Music
Arthur Crudup wrote the song that became Elvis’ first hit. He barely got paid
FRANKTOWN, Va. (AP) — Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup helped invent rock ‘n’ roll.
His 1946 song “That’s All Right,” an off-the-cuff shrug to his beloved, became the first single Elvis Presley ever released. Rod Stewart sang it on a chart-topping album. Led Zeppelin played it live.
But nobody would know that in the event that they saw Crudup living out the remainder of his life on the eastern shore of Virginia, wearing overalls and leading a crew picking cucumbers, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes.
Despite being called the “father of rock ‘n’ roll,” Crudup received meager songwriting royalties during his lifetime due to a record deal that funneled money to his original manager. Crudup died 50 years ago, forsaking certainly one of the grimmest accounts of artist exploitation in the twentieth century.
“Of course, material things don’t mean everything,” says Prechelle Crudup Shannon, her granddaughter. “But they took a lot more than just money. They left him with all the burdens of a poor black man. And they left him with a broken heart.”
Crudup has received flashes of recognition in recent times, including being briefly portrayed by Gary Clark Jr. in the 2022 biopic “Elvis” and being mentioned last 12 months by a California reparations task force examining the long history of discrimination against African Americans.
Friday marks the seventieth anniversary of Presley’s recording of “That’s All Right” — many historians consider July 5 a cultural milestone — and coincides with plans by the state of Virginia to erect a plaque on the highway honoring Crudup.
“Among others who covered Crudup were the Beatles, B.B. King and Elton John,” the plaque will say. “Rarely receiving royalties, Crudup supported his family as a laborer and farm hand.”
“A completely new thing”
Crudup was born in Forest, Mississippi, in 1905 and started singing the blues when he was about 10, he told Blues Unlimited magazine. He was working in a foundry by 14. It wasn’t until he was in his 30s that he began playing guitar. Self-taught, he played at parties and nightclubs in the Mississippi Delta.
In Chicago, in search of higher work, he played on the street and slept in a crate under the L subway station. One night on a street corner, Crudup met Lester Melrose, a white field agent for Bluebird Records.
“He put a dollar in my hand and asked me to play,” Crudup told High Fidelity magazine.
There are many arguments about who wrote the first rock ‘n’ roll song. But “That’s All Right,” which mixes elements of blues and country, makes a robust claim.
“It doesn’t sound like country, it doesn’t sound like blues, even though I hear them there,” says Joe Burns, a professor of communication and media studies at Southeastern Louisiana University. “It’s really something completely new.”
Crudup recorded about 80 songs for Bluebird between 1941 and 1956, including “That’s All Right”, “My Baby Left Me”, and “So Glad You’re Mine”. He didn’t own the rights to any of them.
His first manager had them.
“I wouldn’t record anyone unless they signed all the rights to them over to me,” Melrose once said, in response to Alan Lomax’s book Mister Jelly Roll.
Crudup spent years in Chicago, recording songs there and taking the bus south to jobs in Mississippi, certainly one of which was taking out trash for $28.44 every week.
“I had to take care of my family, pay my car payment, my gas bill, my light bill,” Crudup said. He gave up music in his early 50s to work on farms.
“A kind of hillbilly record”
In 1954, Presley was taking a break from a rehearsal session at Sun Studios when “a song I had heard years ago popped into my head,” writes Peter Guralnick in his book Last Train to Memphis.
Sam Phillips, the studio’s legendary founder, immediately recognized Crudup’s song. Phillips was amazed that the 19-year-old knew it and felt his version “came out fresh and lush.”
A radio station in Memphis, Tennessee, soon played Presley’s recording. The response was “immediate,” with phone calls and telegrams asking for it to be played again, Guralnick wrote.
“It was by far Elvis’ biggest hit on The Sun and it launched him on a path to fame that soon became almost unimaginable to him,” Guralnick told The Associated Press.
Although Crudup is usually omitted from accounts of Presley’s profession, the singer publicly credited himself as a songwriter.
“In Tupelo, Mississippi, I heard old Arthur Crudup banging on the box the way I do now,” Presley told The Charlotte Observer in 1956, “and I said to myself that if I ever got to a place where I could feel everything old Arthur felt, I would be a musician such as no one had ever seen.”
Crudup himself liked Presley’s interpretation.
“He made it kind of a hillbilly record,” Crudup later told the Los Angeles Times. “But I liked it. I thought it would be a hit. Some people like the blues, some people don’t. But the way he did it, everybody liked it.”
