Music

Arthur Crudup wrote the song that became Elvis’ first hit. He barely got paid

Published

2 months ago

July 16, 2024

IAM

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.”

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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.”

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com

Music

Whitney Houston’s Epic 1994 South Africa Performance to Be Released as Concert Film

Published

1 day ago

September 18, 2024

IAM

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Whitney Houston The epic South African concert, which took place on the heels of President Nelson Mandela’s groundbreaking election, will hit cinemas this fall.

Houston’s 1994 performance was fully remastered and released in cinemas under the title “The Concert for a New South Africa (Durban)” according to a press release released Tuesday by several associates, including Houston’s heirs, Sony Music Entertainment and Trafalgar Releasing.

The limited theatrical release will begin on October 23 and can include: a never-before-seen performance by the late singer from Durban, South Africa. The project will precede a brand new live album, The Concert for a New South Africa (Durban) , which will probably be released on November 8.

“She loved South Africa, she loved the people and she loved Nelson Mandela,” he said. Pat HoustonThe singer’s sister-in-law and executor of her estate in Houston, who’s executive producing the concert film. “This concert is one of the most important concerts of her career. On this important 30th anniversary, we are thrilled to be able to share this film not only with her fans, but also with the people of South Africa and their next generation.”

In 1994, Houston performed three concert events in South Africa, including Durban at Kings Park Stadium, Johannesburg and Cape Town. Her performances took place within the newly unified post-apartheid country following Mandela’s historic election victory.

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The concert events attracted over 200,000 attendees in a show crammed with celebrations of freedom, hope and unity. Proceeds from her concert events went to quite a few local kid’s charities in South Africa through her foundation.

Houston’s performance has been remastered in 4K for the film, together with enhanced audio. The concert film will probably be shown in nearly 900 theaters in greater than 25 countries.

“It was my first time in South Africa, and I don’t think I was really prepared for how this trip would change me forever,” said Rickey Minor, a three-time Emmy Award winner who served as Houston’s musical director for 25 years. “The energy was electric and the audience was incredible as we celebrated the end of apartheid. Whitney shared her love and shone her light.”

Earlier that yr, Houston won three Grammy Awards, including album of the yr for the soundtrack to “The Bodyguard.” She won record of the yr and best female pop vocal performance for the smash hit “ I will always love you.”

Houston was certainly one of the world’s best-selling artists thanks to her effortless, powerful vocals rooted within the black church but made palatable to the masses by her pop persona. She sold greater than 200 million records worldwide over her 25-year profession and won six Grammy Awards, 16 Billboard Music Awards and two Emmys before her death in 2012.

Houston’s live album will feature a few of her biggest hits from ” I need to dance with someone (who loves me)” How will I do know?” I even have nothing “And” The greatest love of all It will also feature the unreleased song “Love Is”.

“The message of hope and unity from the performance in Durban, South Africa, is still as relevant today as it was 30 years ago,” said Marc Allenby, CEO of Trafalgar Releasing. “Fans will be thrilled to see how powerful it is on the big screen.”

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com

Music

Yolanda Adams is still dealing with the blessing with ‘Sunny Days,’ her first studio album in almost 13 years

Published

3 days ago

September 16, 2024

IAM

NEW YORK (AP) — If happiness is a journey, not a destination, then Yolanda Adams has used her faith and smiles to sustain her spirits through life’s ups and downs.

“I think I was born with that happiness gene that people talk about,” the gospel star said. “I want people to leave here feeling like they’re better than they are… I’ve had days when I’ve been up, I’ve had days when I’ve been down. But at the end of the day, the one lesson I’ve learned in every single one of those scenarios is that this too shall pass.”

That theme continues throughout her latest album, “Sunny Days,” her first studio project in nearly 13 years.

“The way you look at anything has a lot to do with how you deal with it,” said the booming-voiced four-time Grammy Award winner.

The 15-track project was six years in the making, delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and her role in the television series “Kingdom Business”.

“Sunny Days” is a piece written and produced by gospel music giant Donald Lawrence and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame members Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewiswhose work on Babyface also contributed to the delay. The album is promoted by the song “Church Doors”, which after only one week reached number 9 on Billboard magazine’s Hot Gospel Songs chart.

As he has throughout his profession, Adams uses his musical gift of encouragement on songs like the title track “Blessings” and “Powerful,” which has a spoken-word intro: (*13*)

“I try to be the best cheerleader I can be for everyone in my life,” the former elementary school teacher said. “You know how The Lion King says, ‘Simba, remember who you are.’ That’s what it’s all about: You are powerful.”

“When We Pray” – Produced by Jam and Lewis, who rose to fame after working with stars including Janet Jackson, Babyface, Usher and Mary J. Blige — it’s about putting faith into motion. Adams says she has a “lifelong bond” with the duo.

