King of Them All: The Story of King Records

[Footsteps] [Click] ["There Was a Time" playing] Man: This is a discussion of how King Record Company is to be run.

Somebody has to be the chief... and I am elected as the chief.

There was a day Ha There was a time Ha When I used to dance... The history of King Records is pretty astounding in the diversity.

Brown: Ha, when I used to prance... Man: When you think about the legacy of funk, particularly the legacy of James Brown... Don't worry about later... much of that was created here in Cincinnati.

Brown: Dig the dance I used to do... Man: For being a flat farmland in the middle of nowhere, an incredible amount of music has come out of this area... and astronauts.

I don't know if there's a connection.

Ha ha ha!

Man: King is sort of the great American mystery.

You could look for a long time to find a story this powerful.

Brown: They call the Jerk Nathan: The impossible we can do right now.

The absolutely impossible takes us a day longer.

Brown: Aah!

[Bill Doggett's "Honky Tonk, Part 1" playing] Well, the reason King Records happened in Cincinnati was just because Syd Nathan was from Cincinnati.

Syd, to me, was the quintessential record biz character-- had the gruff voice, short and heavy, smoked a big cigar, big glasses.

Man: I'd never met anybody like him, and I've never met anybody like him since.

He was larger than life in every way.

Man: If you ever speak to someone who actually knew the guy, whenever they quote him, they imitate him.

No one just says, "Well, Syd said, "We can't do this."

They'll say, [gruff voice] "Oh, we can't do that."

Nathan: Give us 6 million records a year, and you got the happiest little fat man you ever saw in your life sitting right here.

McNutt: He dropped out of school in ninth grade.

Man: He went to Hughes High School here in town only for about a year or so.

He said he couldn't see the chalkboard, so he couldn't see the point of continuing.

He had poor eyesight.

He had asthma.

Had a lot of health issues.

He was blind, but it didn't stop him from driving.

It was scary.

Man: He worked for his father, who was a real estate salesman, and then he tried all kinds of things over the next 15, 20 years.

Different man: Worked at a pawn shop.

He also at one time was a wrestling promoter.

[Bell rings] He ran a shooting gallery game that he got arrested for a couple times.

Man: Eventually, he hooked up with a guy named Saul Halper.

They kind of went into business together and opened a store on Fifth Street which did photography and various appliances and things like that.

A jukebox outlet owner came by who owed Syd money.

And instead of giving him money, he gave him a bunch of used records, and he said to Syd, "If you sell these for, like, a dime each, my debt will be paid off."

Powers: So they put that out on the storefront, and they sold like that, so that was their first inkling of realizing there was some demand... The Royals: Cincinnati... Powers: and what he did is, he opened a used record shop on Central Avenue.

Right between the West End, which was Cincinnati's most important Black neighborhood, and Over-the-Rhine, which at the time was primarily white Appalachian.

John Lee Hooker's "Wandering Blues" playing] Man: Cincinnati's a place where America came together... Hooker: Went out wandering one night... this place where North and South meets and where East and West meets, where people all came to the same table.

Powers: A huge African-American population were moving into the city after World War I for jobs.

Hooker: Like a sailboat on the sea... Woman: Migration in and around these world wars are important because wartime industry inspired people to come to this area.

Hooker: In this world who cares for me Cincinnati becomes a major destination not just for Black migration.

[Delmore Brothers' "Freight Train Boogie" playing] There is a white migration phenomenon, as well, that parallels, where you have poor whites from the Deep South and from Appalachia that are pouring into these urban areas, as well.

Anderson: And Syd's record store on Central Avenue is in this space where there's a lot of conflict, where there's racial segregation, but he's in the place where the music draws them together.

Man: He started listening to the stations here in Cincinnati that had live bands and lots of country artists playing on them, so he started paying attention to that and became more familiar with what was popular in this town.

J.E.

Mainer: I went up on the mountain To get me a load of pine I put it on the wagon, I broke down behind Mountaineers: Run mountain and chug a little hill Run mountain and chug a little hill Man: WLW, the nation's station.

For a period of time, the most powerful radio station in the United States, WLW, was allowed to experiment with a 500,000-watt transmitter, which you can hear in the entire hemisphere.

People who lived around that transmitter could not turn off their radios, could not turn off their lights.