Featured Stories
In the early Nineteen Sixties, Crudup finally received a hefty royalty payment of $1,600. But Melrose refused handy over the copyright.
Many black musicians have signed copyright agreements or been forced to share them, says Southwestern Law School professor Kevin J. Greene.
“A huge part of what we’re talking about in terms of exploitation is still covered by copyright law,” says Greene, who testified before the California Copyright Commission.
In 1971, Downbeat magazine estimated that Crudup probably must have earned greater than $250,000 — almost $2 million today — for the songs “That’s All Right” and “My Baby Left Me,” recorded by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
The American Guild of Authors and Composers even tried to gather royalties on Crudup’s behalf. However, then-executive director John Carter told High Fidelity in 1972 that Crudup received “a maximum of $2,500” from the guild’s efforts.
Fun in the packaging hall
In his mid-50s, Crudup settled in Franktown, Virginia. His granddaughter says he was devastated by the experience. But he didn’t despair.
“My father stressed that Crudup was a man of extremely strong principles,” Shannon says of Crudup, who embodied the “old country values” of exertions and raising a family.
Etna Nottingham Walker, whose family owned the Virginia farm where Crudup worked, says that “if you didn’t know he was Arthur Crudup and that he was a musician, you wouldn’t pay any attention to him.”
Butch Nottingham, Walker’s cousin, also worked on the farm. During breaks, he says, Crudup would sometimes pull out his guitar and sing in the packing shed, where cucumbers were being washed and waxed.
Crudup eventually returned to music during the blues revival of the Nineteen Sixties. Record producers from two labels, Fire and Delmark, found him. He released latest albums, played festivals and shared stages with BB King, Taj Mahal and Bonnie Raitt.
But Crudup still lived on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, a narrow peninsula between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Shannon remembers her silver-haired grandfather holding her as a toddler on their Franktown porch, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
“He had these really, really long limbs,” Shannon recalls. “He just looked like a giant to me.”
Tim Prettyman worked at a drugstore where Crudup often bought insulin, coffee, and Camel cigarettes. Once, Crudup arrived in a suit with a guitar case, heading to catch a bus to New York and a plane to England.
“He said, ‘I’m going to play music for the Queen,’ and he winked at me and smiled,” Prettyman recalls.
“It wasn’t supposed to be”
Towards the end of his life, Crudup was near receiving a $60,000 settlement, which can be price greater than $400,000 today.
Melrose was dead. A deal was made with Hill & Range, the company that had acquired Crudup’s publishing rights.
However, when Crudup and his 4 children arrived in New York, they learned the deal had been voided, in response to the book “Between Midnight and Day” by Crudup’s last manager, Dick Waterman.
They were told that settling would cost the company more cash than the potential lawsuit would herald. And a lawsuit meant “taking down an old white widow who lives in Florida,” Waterman wrote. “We wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“It just wasn’t meant to be,” Crudup told Waterman. “Naked I came into this world, and naked I shall leave it.”
Indeed, the settlement didn’t come until after Crudup’s death in 1974. Chappell Music refused to purchase Hill & Range until the Crudup case was resolved. The first check was for just over $248,000, Waterman wrote, and Crudup’s estate received about $3 million over the following many years.
Warner Chappell Music declined to comment because the events took place so way back.
Jeanette Crudup, the widow of Crudup’s son Jonas, says the amounts paid to the musician’s children are nothing in comparison with what he must have received during his lifetime.
“They were left with crumbs,” he says.
Crudup stays relatively unknown, even on the East Coast, says Billy Sturgis, an area resident who produced an album by Crudup’s sons. Sturgis hopes the plaque will help. But, he says, Crudup belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, together with Presley and plenty of others who sang Crudup’s songs.
Crudup’s granddaughter agrees.
“It would be something if this story was unique,” Shannon says. “But it’s not. We know this has happened to black artists throughout history, but specifically at this time.”
The artist currently often called Weeknd spent the last 15 years, constructing his popularity “Dark Prince of Pop”. Starting as an enigmatic artist who released his songs anonymously, The Weeknd became a worldwide superstar and a house brand. But now-a few albums from the list Nickname Weeknd In favor of his real name Abel Tesfaye.
This is just one other step within the evolution of Tesfaye as an artist. To understand its influence on contemporary music, let’s take a have a look at the modest beginnings of Mixtape Weeknd, his meteoric known and what next for a person standing behind the nickname.
