff that I had to 1:40:18.479 --> 1:40:20.680 go through and tease out, and it made a lot 1:40:20.680 --> 1:40:24.320 of the old timers really uncomfortable because I was going 1:40:24.360 --> 1:40:28.040 to find out who played on what you Know. The 1:40:28.120 --> 1:40:30.479 drummer Phil Paul believes that he played on the Twist. 1:40:30.520 --> 1:40:32.479 It turns out that he played on the answer song 1:40:34.080 --> 1:40:37.559 the backup You Know Hank Hank Ballard when he wrote 1:40:37.600 --> 1:40:40.040 the song the Twist, the original version he wrote with 1:40:40.080 --> 1:40:42.599 his band in Florida, and he gets into a fight 1:40:42.640 --> 1:40:45.479 with these guys and he decides that he wants to 1:40:45.479 --> 1:40:48.280 take this song and make it his. So he rewrites 1:40:48.360 --> 1:40:52.479 the song and records it at King, but he doesn't 1:40:52.520 --> 1:40:55.559 have the Midnighters anymore. The Midnighters breaks up after this. 1:40:55.600 --> 1:40:57.679 He doesn't have his Midnighters, so he needs to use 1:40:57.720 --> 1:41:00.559 another band to come and sing, so he says Otis 1:41:00.640 --> 1:41:03.920 Williams and the Charms has his backups band on this. 1:41:04.520 --> 1:41:08.719 They get a guy named Sunny Thompson from Chicago who's 1:41:08.760 --> 1:41:12.000 in town recording a King. He's the backing band for 1:41:12.080 --> 1:41:15.680 the Twist because they're already in the studio recording and 1:41:15.720 --> 1:41:18.559 so they play that. They end up being the backing band. 1:41:18.960 --> 1:41:21.759 He has backing vocalists. Because all these people are around 1:41:21.840 --> 1:41:25.519 King and they record the twist. He rewrote the song 1:41:26.280 --> 1:41:27.720 one of the things I was able to discover, and 1:41:27.760 --> 1:41:29.200 we didn't put it in the film. We didn't have 1:41:29.240 --> 1:41:34.800 space for it. But you know, Hank Ballard, his father 1:41:34.960 --> 1:41:39.040 and his mother had a really tumultuous relationship. So his father, 1:41:39.280 --> 1:41:43.280 the story goes that they had a fight when Hank 1:41:44.080 --> 1:41:48.120 was very young. The mother goes running out of the house, 1:41:48.200 --> 1:41:52.120 father grabs his shotgun and chases her. Mother does not 1:41:52.200 --> 1:41:55.479 come back. There is no clarity on what happens and 1:41:55.520 --> 1:41:58.599 why she doesn't come back, but doesn't come back, and 1:41:58.680 --> 1:42:02.120 he now has his father. They're in Detroit, who is 1:42:02.160 --> 1:42:04.720 a single father. A couple of years later, he has 1:42:04.720 --> 1:42:07.519 a heart attacking father. Hank has to go live with 1:42:07.600 --> 1:42:11.880 family in Alabama, which he hates, by the way, But 1:42:12.520 --> 1:42:14.960 in that he has a lyric that he uses in 1:42:15.000 --> 1:42:19.040 the twist where it's my daddy is sleeping and Mama 1:42:19.080 --> 1:42:23.240 ain't around. So you'll hear that in the film where 1:42:23.280 --> 1:42:26.080 we do our transition point where you hear Hank Ballard 1:42:26.120 --> 1:42:29.479 say it, and then you hear you hear sorry Chubby 1:42:29.560 --> 1:42:31.679 Chucker sing that line, and then you hear Hank Ballard 1:42:31.720 --> 1:42:34.920 sing that line. And you hear there's an authenticity shift 1:42:34.920 --> 1:42:37.960 there because Hank Ballard is talking about his story. He's 1:42:38.000 --> 1:42:41.080 talking about something in that song that was great pain 1:42:41.200 --> 1:42:44.320 for him, which is really interesting. You know, it's something 1:42:44.360 --> 1:42:46.320 that's of great pain, but it's something that brings the 1:42:46.360 --> 1:42:49.479 American people great joy in the song. And there are 1:42:49.520 --> 1:42:51.760 a lot of songs that have this history. We talked 1:42:51.800 --> 1:42:54.519 to Vince gil about this actually, because you know, Vince 1:42:54.560 --> 1:42:58.160 wrote that song about his brother go Rest You on 1:42:58.240 --> 1:43:01.880 the Mountain. I'm messing the butcher during the title. But 1:43:02.000 --> 1:43:03.720 you know, you have a lot of these moments where 1:43:03.800 --> 1:43:07.160 artists write about the most personal, painful moments in their life, 1:43:07.800 --> 1:43:11.920 and it turns out it translates very powerfully in music. 