[Pop] Halper: They would have live acts.

Like, they had the "Midwestern Hayride."

Announcer: Now from Cincinnati, Ohio, it's the "Big Midwestern Hayride" brought to you by Crosley and Bendix.

Halper: A lot of their acts were country and western.

Let me know If you are still doing fine Kind of mention if I'm on your mind Honey, drop me a line Anderson: Singers from the "Midwestern Hayride" would come over and look at his records looking for new material.

So the Delmores came up.

Merle Travis, Grandpa Jones came to his record shop.

Fox: Syd had seen that the market wasn't being served by the major labels.

And mend my broken heart Fox: They were concerned mostly with mass sales.

There were a lot of little niche markets like country music where he thought, "Since nobody's serving this market, "and I can see from the used record business "that there is a demand for it, "maybe I could do something "with some of these local musicians here who literally were the cream of the crop."

Honey, drop me a line [Cheering and applause] ["You'll Be Lonesome, Too" playing] Anderson: So in 1943, he takes Grandpa Jones and Merle Travis up to Dayton.

They were under contract to WLW.

They were not supposed to be making records.

Travis: Me and Grandpa Jones and Syd Nathan slipped out of Cincinnati and went to Dayton.

Now, on the way up there, Syd was trying to think of something to call his company.

Finally he said, "King Records.

That's it," said, "I'll call it King Records, only it'll say, "The King of Them All," so we went to Dayton and cut 4 sides, and that was the first King record that was ever made.

Finally, it was released, and I took home a copy and I put it on the machine, and it turned round and round and round and round, I don't know how many grooves, and finally, here come a distant voice of me and Grandpa, sounded like it was way off in a barn.

[Chuckles] Travis and Jones: You said when I come back, dear That your true love I'd find But all you had to give me Was just a worrying mind I thought that you'd be true I put my trust in you You'll hate the day you went away For you'll be lonesome, too... Man: So he gathered together this little band of investors that were family members, a couple friends.

Halper: Syd was pretty convincing.

4 or 5 relatives put in at least $10,000 each, which at that time was a considerable amount of money.

Man: They rented this building at 1540 Brewster... started this unlikely venture.

[Crowd cheering] [Siren wailing] Halper: There was rationing of materials because of the war, so there was a shortage of shellac, which was used to make records.

You had to pay bribes to the distributors of the records, so Syd didn't like that idea, and he said to my father, "We're going to go tell the manufacturer in Chicago what's going on," and basically they were told, "We know what's happening, but we can't do anything about it, so it's tough luck."

My father told me, on the way back, Syd was sleeping, and he woke up, and he says, "They won't sell us records, I'll make my own damn records."

McNutt: They built a press with some pieces that they bought from other companies, and it was kind of a piecemeal thing, and it didn't work at first, but they got it going, and from that one press came the Cowboy Copas hit "Filipino Baby" in '46.

Cowboy Copas: When the warship left Manila Sailing proudly over the sea Deep blue sea All the sailors' hearts were filled with fond regret Looking backward to this island Where they'd spent those happy hours... Syd decided that he would build a recording studio.

It was pretty simple, but they got a good sound out of it.

That meant he had the recording aspect controlled.

If you own the studio, the meter's not running, in essence.

A lot of the King artists talked about the freedom to not have to keep one eye on the clock.

If it took them 8 hours to work out a song, well, so be it as long as it was good.

[Brewster Avenue Rhythm Boys' "Stop and Go Boogie" playing] Anderson: He also made the covers and had a distribution network around the country, 35 different locations that he could market to.

He starts this enterprise doing what 19th-century robber barons would have called vertical integration.

He's got every step of the process that he's in control of.

Fox: You could go into the studio at 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning with a song and walk out later that day with a finished record.

That gave them a speed that not even the major labels had.

Powers: By early 1949, they were the sixth largest record company in America, and they were the largest of the independent labels at that point.

Chess is just starting up, and Atlantic is just starting up.

Sun doesn't start up for a couple more years.

All those ones that we think of were more of the fifties, but King starts '43, and it just got so big.

They did this in 5 years.

Man: You think of a guy whose eyesight is so bad could see so clearly what he needed to do to create this record company.