Musical Evolution Weeknd: from Mixtapes to Supergowy
Early dark mixtape
After spending most teenage years to party and problems with the law, Tesfaye began to release music anonymously in 2009. His first effort was a group of leaked demonstrations entitled “Noise”. Songs comparable to “Love Through Her” and “Material Girl” aroused the interest of online listeners, establishing a dark sound R&B and hedonistic topics from which he could be known.
Transition to the mainstream pop
In 2011, Tesfaye used the noise generated by his first editions, spending a variety of additional mixtapes – “House of Balloons”, “Thursday” and “Echo of Silence” – which might later switch to the platinum album of the “Trilogy” compilation.
But this was his contribution to the soundtrack within the dirty film “Fifty Shades of Gray” from 2015, which might really drive The Weeknd music from the bedrooms and basements to the national pop radio. Combining the sexy delivery of Tesfaye with a skillful pop approach, “Zarach IT” not only reached the number three on the Billboard Hot 100 list, but was nominated for the ACADEMY ASCADEM Award for the perfect original song and his first Grammy Award for the perfect R&B performance.
Albums and Weeknd era
“Kiss Land” and “Beauty for madness”
Before Tesfaye released his official debut album “Kiss Land” in 2013, he was already a recognized R&B trailblazer. The Canadian artist prepared for the album, traveling to Tokyo and beginning to handle more experimental and film styles that may turn into central for later Tesfaye works.
While his second album from 2015, “Beauty Behind the Madness”, nodded to his dark R&B roots on songs comparable to “Shameless”, he also leaned in POP with hits comparable to “Can’t Feel My Face”.
“Starboy”, “My dear melancholy” and “After hours”
The seeds he planted on “Kiss Land” and “Beauty Behind the Madness” would bloom the next project The Weeknd, “Starboy” from 2016. With the assistance of the electronic duo Daft Punk, Tesfaye successfully combined his experimental tendencies and fresh production in several primary pop hit, including “I Feel It Come” and the title song.
Later, the older work of Wieknd fans was treated with a brief return to the shape for the EP “My Melncholy” from 2018, which studied his breakup with the singer Selena Gomez and the model Bella Hadid. But EP was not an indication that The Weeknd abandoned his latest path. Two years later, he published “After Hours” inspired by the Nineteen Eighties, which began the second trilogy.
“Dawn FM” and “Hurry up tomorrow”
Thanks to the “Dawn FM” from 2022, Tesfaye selected a nostalgic radio program as a crap device to make sure moody meditations on fame, life and death. The album was a critical and industrial success, setting a brand new Billboard Global 200 list record and pushing Weeknd to #1 for the perfect Spotify listeners.
His latest project “hurry up tomorrow”, limited the trilogy with even darker treatment of those topics, while pointing to the artist’s next evolution. While melancholy, as all the time, Tesfaye sings a couple of sense of readiness to vary his ways, especially on the title track.
Innovation and Strategy: The Weeknd’s Vision in music and film
Weeknd joins “Idol”
Until 2023, Tesfaye proved his power as a pop star and began to look for brand new artistic efforts. HBO series “Idol“-who co-founded with the director of” Euphoria “, Sam Levinson-he offered him many latest challenges, including delays, prescribing and hasty changes.
Critical party and fans
Working along with Lily Rose-Depp and sharing writing inscriptions with Levinson, The Weeknd was largely chargeable for what led to an enormous critical and industrial failure. The charged sexual nature of the narrative of the series didn’t resonate with the audience, who recognized “Idol” each disturbing and it’s difficult to follow. The result was the primary real Tesfaye brush with failure as a mainstream artist.
Grammy return: change of perspective
The failure of “Idol” could change the attitude of Tesfaye to greater than just television as a tool for telling stories. When “After Hours” was neglected by the Grammy 2021 awards without nomination – even for the hit hit “Olinding Lights” – the artist criticized the Recording Academy and began a boycott of annual ceremonies.
Over the next 4 years, Tesfaye refused to submit his music to contemplate Grammy. But this boycott would end the surprising end in 2025, when he returned to the Grammys stage to make just a few songs from his album “Has hurry up tomorrow”.
Was it a tip on the next change within the profession of the controversial singer?
Rebranding as Abel Tesfaye: Why did The Weeknd change his name?
