Artists

Huey Smith was born in New Orleans. He wrote his first song on the piano at the age of eight, which he named "Robertson Street Boogie", after the...

Roy Brown was one of a group of Black singers who started the first wave of R&B music in New Orleans. He recorded a song that he had...

Richard Wayne Penniman was born in Macon, Georgia, on December 5th in 1932, the third of twelve children. His father was a bricklayer, who owned a night club...

Westbound Records was founded late in 1968 by Armen Boladian (at the suggestion of Mike Hanks) and became active in 1969. The label features much of the output...

ABC-Paramount was a New York company that signed The Impressions in 1961, after the group left Vee-Jay Records. Everything started brilliantly, with their first release on the new...

At Norala Studio, Quin Ivy spent most of 1966 organising sessions for Percy Sledge. Jerry Wexler was happy for the tiny studio in the Shoals to keep on...

Willie Mitchell signed Al Green to Hi Records in 1969. The first gold single of Green’s career was released two years later, selling a million copies. The door...

Quinton Claunch, who had co-founded Hi Records in 1957, sold his share of the company in 1959. Five years later, in partnership with local pharmacist Rudolph V. Russell,...

“You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me” was a massive hit in the UK for Dusty Springfield in 1966, but it was followed by a fallow year...

First Published on July 8, 2020 Fred Hammond:A multi-instrumentalist, producer, and vocalist for the soulful black gospel group Commissioned during the 1980s and ’90s, Fred Hammond also became...