King of the Queen City: The Story of King Records (Music in American Life)

Belo livro com fotos e uma história extraordinária sobre uma das mais importantes gravadoras da história da música, a King Records!

King Records, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, was a very influential label in American music history and this book is an excellent history of King Records.I would go as far as to say this is currently the definitive history of King Records, the label's owner Syd Nathan and its subsidiary labels, such as Queen Records and Federal Records. It's well researched and well written.Overall, an excellent book which should interest anyone interested in music history.

If you like 50's and 60's music, you will love this one!! It also tells the story of great unsung heroes of R&B, country and Rock-& Roll.

Though the King and Federal labels changed American culture and music in ways that many of us barely realize, I find it fascinating how rare it is to hear their names actually dropped these days... say in comparison to Chess and Stax... The reason perhaps, is alluded to in the book, when we realize that no matter how big the label got, really it was a one man operation - - the brain child of the flamboyant Syd Nathan... the label died with him, but a great deal of its stars, artists, producers and behind the scenes people when on to greater heights... at best, as hall-of-fame inductees, and at... well, most surprising to me... cast of Hee Haw membership (KING also produced "hillbilly" music.) - - Needless to say, as far as I'm concerned KING will forever be best remembered for: James Brown, Hank Ballard, Billy Ward and The Dominos, Earl Bostic and Bill "Honky Tonk" Doggett (without whom, I and any other Hammond player wouldn't be playing the Hammond today, even with Jimmy Smith!)As for my key criticisms of the book... it would have been great if the publisher got together with COLLECTIBLES (the folks who now have the rights to the King Catalogue) and issued a CD with listening material as well as interview excerpts (fancy thinking though) and although the writing is very good, the book is often repetitive and the narrative is fascinating and draws you in, but sometimes more has the tone of an enthusiastic collector who's done his research and is simply walking you through his collection, rattling out informed facts in the process... at times there seems to be a slight lack of a cohesive narrative - - on the other hand, the author is a sober minded fact checker - - for example, often he'll present the stories of the people he interviewed, but then mention the facts and probabilities behind their stories... in doing so, he manages to walk a great line between being "academically prudent" and a skillful story teller.Some other comments:Like many people, I discovered those old King records in a stack in my father's basement... Their existence in my parents' basement surprised me because my father never seemed like an R&B type, but he told me that his father had a store and a guy with a truck used to bring them, so eventually he wound up with the whole collection... The book tells the story of the truck - - and why it made King so unique. (My Grandfather ran a small store that sold pens and office equipment, so Syd Nathan must have had his local's using their revolutionary self contained sales system to connect with fellow Jewish merchants - - not just the big record stories.)-- Another reviewer also pointed out the fact that an actual discography would have been nice... Still... why complain... at least someone got around to telling the story of raspy voice, cigar smoking temperamental yet visionary father figure Sid Nathan (who I first read about in James Brown's great autobiography.)--My all time favorite King recording, incidentally is Chris Columbus's OH YEAH (featuring Johnny Hammond Smith on organ) - - and my favorite chapter is the one on white hipster Ralph Bass, who ran the subsidiary Federal label and who started out as a Bebop producer on Savoy.--The number of people at the label who went on to become major record industry behind-the-scene movers, despite the traditional falling out with Sid was amazing...--The book avoids the pitfall of making making it entirely the James Brown Show... though arguably their greatest legacy, the book offers equal play time to many of the artists, including the Country and Western ones who I never heard of but now have a sudden interest in.--In conclusion... King lovers... lovers of classic blues, R&B, jump blues, country and Western, rock and roll and American music in general... your time has come... someone has finally gotten around to telling the story... now let's hope for a big big big boxed set re-issue !

This is a very good book for anyone interested in American music of the 1940s and 1950s and the transition of "vernacular music" from R&B, Blues and Hillbilly to Soul, Rock and Country. It's also must reading for anyone deeply interested in the history of race relations in the U. S. in this time period; King provides an excellent (though unfortunately atypical) "case study", well described in the book.The author seems more into the R&B, Blues and Soul side of King than the Hillbilly and Country side. His writing seems to me more vivid and personal when talking about the former; when talking about the latter, I got the sense that he had to do some reading, listening and interviewing to write his book, and I disagree with his take on the importance of several of the musicians mentioned, most notably Don Reno.There's nothing wrong with that. I have the Hillbilly and Country stuff more in my bones and, though I was pleased at the inclusion of some of my favorite obscure artists, like Jimmie Widener, I was disappointed by the omission of others, like Red Perkins. I suspect that Fox is better at the Blues and R&B arcana than the Hillbilly & Country arcana, but cannot say for sure, because of my own limitations on other side. There's an irony here: what was unique at King was the extent of crossover between Black and White on each others' sessions. At King, there was a long incubation together, not a transfer of styles from Black to White, as at Sun. One doubts that Henry Glover or Sid Nathan "specialized" in their knowledge of one side or the other. They imbibed them both and probably knew them both about equally well at the time. We 21st-century roots geeks, on the other hand, tend to gravitate toward one side or the other, even while we so highly praise and even revere the fact that at King, they were not only equal, but also not separate.For me, the best part of the book is not the side that I know more about, but the side I know less about. There are a bunch of King R&B and Blues artists, and even Rock artists, that I will now go seek out. I expect that most people who are knowledgeable about one aspect of King or the other will have the same experience: maybe if you know all about Blues and R&B on King, you'll be tempted to check out a Moon Mullican CD. But you'll probably still wish the author had said more about the lesser-known King artists that you already know and love.I cannot agree with the reviewers who wish that a discography had been included. As the author points out in the Preface, the discography, a 900-page pair of tomes by Michel Ruppli, is already available. You can get it on Amazon, but I regret to say that its already high price went up when the Fox book came out. Also, the sessionography (list of musicians) is more complete for the R&B, Blues, Soul and Rock stuff than for the Hillbilly stuff. This might just be an accident of chronology: the Hillbilly stuff started being recorded earlier, and maybe the sessions were not as well documented. So sometimes we have to resort to external research and a good ear to identify personnel on the Hillbilly sessions. But it is what it is.