1:43:12.160 --> 1:43:14.759 And that's one of the secret sauces of the twist 1:43:15.160 --> 1:43:16.920 that we try to find ways to kind of point 1:43:16.920 --> 1:43:20.160 that we learn in the history that that song is 1:43:20.200 --> 1:43:23.880 like really powerfully his. It's his story that he infuses 1:43:23.920 --> 1:43:26.200 into this song, and that's one of the things that 1:43:26.240 --> 1:43:28.559 makes it powerful. And that's one of the differences you 1:43:28.640 --> 1:43:32.200 hear in Hank's version versus Chubby's version. But this is 1:43:32.200 --> 1:43:33.840 the type of stuff that we had to dig deep 1:43:33.880 --> 1:43:36.160 into and I can tell you about things we didn't 1:43:36.160 --> 1:43:39.479 even put in the film all the way. I mean, 1:43:40.280 --> 1:43:43.800 things that you would be surprised to learn about different 1:43:43.800 --> 1:43:46.360 recordings and different songs. But we had to go deep 1:43:46.439 --> 1:43:48.599 that level into being able to get to the bottom 1:43:48.800 --> 1:43:52.400 of every fact, every point because PBS is really really 1:43:52.439 --> 1:43:55.040 serious about fact and truth, which is what makes them 1:43:55.120 --> 1:43:59.200 really makes the opportunity really powerful and makes working with 1:43:59.320 --> 1:44:01.719 somebody like PBS really amazing. 1:44:03.200 --> 1:44:04.320 So what's next for you? 1:44:06.920 --> 1:44:09.559 The first thing I'm doing is hanging out with my kids. 1:44:10.400 --> 1:44:12.760 For the last nine years, I haven't really spent a 1:44:12.760 --> 1:44:15.640 lot of time. I've three kids, a twenty five year 1:44:15.680 --> 1:44:18.439 old and all my twenty five year old sister who 1:44:18.439 --> 1:44:21.320 I raise, and I've got eighteen year old twins. They're 1:44:21.479 --> 1:44:26.280 freshmen in college, so they're ones in jazz studies and 1:44:26.320 --> 1:44:29.439 the other one is in engineering, so I am helping 1:44:29.520 --> 1:44:34.719 them guide through that process. Then I am exploring several 1:44:34.760 --> 1:44:37.280 stories that have kind of come out of this King 1:44:37.360 --> 1:44:41.440 record stuff. I'm working on trying to find different documentary 1:44:41.479 --> 1:44:44.400 stories in music to pursue. You know, this film for 1:44:44.479 --> 1:44:48.080 me was really talking about diversity, you know when we started. 1:44:48.120 --> 1:44:50.680 When I started this film in twenty sixteen. It was 1:44:50.760 --> 1:44:59.080 during our current president's first first campaign, first election campaign, 1:44:59.479 --> 1:45:01.840 and I really we found that there was like very 1:45:01.880 --> 1:45:07.519 divisive language around diversity, and I wanted to find something 1:45:07.520 --> 1:45:10.479 that spoke to that, to really show that we didn't 1:45:10.520 --> 1:45:13.759 come about diversity because America is a nice, jolly place 1:45:13.800 --> 1:45:16.360 and we're all friends and we all do the right thing. 1:45:16.439 --> 1:45:19.840 We came to diversity because of business, and that diversity 1:45:19.880 --> 1:45:23.000 opened up more business. It was, you know, it's very 1:45:23.040 --> 1:45:28.880 quintessential American that it's a business, business driven diversity. You know, 1:45:28.920 --> 1:45:31.040 it was a business driven decision that led us here 1:45:31.040 --> 1:45:33.280 as a society, and I wanted to show that I 1:45:33.320 --> 1:45:36.160 wanted to kind of bring some complexity to that conversation, 1:45:36.760 --> 1:45:38.640 and music is a perfect place to do that. You 1:45:38.680 --> 1:45:41.680 can hear the diversity and the content that's created, and 1:45:41.720 --> 1:45:44.000 you can also see the business effect that it had 1:45:44.080 --> 1:45:47.400 through sales and all kinds of things, through impact. You 1:45:47.439 --> 1:45:50.679 can see the data and here the effect. So that's 1:45:50.680 --> 1:45:54.040 for me, was really powerful to what I wanted. And 1:45:54.080 --> 1:45:56.800 I'm looking for different there's different stories that I've definitely 1:45:57.240 --> 1:45:59.799 I've been developing, but I'm looking for something that speaks 1:45:59.840 --> 1:46:03.559 to the power of music and the effects that it's 1:46:03.600 --> 1:46:06.880 had on us as a culture. I'm looking for ways 1:46:06.920 --> 1:46:10.120 to have deeper conversations about things that we take for granted. 