[Crackling] [Duke Ellington's "Laura" playing] Man: I remember when I first came to Cincinnati and I was working in a club with a white saxophone player friend of mine... and we would play a set and go across the street to a coffee shop.

They wouldn't serve me.

They'd serve him.

Halper: Cincinnati was more than slightly segregated.

The city was segregated.

There were restrictions and deeds that only Caucasians can live in certain neighborhoods.

This was the underlying atmosphere of life growing up.

But it was different at King Records.

[Stanley Brothers' "I'm a Man of Constant Sorrow" playing] McNutt: They wanted to have a personnel department.

Syd wanted this guy Ben Siegel.

Ralph Stanley: I am a man Of constant sorrow Ben Siegel said he'd do it, but he had to do it his way, and he wanted it to be a totally open company where they would hire not based on race or religion or anything.

He said, "We have to hire the best people"... and Syd said, "Well, yeah.

I believe that, too.

"I'm Jewish, and I've felt discrimination, so I know what it's like," and he said, "I want the best people."

Stanley: In this world... And we all got along.

Maybe after we came out of the studio, we went our separate ways, but we all got along in the studios.

Fox: Stax and Sun and some of the labels that came out in the fifties were hailed as these models of racial cooperation, which they were, but King had done that 10 years earlier.

By the late forties, early fifties, King Records was the most racially integrated record company in the country.

Stanley: It's fare you well... The people that I talked to who were Black who worked there said, "Well, you know, "it wasn't that great, but it was better than other places we could have worked back in the late 1940s."

You know, you had to kind of balance that out.

Stanley: But there is one promise... Syd didn't care what you looked like, what color you were, as long as you worked.

Stanley: I'll meet you on God's golden shore ["I Know Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well" playing] Nathan: Actually, we started as hillbilly.

Then we saw the need to go into other categories in the record business.

Why should we go into these towns and only sell to hillbilly accounts?

Because you don't make any money when your car is rolling.

So we got into the race business.

We started to add artists, and immediately we became the factor in the race business.

Man: And Bull Moose Jackson actually had a hit.

They had their first R&B hit.

Jackson: I'm going to tell who Threw the whiskey in the well Men: In the well Jackson: I'm going to tell who Threw the whiskey in the well Men: In the well Jackson: When you kneel down on your knees I will set your mind at ease 'Cause I know who threw the whiskey in the well... Anderson: King is making music for Black and white audiences, which really was kind of unusual.

At the time, what we would call R&B, they called that race or sepia music, and what we might call country or bluegrass music, they called hillbilly music.

Man: Hillbilly records were called hillbilly records because it could identify them as not very intellectual.

It was like code words.

I think that's one of the worst things we've ever done, is to segregate things in a way that we can identify them before we experience them.

Lonnie Johnson: Tomorrow night Will you remember what you said tonight?

This packaging of whiteness and packaging of Blackness becomes a way in which people try to enforce Jim Crow and segregation... Johnson: Or just another lovely song... because there is no clear sonic color line.

Johnson: To linger on?

Arthur Prysock: The old hometown looks the same As I step down from the train And there to meet me is... Man: One of the things that Syd realized way before anybody else did was that Black and white musicians, particularly in the South and the Midwest, literally fished from the same ponds.

They were neighbors.

It was a segregated society, but the musicians always bent those rules.

Prysock: It's good to touch The green, green grass of home... Anderson: Syd Nathan understands his audience, and perhaps because he'd had failures in his life and because he was Jewish, he always, I think, felt a little bit like an outsider, and he used to say that he made records for the little man, meaning for working-class audiences.

We talk about suburbia and "Leave It to Beaver" and "The Organization Man," and here's this working-class world of Black and white people who are making art and making something beautiful out of what happens every day.

[Grandpa Jones' "It's Raining Here This Morning" playing] Jones: Oh, it's raining, raining, raining Here this morning As I sit in jail and hang my head in shame With a smile, I try to greet each early dawning But they've given me a number for my name... They turned out great records in genres from gut bucket blues to bluegrass to honky tonk country to jazz all in the same room, often with the same musicians.

McNutt: Syd was the father of numerous ideas on how to run a record label.

One of them is the house band.

It was interchangeable.

He had different people he'd bring in, but he'd have white guys playing on Black sessions and vice versa.