“We write together. We laugh, we cry,” said Adams, 63. “We talk about the problems of the world together and how we can create great music that can make people not only aware of the blessings of their lives but aware of the space they’re in right now.”

Named the #1 Gospel Artist of the 2000s by Billboard, Adams has produced iconic hits resembling “The Battle is the Lord’s,” “I’m Gonna Be Ready,” “In the Midst of It All” and “Be Blessed,” in addition to hits with Jam and Lewis: “Never Give Up” and “Open My Heart,” the latter from her Grammy Award-winning 1999 album Mountain High … Valley Low.

“Open My Heart,” which the late Luther Vandross privately championed when his record company desired to release a special single, reached unprecedented heights, crossing over to R&B radio and peaking at No. 57 on Billboard’s Hot 100.

“I was in the middle of making a business decision that didn’t just affect my family. It affected everyone on the road with me,” Adams said, reflecting on the inspiration for the song. “I’m sitting here today because I made the right decision.”

The Texas Southern graduate starred in the BET+ drama Kingdom Business, currently in its second season, as Denita, a gospel star and music executive determined to guard her family’s secrets. While Adams enjoys playing a personality who is very different from herself, she says it’s been a challenge for some fans.

“I lost a couple of fans who were like, ‘You didn’t have to swear,’” she explained that while she had no input into the script, her character is believable because churchgoers aren’t perfect. “When people are dealing with life, it can make you say things you wouldn’t normally say. And I really hope people take away from ‘Kingdom Business’ this: If you were the person you were trying to judge… how would you feel?”

Adams is currently on the 33-date Kirk Franklin Reunion Tour, which features fellow gospel titans Fred Hammond, Marvin Sapp and The Clark Sisters. While gospel has all the time been her passion, she is open to performing a secular R&B song and has spoken to Stevie Wonder a few duet and helping him with a possible gospel project.

For now, nonetheless, she is focused on getting the message of her book “Sunny Days” across, but she won’t measure its success by the variety of copies sold, but by the variety of hearts touched.

“When I hear your testimony and hear how music was a part of your life, it just makes me more accountable: ‘Yes, I have to keep making this music! I have to keep making good music! OK God, give me some good things so I can keep blessing people.'”

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This article was originally published on : thegrio.com

Music

Janet Jackson recalls another major wardrobe mishap she experienced on stage

Published

6 days ago

September 13, 2024

IAM

Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation, Janet Jackson style, theGrio.com

Janet Jackson once almost showed her full moon to the Queen of England.

The 58-year-old music icon opened up about an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction she had within the ’90s, in addition to a few of her most memorable fashion moments. British Vogue. When the “That’s the Way Love Goes” singer stepped out for a photograph in her iconic “Rhythm Nation” jumpsuit, she said, “Funny story about that jumpsuit: I was performing for the Queen of England and we were playing ‘Rhythm Nation.’ And sure enough, as soon as I crouched down, my pants ripped right down my ass crack. And I mean that very seriously.”

Jackson was in disbelief, she said, adding: “I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ And then I started feeling air in there, so I knew it had actually happened.”

She coped with the style faux pas by never turning her back on the Queen. When the choreography required her to show, she said, “I just looked straight ahead.”

“Can you imagine what it would be like if I showed myself to her for even a second?” she asked.

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Elsewhere within the film, Jackson takes viewers on a journey through her childhood looks within the Nineteen Seventies to her more memorable stage looks from throughout her epic entertainment profession. She admits that she was a tomboy who often needed to argue her viewpoint when it got here to her mother’s clothing decisions. She preferred wearing suits and trousers, while her mother favored dresses and colours like pink.

But, Jackson noted with a sly smile, “I’ve gotten my way in a lot of cases.”

She added: “It was just about being myself and being comfortable.”

In another photo from her teens on the American Music Awards, she wears a red ruffled taffeta dress and a pair of hoop earrings, one in all which has a key hanging from it. She explained that since she didn’t carry a key chain, she needed to get creative when it got here to keeping her keys on her person.

“I was in charge of the animals, and we had animals: giraffes, mouflon sheep, pheasants, toucans, cockatoos, dogs,” she said, adding: “That’s why I kept the key there.”

She also noted that she hadn’t seen the dress for the reason that ’80s, when her older sister LaToya wore it herself.

“Sisters,” she said with fun.

The video ends with a scene from her current tour designed by Tom Browne.

“There are certain designers who are just brilliant to me. Thom is right up there. He’s a genius and he did this for me on tour,” she noted of the designer she called a friend.

“I think he did it, but he did it, and I did it,” she said of the tuxedo jumpsuit look.

Discussing the present tour and her fans, the music legend said, “You know, it’s people who have grown up with my music since the beginning and their kids. It just lets me know that my music has stood the test of time, which would be any artist’s dream.”

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com