1:46:10.200 --> 1:46:12.760 You know, King Records is just a rock and roll 1:46:12.800 --> 1:46:15.839 and all these conversations are is just music to some people, 1:46:16.280 --> 1:46:18.599 but it really wasn't. It was much more than that, 1:46:18.720 --> 1:46:20.760 and there were more lessons that were learned in this 1:46:20.920 --> 1:46:24.000 process that we've forgotten. We've forgotten about some of the labels, 1:46:24.040 --> 1:46:26.080 but we've also forgotten some of the lessons we learned 1:46:26.080 --> 1:46:28.240 in that process. So a lot of the things I'm 1:46:28.280 --> 1:46:31.640 wanting to explore are reminding us of the things that 1:46:31.680 --> 1:46:35.639 we've forgotten. Whether it's the way we made music, which 1:46:35.720 --> 1:46:38.719 I think right now is really important. I'm really interested 1:46:38.760 --> 1:46:43.200 in exploring the process of making music and how we 1:46:43.240 --> 1:46:46.040 can I'm hoping to inspire people to go back to 1:46:46.080 --> 1:46:49.599 making records on tape, to go back to pressing records, 1:46:49.640 --> 1:46:52.320 you know, all the information is there, or at least 1:46:52.360 --> 1:46:54.640 taking some of that process. This is something that I'm 1:46:54.680 --> 1:46:57.040 hoping musicians can kind of take away, and I'm looking 1:46:57.120 --> 1:46:59.479 for ways to kind of find stories to highlight that 1:47:00.000 --> 1:47:02.280 I'll also able to kind of able to show the 1:47:02.320 --> 1:47:06.400 cultural significance of these things and how they're applicable. Music 1:47:06.479 --> 1:47:10.599 business has not changed since the nineteen forties. It's shocking, 1:47:10.720 --> 1:47:13.400 you know, you would think that it has. But we're 1:47:13.439 --> 1:47:16.760 back to releasing singles just like they were releasing like 1:47:16.960 --> 1:47:19.799 singles back a King. You know, they released two sides. 1:47:20.160 --> 1:47:22.559 It's a song in another song, and that's the type 1:47:22.600 --> 1:47:25.799 of stuff that King. This type of stuff King Records 1:47:25.880 --> 1:47:27.800 was doing. The business that they were doing is the 1:47:27.800 --> 1:47:30.280 same business that we're doing today. And if we're able 1:47:30.320 --> 1:47:33.320 to get if we're able to continue making music through 1:47:33.360 --> 1:47:37.400 this AI revolution, and we want to continue making organic 1:47:37.520 --> 1:47:41.639 revolution organic music, rather, we're going to need to find 1:47:41.800 --> 1:47:43.639 We're going to need people who are going to highlight 1:47:43.680 --> 1:47:46.200 these stories, who are going to show the process and 1:47:46.240 --> 1:47:49.520 show the effect of how these things were made organically 1:47:49.880 --> 1:47:52.400 and the importance of that. And I think those are 1:47:52.439 --> 1:47:55.080 the things that will allow us to create new sounds, 1:47:55.280 --> 1:47:58.599 create new music, because AI can only recreate, It doesn't 1:47:58.600 --> 1:48:01.400 have the ability of being able to create new And 1:48:01.439 --> 1:48:04.519 I'm hoping that by digging into history and by showing 1:48:04.560 --> 1:48:07.920 all of these things, here is how we created this stuff, 1:48:07.960 --> 1:48:11.400 Here's how we arrived here, I'm hoping that other musicians 1:48:11.439 --> 1:48:16.000 like myself can be inspired to say, Okay, so this 1:48:16.040 --> 1:48:18.040 is what we are today, this is what we're doing. 1:48:18.360 --> 1:48:21.040 We're trying to find something that's in a different market 1:48:21.080 --> 1:48:23.559 in a different way and a different thing, a different sound. 