Tesfaye’s experience working on “The Idol” had one other significant impact on the artist: the sport within the series reminded him of the artificiality of his character, The Weeknd.
After removing within the series, Tesfaye said within the WW magazine: “This reaches the place and time when I prepare to close the Weeknd chapter.”
The artist quickly explained that he didn’t intend to completely withdraw from the music: “I will continue to create music, maybe like Abel, maybe like The Weeknd,” he thought. “But I still want to kill Weeknd. And I will do it. Finally. I definitely try to lose this skin and reborn.”
Live trips and performances Weeknd
After hours, until performance and location at dawn
If you hope you will notice the weekly live, before you get to the nickname, you may still catch him in his record place after the hours of the Dawn route, which has turn into strong since 2022. The route-which will stop within the United States and Canada this summer, including cities comparable to Detroit, Chicago, Denver, Seattle and Vancouver-Union in September.
What to expect
The route program leads fans through a guide journey of the Weeknd era, made a characteristic artist’s style for moody glasses. According to reviewers of Tesfaye live shows, he organizes a stunning program, together with spare dancers, pyrotechnics and thrilling interpretations of hits comparable to “victim”, “can Feel My Face” and “often”.
Cultural influence and heritage: redefining R&B and Pop
Redefination of recent R&B and Pop
Music Weeknd has all the time been a refreshing contrast with the industry dominated by squeaking pop stars and conventional forward R&B. Thanks to the polarizing theme and daring aesthetic election, Tesfaye isn’t applying to create music that provokes.
Influence on emerging artists
Unfilted Weeknd texts and experimental sound landscapes inspired many more moderen artists to understand authenticity and innovation of their music. Young artists, comparable to 6lack and Partenextdoor, take obvious recommendations on Tesfaye music and even peers, comparable to Drake, Usher and Miguel, turned on some Weeknd sounds in their very own music.
Expanding in film and business
Despite the error from “Idol”, Tesfaye still imprints its trail on television and film. He made his debut within the film in “Uncut Gems” in 2019, he expressed the primary character within the upcoming animated film “Ari The Bat” and is working on a brand new film with director Trey Edward Shults.
In addition to the movie and TV, Tesfaye also borrowed his creative eye of cooperation with Puma, H&M clothing corporations and a washing monkey.
New music chapter and identity
Is this an actual revival for Abla Tesfaye or simply a brief change on his creative path? Regardless of its name, nothing can erase the massive influence he had on R&B and pop music. He influenced various artists – even a number of the biggest pop stars within the industry – to wear latest genres and tell their most intimate stories through music. Regardless of what’s going to occur next, Tesfaye has already strengthened his heritage – in music and more.
Still interesting Canadian star? Check our archives for more information The Weeknd.
(Tagstranslate) The Weeknd
Music
Chris Brown arrested in Great Britain in connection with the incident at the Night Club in London in London
Chris Brown was arrested on Thursday at Lowry Hotel in Manchester in England, in connection with the incident at the London Night Club in 2023, in keeping with American edition Sun. On May 14, he flew to Manchester, where the authorities were notified of his presence.
The arrest results from a quarrel on February 19, 2023, between the bronze and the music producer, Abe Diaw, who claims that Brown attacked him with a bottle, after which hit him and kicked him at the nightclub in London. Diaw was taken to the hospital, where he had to make use of KUL after discharge. London Metropolitan Police are holding Brown in terms of “suspicion of causing severe damage to the body.”
DAW also made a civil claim against Brown for $ 16 million (12 million kilos) compensation related to the incident.
This isn’t Brown’s first brush with the right to attack at the nightclub. In 2012, Brown was involved in the Night Club in New York, which included the NBA star All-Star Tony Parker and Rapper and the pop star, Drake. As early as 2024, Brown was accused of assaulting 4 live shows behind the scenes at the TEXASA concert bus stop; Brown is the defendant for $ 50 million in connection with the alleged incident.
Over the years Brown had a litany of runs with the authorities for allegations and accusations of varied arguments, fighting and assault and was accused of domestic violence and sexual assault.
Brown is He planned to make a limited series of live programs in Manchester from June 15 and is preparing for his stadium “Breezy Bowl XX”, which he made available In the Instagram post On the occasion of his 20 years in the music industry. The program includes Summer Walker at the American stage of the trip and Bryson Walker for the European leg, which is able to start on June 8 in Amsterdam.
