House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios (Brad and Michele Moore Roots Music) (8 page)

(#666), is one of the fi rst recordings ever to use an approximation of the word

“zydeco” to refer to a musical form. On it Hopkins eschews guitar and instead accompanies himself on organ, evoking the sound of an accordion and a Creole backbeat.

As Roger Wood states in
Texas Zydeco,

The “Zolo Go” title was surely assigned by Quinn after the session, most likely based on his misunderstanding (he was a Caucasian native of Massachusetts, after all) of the exotic word that he had heard Hopkins articulate in the studio. As Chris Strachwitz says in his liner notes to the CD

Lightnin’ Hopkins: The Gold Star Sessions, Vol. 1,
“. . . Lightning is singing about his impressions of going out to a zydeco dance. When Bill Quinn heard this, he probably had no idea what zydeco was or how to spell it.”

Along with Clarence Garlow’s 1949 hit “Bon Ton Roula” on the Houston-based Macy’s label (#5002-A), the novel Hopkins song helped to introduce zydeco—the word and the sound—to larger audiences.

Though Quinn’s Gold Star Records label would fold before other producers started deliberately recording the accordion-based black Creole music now recognized as zydeco (the standard spelling of which originated also in Houston), the aforementioned single by Hopkins is a seminal track. Among other things, it signifi es the early presence of this newly syncretized musical
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form in the Gulf Coast’s largest city. Incidentally, after Quinn quit the label business and moved his recording facility to his Brock Street residence, his renamed Gold Star Studios would host Clifton Chenier (1925–1987), a longtime Houston resident and the eventual “King of Zydeco,” on many sessions for the Arhoolie Records label. But more than a decade before Chenier would cut the tracks that ultimately defi ned this vibrant new genre, Hopkins and Quinn were already, despite the awkward spelling, spreading the word.

meanwhile, quinn’s willingness to pay cash to record Hopkins attracted many other African American blues singers to his studio. The most notable and prolifi c among these were Lil’ Son Jackson and L. C. Williams, but Quinn also issued singles credited to Thunder Smith, Leroy Ervin, Lee Hunter, Buddy Chiles, Andy Thomas, Perry Cain, and others. Some of the backing musicians who appeared on these tracks include Elmore Nixon, Leroy Carter, Luther “Ricky” Stoneham, Buster Pickens, and Skippy Brown. The roster of performers on the Gold Star 600 series reads like a virtual “Who’s Who” of mid-twentieth-century East Texas blues. These recordings are now invaluable historical documents tracing the fusion of the country blues sound with modern urban infl uences.

Granted, some of these records made little or no profi t for Quinn. But there were some commercial successes too. For instance, in November 1948, Lil’ Son Jackson’s “Freedom Train Blues,” the fl ip-side to “Roberta Blues”

(#638), climbed to number seven on the national R&B charts. Born as Melvin Jackson (1915–1976), the singer-guitarist known as “Lil’ Son” ultimately recorded at least ten of his compositions on the Gold Star label in 1948 and 1949, including “Ground Hog Blues” and “Bad Whiskey, Bad Women” (#642),

“Gone with the Wind” and “No Money, No Love” (#653), “Cairo Blues” and

“Evil Blues” (#663), and “Gambling Blues” backed with “Homeless Blues”

(#668). These records, some of which were released as late as 1950 or ’51, did well enough to elevate Jackson’s status as a regional blues star to that of Hopkins. However, by 1949 Jackson had left Houston (a city he had come to from Dallas, specifi cally to audition and record for Quinn), and he recorded thereafter only for Modern Records and the Imperial label.

Though not as big a player on the national scene as Jackson, L. C. Williams (1924–1960) was regionally popular during his affi

liation with Gold Star

Records, producing at least eight tracks for Quinn. He had started out as a sideman drumming for Hopkins and others. But he soon became a vocalist, one who could imitate his mentor so well that Quinn identifi ed him as “Lightnin’ Jr.” on his fi rst record. After initially affi

liating with Quinn’s

label, Williams later recorded locally for various others (including Eddie’s, Freedom, Jax, and Mercury).