[Tiny Bradshaw's "Bradshaw Boogie" playing] Bradshaw: Well, I got a gal, she's mighty sweet... Tracy: Henry Glover was way out in front of all that stuff.

He had a strong sense of the value of all different kinds of music.

Bradshaw: Bradshaw boogie... Stein: Henry Glover was the most important person at King Records next to Syd.

Powers: Syd used him as a songwriter, and when he started having some big hits, he decided that he should hire Henry Glover as a proper employee of King, and the deal was that he was going to come to Cincinnati and learn the business from Syd.

Fox: It worked out really well.

I don't think they could have been more different.

Henry was soft-spoken, diplomatic, suave, and Syd was everything just the opposite of that-- loud, abrasive, critical, bullying.

He was a producer, a songwriter, an arranger, the A&R person... and Glover was the center point of this engagement that King had between white country music and this Black R&B sound.

[Lucky Millinder's "D' Natural Blues" playing] Glover: We did this movie called "Boarding House Blues," and I wrote this theme called "D' Natural Blues."

We rushed in the studio and recorded it, but it was too late.

Andy Gibson, who was a good friend of mine, took it over to Paul Williams and they recorded it and called it "Hucklebuck," the identical same thing.

Both: Do the Hucklebuck, do the Hucklebuck If you don't know how to do it Boy, you're out of luck Push your partner out... Glover: But when I went to Cincinnati, I said, "I'm going to record this thing hillbilly," and they brought the Delmore Brothers in.

I had recorded some things earlier with them that had never been done in country music.

They only played... Dum dum dum A-dum dum dum I taught the bass player how to play the thing... Dum dee-ba-doom, dum-be-dum, bing-da-dum Delmore Brothers: Blues Stay away from me Blues Why don't you let me be?

Don't know why You keep on haunting me... Powers: That song has been covered over a hundred times, and it's been covered as a bluegrass song.

It's been covered by soul music, so it's a very important song, but it's also an early example of what was happening with Henry Glover at King Records.

You have both R&B artists and the country artists recording the same song.

Otis Williams & the Charms: Seems somehow We never can agree Tracy: Syd understood what sold.

Glover understood trends.

They knew that rhythm and blues was morphing into rock and roll.

[Wynonie Harris' "Good Rockin' Tonight" playing] Russell: I've always considered Cincinnati to be the heart and soul of American music making because it's in the heartland.

Harris: I heard the news There's good rockin' tonight... [Laughs] Here in this region, I think we had all the ingredients to create sounds that no one had ever dreamed of before.

Fox: King was mixing R&B, blues, and country music.

That basically is a working definition of rock and roll.

Harris: Hard the news, there's good rockin' tonight Anderson: Wynonie Harris, "Good Rockin' Tonight" might be the very first rock and roll song.

Harris: Don't be afraid, I'll do you no harm Baby, bring my rockin' shoes 'Cause tonight I'm gonna rock away all my blues Have you heard the news?

There's good rockin' tonight Curley: If you know anything about rock and roll, you'd listen to that and know that that's original rock and roll right there.

For one thing, he says the word "rock," you know, just about every other verse.

You could probably rest your case there, but the beat, the rhythm, the left-hand piano doing that boogie woogie thing-- there's handclaps on top of it, too-- so it's really all about the rhythm.

Harris: I got the news Everybody's gonna rock tonight A lot of people say the first rock and roll song was "Rocket 88," in 1951 by Jackie Brenston, fronting Ike Turner's band.

["Rocket 88" playing] Brenston: You women have heard of jalopies You've heard the noise they make But let me introduce my new Rocket 88... If "Rocket 88" has these things in 1951, well, this song from 1948 has those things, too, and that was one of the first songs that Elvis recorded himself... Elvis Presley: Have you heard the news?

Everybody's rockin' tonight Fox: which I think is the tipping factor that would give the honors to that record.

Presley: As tight as I can, well... Harris: Tonight she'll know I'm a mighty man Have you heard the news?

Glover: It was a good record.

I don't remember it selling that much, but had this come along during the time that rock and roll really came on the scene and we had substituted other instruments rather than the saxophone, you know, like electric guitars, he would have been a tremendous rock and roll artist.

Curley: I think Cincinnati has a very legitimate claim to be the birthplace of rock and roll, without a doubt.