“Celebrating 20 years of cb. So excited that I can share this moment with the world and my amazing fans. I can’t wait to see all the beautiful faces. Taking you these eras, but most importantly, give you my heart and soul,” reads the signature.
The brown song “Remains” is currently 52 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and spent 35 weeks on the chart and it arrived No. 1 on the adult R&B AirPlay taber.
(Tagstranslate) Chris Brown (T) Chris Brown Assault (T) London (T) Manchester
In July 2023, Keke Palmer and her dad and former boyfriend Darius Jackson caused one of many great debates in social media. After Palmer was noticed (great, I can add) at the Usher concert this summer, Jackson began to X to share his contempt for the mother of selecting his child, causing a discourse with the “equivalent” of her outfit.
Although Jackson was very open about this case, Palmer was silent about her feelings at a viral moment – to this point. On Friday, May 9, the Wielfenian star released a recent song entitled “My Confessions”, in which she spills all tea at this moment and her break with Jackson.
“This is personal.” My confession “is exactly as it sounds – whether giving the feelings I buried”, Palmer he wrote on Instagram About the song. “Sometimes we need a closure, it does not come from a conversation – it results from being honest with each other. This is this song. My room. My brightness. My way to let go.”
The record, which rises from the “Confessions Part Conmissiones”, was written by Palmer and her best friend for 22 years, Tayla Parx, who says that the star “no” saw her through every version of herself. Describing the song as “harsh, emotional and real”, Palmer takes the listeners back to July 2023 and lirially explains every little thing about how Jackson broke up with her at the time, which prompted her to the evening of girls.
“Summer ’23, we were in Vegas, on the right/we broke up with me and jumped to the flight/you were an attempt to find the way to” positive “/so I thought I have a girl’s night”, sings. “48 hours later online/I made me a villain, but you lied, mm/but the truth is that now we now have now already ended in Vegas.
In the whole song and the lyrical film accompanying her, Palmer refers to Jackson’s controversial tweets, and even reported tensions between her and his family.
“Your family, they don’t like me, that’s good / but when did you come back on the side? / When I met you, you hated them as if you hated me now.”
Similarly, he turns to the response and response to his criticism about her appearance at the Usher concert: “72 hours, now your feelings hurt/my fans were pulling you because you had a nerve/you almost turned me into a banality/thought that your child will make me want to stay.”
As the chorus notes: “F— Your projections / These are my confessions”, Palmer explains how difficult it’s to inform her the truth when she sings: “Telling that it was difficult for me / Telling only for my peace / truth hurts and it is mine.”
Since the breakup, Palmer has revealed her and Jackson toxicity and the way much she hated the attention of the media surrounding her relationship.
From his memory “Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your National”, to the upcoming album “Just Keke”, Palmer says that “not to play perfectly here”, but “honestly,” and tell her story.
(Tagstranslate) Keke Palmer (T) Music
ICEM: Megan Thee Stallion’s Coachella Red Curls and more – Essence
Skai Jackson addresses the order to refrain from his son’s father regarding allegations of domestic violence
Fortnite in legal problems after adding AI Darth Vader
An online tourist company has just broken down. Here’s how to avoid leaving a contract online
Minnesota Lynx, Nafiesa Collier, joins the WNBA Jordan Brand – AndScape list
-
Press Release1 year agoU.S.-Africa Chamber of Commerce Appoints Robert Alexander of 360WiseMedia as Board Director
-
Press Release1 year agoCEO of 360WiSE Launches Mentorship Program in Overtown Miami FL
-
Business and Finance12 months agoThe Importance of Owning Your Distribution Media Platform
-
Business and Finance1 year ago360Wise Media and McDonald’s NY Tri-State Owner Operators Celebrate Success of “Faces of Black History” Campaign with Over 2 Million Event Visits
-
Ben Crump1 year agoAnother lawsuit accuses Google of bias against Black minority employees
-
Theater1 year agoTelling the story of the Apollo Theater
-
Ben Crump1 year agoHenrietta Lacks’ family members reach an agreement after her cells undergo advanced medical tests
-
Ben Crump1 year agoThe families of George Floyd and Daunte Wright hold an emotional press conference in Minneapolis
-
Theater1 year agoApplications open for the 2020-2021 Soul Producing National Black Theater residency – Black Theater Matters
-
Theater12 months agoCultural icon Apollo Theater sets new goals on the occasion of its 85th anniversary