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Conrad Johnson (1915–2008) was a saxophonist who went on to become one of the most distinguished music educators in Texas history. Aff ectionately known to several generations of musicians as “Prof,” Johnson directed the multiple-award-winning Kashmere High School Stage Band, among other achievements during his thirty-seven years in public education. After retirement from teaching, he continued, well into his nineties, to lead his own orchestra and to record. But back in 1947, Johnson too launched his recording career at Quinn’s studio.

His song “Howling on Dowling” (the title of which alludes to a Houston street) appears on a 78 rpm Gold Star single backed with “Fisherman’s Blues” (#622). Performed in a fully orchestrated, upbeat style with witty lyrics, it evokes the popular mid-century sound of national phenomenon Louis Jordan. This record also establishes that Quinn’s 600 series not only featured the down-home blues of guitar-wielding singers such as Lightnin’ Hopkins but also the more refi ned big band sounds of jazz and early R&B.

The blues artist best known as Peppermint Harris (1925–1999) also got his start on Gold Star Records. Actually born Harrison D. Nelson Jr., he moved to Houston in 1947 and reportedly soon met Hopkins, who introduced him to Quinn. Shortly thereafter, he cut “Peppermint Boogie” backed with “Houston Blues” for Gold Star (#626). Since clever monikers were popular in blues music, Quinn credited the 1947 record to Peppermint Nelson as a promotional tactic. The nickname stuck for a while, but when a subsequent producer mistakenly recalled the name as Peppermint Harris, that replaced the others.

Harris would go on to make hit records on various labels, settle in California, and establish himself as a songwriter. But like so many others, he launched his career with Quinn.

Another such expatriated Texas artist was Houston-born saxophonist and bandleader Curtis Amy (1927–2002), who become an acclaimed session musician and jazz artist in his own right after moving to the West Coast.

However, his rookie outing in the studio occurred in 1947 when he recorded

“Realization Blues” and “Sleeping Blues” on the Gold Star label (#618). These tracks, credited to Curtis Amy and His Orchestra, off er big band blues rendered in a jazzy style. Amy later established himself, fi rst in New York and then in Los Angeles, as a fi rst-rate sideman on popular recordings by the likes of Ray Charles, Carole King, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Lou Rawls, the Doors, and many others.

So many distinguished and diverse musicians saw the inside of a recording studio for the fi rst time at Quinn’s original facility. Others of note include Deacon Anderson, a steel guitarist best known as coauthor of the oft-recorded novelty song “Ragg Mopp,” which was fi rst a hit for the Ames Brothers in 1950. That same year Anderson had come to Quinn Recording with Cotton
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Thompson and the Village Boys (as part of a lineup that included Clyde Brewer and Pee Wee Calhoun) to cut “How Long” and “Hopeless Love” for the Gold Star label (#1381). Hank Locklin (1918–2009) is another example of an esteemed country music veteran who got his start recording for Quinn, releasing “Rio Grande Waltz” and “You’ve Been Talking in Your Sleep” (#1341) in 1947. Similarly, vocalist Frances Turner fi rst appeared on Gold Star in 1947

performing “The Moment I Found You” and “The Curse of an Aching Heart”

(#1342).

Frank Juricek says, “A lot of people came to record with Bill. It was a fascinating time to be around while all that was happening.” Among the tracks on which he performed as a sideman were “I Left a Rose” and “Blue Eyes” by Tex Looney and His Western Stars (#1315/1316), “Drinkin’ My Life Away”

and “Blue Schottische” by Leon Jenkins and the Easterners (#1317), and the hit “Kilroy’s Been Here” backed with “Delivery Man Blues” by Aubrey Gass with the Easterners (#1318). In 1947, though still a teenager, Juricek even got Quinn to record one of his compositions. “I wrote a song back then called

‘Green Bayou Waltz,’” he explains. “Old Bill Quinn said, ‘That’s a great song!

Let’s put it out.’ So we went into the studio and recorded it. . . . It was a simple old thing, but Bill put it out [#1334], and we got some airplay.”