Harris: Hey, hey, hey, everybody's rockin' tonight [Train whistle blowing] "Goodnight Cincinnati, Good Morning Tennessee" playing] McNutt: A very significant event occurred to hurt Cincinnati.

That's when WLW closed up all their programs with the live musicians.

They all went away.

A lot of them went to Nashville.

Shorty Long: They say, "Good night, Cincinnati" "Good morning, Tennessee"... Clooney: As I later found out when I worked there, WLW stood for "World's Lowest Wages."

McNutt: Things changed, and King, its country division, just wasn't doing what it used to do.

I mean, the hit records stopped coming.

[Little Willie John's "Fever" playing] At the same time, the R&B part of King was going strong.

Fox: Little Willie John comes out of Detroit as a teenager, just greatest singer anybody had ever heard.

John: You never know how much I love ya Never know how much I care When you put your arms around me I get a feeling that's so hard to bear You give me fever When you kiss me... Fox: You had Billy Ward and the Dominoes, The Five Royales, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters being one of the most successful groups.

[Hank Ballard & the Midnighters' "The Twist" playing] Bud Collyer: The voice that you're about to hear belongs to one of these 3 men.

Ballard: Come on, baby Let's do the twist Come on, baby... Collyer: What is your name, please?

Hank Ballard.

My name is Hank Ballard.

My name is Hank Ballard.

Collyer: Only one of these men is the real Hank Ballard.

The other two are impostors and will try to fool this panel.

Ballard: Hank Ballard and the Midnighters was the first act to have 3 hit singles on the pop chart at the same time.

Hank Ballard & the Midnighters: Let's go There's a thrill upon the hill... Ballard: There was "The Twist," "Let's Go, Let's Go," and "Finger Poppin' Time."

Hank Ballard & the Midnighters: Hey now, hey now Hey now, hey now It's finger pop, poppin' time Finger poppin' Poppin' time Ballard: I feel so good Whoo, and that's a real good sign Midnighters: Hey, darlin'... Blase: He worked on the auto line in Detroit.

It was just like gritty, R&B, grunting.

Ballard: Ooh, work with me, Annie Work with me, Annie, ooh-ee... Kernodle: These are really bawdy, sexualized songs... I'm not doing that.

Kernodle: utilizing some double entendre.

Ballard: Let's get it while the gettin' is good... All but 3 songs by Hank Ballard are about [record scratch].

Ballard: Annie, please don't cheat... Give me all my meat... Man: I got a whoopin' about singing this record in my grandmother's house one day.

Ballard: So good to me... Man: A lot of radio stations.

Wouldn't play that song... Ballard: Work with me, Annie... and look what they're playing nowadays, you know?

Ha ha ha!

Hank Ballard & the Midnighters: So good, so good, so good... Man: See, rock and roll music, it's good.

It has a nice beat to it, and I feel if they just clean it up a bit, that maybe might be a little bit more pleasant to the ear.

Hank Ballard & the Midnighters: Go round and round and... Man: This is a matter of the mixing of the races.

The Negro, in his ignorance, only wants integration from one angle.

He wants to integrate the white woman.

Ballard: Don't be 'shamed to work with me, Annie Man: We've set up a 20-man committee.

Do away with the vulgar, animalistic ni...[record scratch] rock and roll bop.

Ballard: Work with me, Annie Let's get it while the gettin' is good Midnighters: So good, so good, so good So good!

Ballard: They banned it from radio, but King Records said, "Fine!

I'm glad they banned it.

Now we'll sell some records."

America liked dirty songs.

They just wouldn't admit it, the hypocrites.

Ha ha ha!

The stockholders would come through, patting me on my back.

"Oh, Hank, make some more of those dirty songs."

Ha ha ha!

Syd got along best with Hank Ballard.

They were very, very close.

Ballard: He was a man I admired and loved.

He made money because he had artists that wrote their own material-- that was his success-- but the man could not hit a hit.

Woman: And number one, can you trace the genesis of "The Twist" for me in terms of music?

Ballard: Oh, it's, uh, derived from, uh, rhythm and blues, I think so.

It's all the same-- Rhythm and blues, rock and roll.

They all come under the same term.