1:48:23.920 --> 1:48:26.479 Here's how Sid Nathan did it. Here is how these 1:48:26.520 --> 1:48:29.000 groups did it. Here's how they did it with ECM, 1:48:29.320 --> 1:48:33.520 Here's how questlov did it. Here's how all these polices 1:48:33.560 --> 1:48:36.000 did it. And I'm hoping that I can find ways 1:48:36.080 --> 1:48:39.400 of being able to highlight those stories and give people 1:48:39.479 --> 1:48:42.400 reason to not be afraid of AI. You know, I 1:48:42.439 --> 1:48:44.439 do AI for a living. It's my research area and 1:48:44.479 --> 1:48:47.360 my PhD studies and computer engineering, it's what I do 1:48:47.520 --> 1:48:51.920 professionally at work. I know it's limitations. I understand its 1:48:52.000 --> 1:48:56.000 limitations musically, and I understand what the differences are with 1:48:56.120 --> 1:48:58.080 what a human can do and what a machine can do. 1:48:58.439 --> 1:49:01.800 And I'm hoping that by highlighting these stories, you know, 1:49:01.840 --> 1:49:04.200 you can inspire people to not be afraid, to be 1:49:04.240 --> 1:49:07.800 able to see what we're capable of doing and find 1:49:07.840 --> 1:49:09.000 ways to recreate it again. 1:49:09.840 --> 1:49:12.479 Yeah, I mean my mind is blown. As I say, 1:49:12.560 --> 1:49:17.360 I knew Seymour pretty well and he could wax rhapsodic 1:49:17.439 --> 1:49:21.560 about SID. I think you are the number one repository 1:49:21.600 --> 1:49:25.240 for information on SID and people make movies and they 1:49:25.240 --> 1:49:28.680 have an interest. You really have gone deep. I think 1:49:28.720 --> 1:49:31.240 you know more about SID and King Records than anybody else, 1:49:31.400 --> 1:49:34.640 you know. I hope all this information just gets recorded 1:49:34.680 --> 1:49:36.920 somewhere so we're not lost in the sands in time. 1:49:37.240 --> 1:49:41.519 You've accumulated it. I haven't seen it accumulated anywhere else 1:49:42.120 --> 1:49:45.439 in any event. I mean, it's been fantastic talking to you. 1:49:46.400 --> 1:49:49.040 As I said earlier, the film is fantastic. 1:49:49.160 --> 1:49:50.000 Thank you so much. 1:49:50.400 --> 1:49:52.920 As I said, it's got so many threads. It's got 1:49:52.920 --> 1:49:59.519 the Cincinnati thread, it's got the country and black music thread, 1:50:00.080 --> 1:50:04.120 it's got it's really a lot. It's really good, and 1:50:04.880 --> 1:50:06.960 you have been really good. Yeahmy, I want to thank 1:50:07.040 --> 1:50:09.200 you for taking this time to speak with my audience. 1:50:09.360 --> 1:50:11.160 I appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me. 1:50:11.240 --> 1:50:14.160 I hope that the audience gets to check out the film. 1:50:14.200 --> 1:50:17.479 It's going to be freely available till the seventh of 1:50:17.479 --> 1:50:22.120 December on the PBS app, also on YouTube, and if 1:50:22.200 --> 1:50:24.760 you feel free to get in the comments section and 1:50:24.800 --> 1:50:27.200 say something positive to all those haters out there, I 1:50:27.240 --> 1:50:31.000 would love you for it. Audience, Thank you. But yeah, 1:50:31.200 --> 1:50:33.400 please check it out, and if you get an opportunity to, 1:50:33.520 --> 1:50:35.439 you can reach out to me. I'd love to come 1:50:35.439 --> 1:50:37.720 and show you the director's cut and talk about the 1:50:37.720 --> 1:50:42.000 film and all its intersecting threads in American music anytime. 1:50:42.120 --> 1:50:45.120 So I'm available to talk because I've got nothing else 1:50:45.160 --> 1:50:47.880 going on to that school of my life. And I 1:50:47.960 --> 1:50:50.080 really appreciate you for having me on this show, Bob. 1:50:50.120 --> 1:50:52.080 It's an honor. It's an honor to have been covered, 1:50:52.840 --> 1:50:55.160 for you to come the story to come to your attention. 1:50:55.320 --> 1:50:58.240 I deeply appreciate it, your effect. I've been a fan 1:50:58.280 --> 1:51:00.840 for a long time. Your effect on American music since 1:51:00.880 --> 1:51:04.920 the nineties is dope. I agree with you a lot 1:51:04.920 --> 1:51:08.120 of your strong, hot takes on music, and I thank 1:51:08.160 --> 1:51:10.000 you so much for having me on the show. It's 1:51:10.040 --> 1:51:11.200 truly an honor. Thank you. 1:51:11.920 --> 1:51:14.920 While you're making me smile, you're making my day in 1:51:15.000 --> 1:51:15.479 any event. 1:51:15.600 --> 1:51:16.599 Thank you. Yeah maze. 1:51:17.000 --> 1:51:20.160 Until next time. This is Bob Left says