Country singer and acclaimed songwriter Eddie Noack (1930–1978), who would later record for numerous labels (including 4-Star, TNT, Starday, D, Mercury, Dixie, Faith, and Allstar), introduced himself to the record-listening public with sides he made for Quinn. In a 1976 interview by Bill Millar for
New Kommotion
magazine, Noack relates how he got started: I just called Quinn one day and he said, “Well, come on out.” My cousin Ollie and I rode a bus out there. His studio at the time seemed an adequate set-up. He had only one microphone and we cut directly to an acetate disc . . .

so you didn’t stop if you made a mistake, you just kept going. Our fi rst record, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” was Gold Star #1352.

. . . My second record, Gold Star #1357, “Pyramid Club,” was about the pyramid club craze that was storming the country. Quinn would blankly ship my record to the cities where the distributors told him the craze was happening. We sold quite a few records and got reviewed in
Billboard
magazine. . . . My biggest seller on Gold Star was probably the next one, “Hungry But Happy”/“Raindrops in a River” [#1371], which Bob Wills recorded about eighteen years later.

Noack adds, “On the strength of the Gold Star recordings, I was able to perform at better gigs.” He notes too that by 1951 Quinn “was about out of the record company business,” a time that signaled the end of Gold Star
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Records and Quinn’s remarkable four-year run as a label owner. But, like many other musicians, Noack maintained his relationship with Quinn even after he signed with other labels “because he was renting out his studio to anyone who wanted to record.”

quite a number of events caused quinn to get out of the record label business and concentrate on simply running his studio. For example, Hopkins had broken his contract and was recording for anyone who paid cash, while many imitation artists were diluting his blues market niche. Choates had tragically died. The label’s third-best-selling artist, Lil’ Son Jackson, following a disagreement with Quinn, had departed in a huff to record elsewhere.

Coinciding with these developments was a personal situation, the death of Quinn’s fi rst wife, which may well have dispirited him too. But the last straw was likely his legal entanglement with the Internal Revenue Service.

During this era, the government imposed a luxury tax on phonograph records. Quinn had dutifully paid the government for his own pressings, but he erred in assuming that the plants with which he had subcontracted for additional pressings had also paid the tax. It turned out they generally had not, and it was Quinn’s responsibility, so the IRS eventually came after him demanding settlement of a substantial tax bill. In disgust with the whole experience, Quinn shut down the label and went back to making custom recordings and pressings for other record companies.

quinn’s independent record company would likely have been more successful if he had simply understood copyright law and the concept of registering songs, as well as leasing songs under copyright to other companies. However, naïve upstart that he was, he never copyrighted any of the songs that he recorded on his label. This oversight was augmented by the parallel ignorance of most of the songwriters who recorded for him in the late 1940s. Consequently, other performers would sometimes rerecord Gold Star–released material for other labels, even have hits with them, register the copyright for themselves, and Quinn and the original creators of such songs would not be acknowledged or compensated, nor would they have any viable legal recourse.

Another

fl aw was that Quinn only sporadically established a viable system of distribution beyond Houston, a problem that limited public exposure and availability of his products. Quinn fi lled orders for Gold Star records strictly on a COD basis, and he stubbornly refused to maintain any open accounts.

Again and again, he had turned down out-of-town requests for shipments of his records if the outlets would not agree to pay the full wholesale price up front. That also meant the retailers had no possibility of returning products
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that failed to sell. Rather than accept such a risk, many of them balked at stocking Gold Star discs.

Quinn’s preference for cash-only relationships is refl ected also in Juricek’s memories of the man, as are other insights about his basic character. He says,

Bill Quinn was a great guy, and he always had cash on him . . . didn’t trust banks and buried money in tin cans in his yard. . . . You couldn’t help but like Bill. He was easygoing. And he dressed just as simple as could be—no shirt or tie on Quinn. We all had a good time working with Bill Quinn.

Yet even if musicians generally enjoyed their collaborations with Quinn, their interests were not always well served by his approach to the record business.

In addition to the problems outlined above, there was also Quinn’s un-sophisticated approach to publicity. His sole strategy for calling attention to new Gold Star releases seems to have been occasionally to include a few free samples of new records with orders sent out to distributors. Thus, if there were no demand for these new records, then the few original copies were all that were ever pressed.