["The Twist" playing] Ballard: The real thing about writing the song was watching the Midnighters doing a routine and they were twisting about it.

The lyric came--twist.

It had a commercial sound and feel to it.

Fox: Syd Nathan didn't want to do it.

He said, "It's a stupid song.

Nobody will want to hear this"... Ballard: And go like this Fox: but they did it.

Ballard: E-yah, twist Baby, baby, twist Fox: Then it became a big regional hit.

Ballard: They made "The Twist" a B-side.

I kept telling the record company, "The dinosaur's asleep on the other side."

I couldn't convince them, but my man Dick Clark heard what I heard.

He felt what I felt about "The Twist."

This one is a dancer.

This is a pretty frightening thing.

It's sweeping the country all over the place, hottest dance sensation in the last 4 years, a thing called "The Twist."

Ladies and gentlemen, here's Chubby Checker.

[Cheering and applause] Hey, Chubby.

Come on, baby Let's do the twist Come on, baby Let's do the twist... Anderson: Dick Clark went out and found a very clean-cut African-American young man named Chubby Checker, and he recorded an arrangement of "The Twist."

Baby, baby... Kernodle: Dick Clark would have chosen a Chubby Checker over a Hank Ballard, because Dick Clark really didn't want to include Black people, anyway, but what he had to do was find the most suitable form of Blackness to promote.

Fox: The Black music that he presented at that point in time was generally pretty sanitized.

Blase: Hank Ballard, you had to listen under your covers.

Chubby Checker, you could listen in the kitchen with your mom.

Checker: Yeah, you should see... Ballard: I was in Miami taking a swim, and I heard this clip blasting across white radio.

Did I feel good, because King Records wasn't getting any white airplay, but after the first chorus, I knew it wasn't me.

My version had more guts in it, and my vocal is a little superior over Chubby Checker's.

My daddy is sleepin', and Mama ain't around... Ballard: Yeah, Daddy's just sleepin', And Mama ain't around We're gonna a-twist, a-twist, a-twistin' 'Til we tear the house down Come on and... When I first wrote "The Twist," I always had this good feeling that this was going to be the biggest dance craze ever.

Yeah, just like... Anderson: We forget that even "The Twist" was pretty controversial.

You know, there were newspaper articles about how unhealthy this was.

People threw out their backs.

Men: 'Round and 'round and 'round and 'round Curley: "The Twist" was the first record that made it OK for Black kids and white kids to dance together, because the Twist was a dance that you did without touching.

Men: 'Round and 'round and 'round and 'round Ballard: Oh, you should see... There are people today, man, they think I'm crazy if I don't hate Dick Clark.

Man, even my wife thought I was sick.

See, I think it's very unfair for anybody out there who don't know the real truth to think that Dick Clark and Chubby Checker ripped me off.

What happened--Chubby Checker enhanced my career when he did "The Twist."

I sold over 2 million copies, which was just a drop in the bucket to what he did, though, you know?

Twist Collyer: We check right now and find out which one of these gentlemen is the real originator of "The Twist," so will the real Hank Ballard please stand up?

Collyer: Ha ha ha!

[Cheering and applause] Brown: I think Hank Ballard was probably the first soul singer... and he made it possible for a lot of other Black artists to make it.

Here he is along with the world-famous Flames.

Mr.

"Please Please Please" himself.

James Brown!

[Crowd cheering] [Cheering and applause] What?

What?

What?

Good God, woman The way you're doin' Lookin' fine The way you're doin' King's most successful artist, hands down, is James Brown, who was signed by Ralph Bass.

Blase: Ralph Bass actually said, "I didn't give a [record scratch] why people bought it."

He wanted to make Black music for Black people.

Brown: He, uh, said, "Would you come up and record?"

so we driving from Macon to Cincinnati, about 600 miles.

Aah Man: So they get in the studio and they start going through their big songs.

Brown: Please, please, please, please They came up, and they're starting off with "Please, Please, Please."

Brown: Please, please Men: Please, please, don't go Brown: Darling, please And then Syd is up there in the booth listening, and he says, "I can't believe this," and he's furious.

Brown: I love you so Men: Please, please... Man: He was in the booth listening to James Brown recording and saying, "Well, where's the rest of the lyrics?

"All he was doing was just saying, "Please, please, please, please."

Please what?"

Ha ha ha!

Brown: Please, please Men: Please, please-- Suddenly, the door to the studio was kicked open, and-- Nathan: [Beep] damn it, this is a bunch of crap.

Fox: and Syd Nathan comes charging in, waving his arms, yelling.

"What's he singing?

I can't understand a word he said," you know, says, "All he says is, "Please, please, please," and then said, "How are we going to sell something like that?"

[Crowd cheering] Kernodle: It really comes out of a gospel esthetic.

Think about quartets singing the word "Jesus."

He took that emotion, and he mixes it into this secular setting, and it's a song where he's just saying, "Please, please, please."

Please, please Please, please Please, please Please, please Please, please Please, please Please, please Please, please Please, please Please, please Please, please Please, please Please, please... Kernodle: It meant something in this live performance that took audiences to this moment of ecstasy... but I think Nathan, hearing it and not knowing that context, would have thought, "This is nothing."

Fox: Syd was adamant that it was just the worst piece of [record scratch] he'd ever heard.

He was obviously proved wrong.

It wasn't a big, big hit, but it was enough of a hit that it launched James Brown's career.

And within no time at all, of course, Syd was taking full credit for making this record a hit.

[Johnny "Guitar" Watson's Space Guitar" playing] Brown: So, so long I'm down so long... Fox: Syd Nathan realized that James Brown was perhaps the only musician that he'd ever worked with that actually did everything.

He truly was the hardest-working man in show business and he handled all of his own business, from booking to recording to publishing.

Hear me say yeah Hear me say yeah Hear me say yeah Yeah, yeah Crowd: Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah Come on [Cheering and applause] Fox: James Brown knew that his live show was the hottest, most dynamic show in the country, which wasn't served very well by 3-minute-long singles, so James had the idea of recording an entire concert and releasing it as a live record.

[Brown's "Try Me" playing] He wanted to do it at the Apollo nightclub in Harlem in New York City, one of the premier Black music venues in the country.

McNutt: And he goes to see Syd, and Syd says, "Well, that's dumb.

"You're going to record all the stuff we're already trying to sell."

Syd refused to do it, and James said, "Well, what if I pay for it?"

Brown: Oh McNutt: So Syd said, "Well, OK, if you want to pay for it, go ahead."

Brown: If you leave me... I spent $5,700 to record myself.

They said it couldn't be done, and I believed in ownership and controlling my own destiny.

Love you Oh, I love you too much If you leave me I'll go crazy If you forget me I'll go crazy... Smith: He's got this recording, and he brings it back to King, and there were problems with it.

They had mic'd the musicians and the singer.

They hadn't mic'd the audience very well at all, and so you couldn't really hear the crazy passion from the Apollo Theater crowd.

That's a problem.

Chuck Seitz: Me and an assistant of mine called a local disc jockey that held sock hops.

Sock hops were where a bunch of teenagers could come out to his radio broadcast, so we went out there, and we recorded stereo audience, all different kinds-- short ones, long ones, hand clapping, everything.

We finished the whole darn album by adding excitement to it, like adding laugh tracks on TV.

It drew in a lot of people.

Curley: And that's the live screaming audience at the Apollo, is a bunch of Jewish teenagers in suburban Cincinnati.

Brown: Let me hear you say, "Yeah" Crowd: Yeah!

Brown: Say it a little bit louder [Crowd cheering] Brown: Please, please, please, please [Crowd cheering] Fox: "James Brown Live at the Apollo" was the best-selling album that King did by far.

Tracy: I think King made less than Brown did because Brown fronted the money on it.

McBride: The man knew exactly what his fans wanted.

He was always very in tune with his audience, and Mr.

Nathan perhaps was not.

Ha ha ha!

Brown: You made me love you... McBride: That round went to James Brown.

Fox: And this pattern of James and Syd being at creative loggerheads would play out time and time again.

[Nathan and Brown talking at once] Brown: Gather round Clap your hands Come on and dance, ha Listen to me, and dig the band... Stein: They had a very strange relationship.

Sometimes they got along famously, and other times they would fight like hell.

Well, I think their relationship created the word "frenemy."

Ha ha ha!

Brown: Bring it up Bring it up... Smith: James would go to Syd's house with, like, a star of David, maybe, around his neck.

He thought that would help in the negotiation, and Syd would come downstairs and sit in the chair, and they would just start shouting at each other, and by the end of the afternoon, they had a contract.

Kernodle: Ha ha ha!

Man, can you imagine the two?

I know there would have been long strings of words that we cannot say on video.

Fox: They sued each other, and I'm sure they had terrible fights, but obviously, he and James Brown got along.

Brown: Don't you dare go nowhere Don't you dare... Man: It would be easy to assume there was a racial component to it, but it wasn't what drove it.

It was really kind of a father-son dispute.

Syd Nathan saw a lot of himself in James Brown, a self-made guy who came from nothing, who entered a business and learned it from the ground up and conquered it.

Bring it up [Freddy King's "Freddy's Midnite Dream" playing] Halper: My mother lamented over Syd's health.

He had heart failure episodes multiple times.

McNutt: His brother is a renowned heart specialist in Miami.

He was spending half the time down in Florida.

He just was having so many health issues.

He looked like he was going to sell it in '65.

He was getting pressure from the family to sell the company because he was ill.

Syd never really was successful in anything he ever did.

And then suddenly he has his own label.

He doesn't want to lose it... and he wants to keep everybody working at the place.

[Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand-New Bag" playing.

Brown: Come here, sister... Powers: And then they had "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag."

He ended up changing his mind.

He really didn't want to sell King, and that's really when James Brown just becomes an international star.

Brown: Ain't no drag Papa's got a brand new bag Brown: Syd Nathan only believed in me after we recorded "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," and from that point on, I can do anything I want.

Nathan: From one minute to another, you can't tell how this guy James Brown is going to act, but we all love him, and we consider and respect the fact that he has made it.

[Brown's "Try Me" playing] [Crowd cheering] Brown: Everybody on the down Bobby Byrd: Get on up Everybody right there Get into it Everybody right there Get on up Everybody up there Huh Hey Powers: You could also say at this time that King is where funk music started because a lot of people consider "Cold Sweat," which was recorded at Brewster Avenue, as the first funk record, and then after that, James Brown sounds changed.

It becomes all funk.

Byrd: Get on up Brown: Yeah, yeah, yeah Get into it Everybody right there Get it going, get it going, get it going Everybody right there Get on up... Powers: Bootsy Collins, who's a teenager, and his brother and the band that they were part of become James Brown's backup band.

Brown: Everybody up there Byrd: Get into it Brown: Everybody over here Get it going, get to going, get it going McNutt: James Brown was outgrowing the company, and the company didn't have the revenue to keep up, so it was kind of inevitable that they would eventually separate.

Hey Hey... McNutt: The business was changing, and he really, really did need the muscle of a major label that had international reach.

Brown: Moving something And raise your hand... Man 3: James Brown stayed with Syd from 1956 to '68.

That's a pretty long run.

[Crowd cheering] Byrd: James Brown.

James Brown.

Let him hear it.

[Crowd cheering] Glover: Syd's wife called me and said, "Henry, you'd better get over here quick."

"You know what we've gone through with him.

"If he's not sicker than he's ever been in his life, he should get an Academy Award this year for acting."

Powers: He just didn't want to go to the hospital.

She could tell something was wrong with him, and he said that, "If you take me to that hospital, I'm never getting out of there," and it was true because then he died the next day.

Brother Claude Ely: There ain't no grave Gonna hold my body down... Powers: They had a funeral back here in Cincinnati.

Ely: There ain't no grave Gonna hold my body down... Powers: You know, a lot of his friends and contacts he had in the business came to the funeral.

Ely: Gonna get up out the ground I was a pallbearer.

Henry Glover was a pallbearer.

James was a pallbearer, too, with Hank.

Ely: Gonna hold my body down [Wayne Cochran's "Last Kiss" playing] Stein: Syd taught me so much.

Cochran: Well, oh, where, oh, where can my baby be?

Halper: When Syd died, there was no family member to take over the business.

Syd didn't really ever mentor anybody to be his replacement.

Cochran: Be my baby when I leave this world... Halper: The business was sold couple years after Syd died.

Cochran: Well, where, oh, where can my baby be?

The Lord took her away from me She's gone to heaven, so I got to be good So I can see my baby when I leave this world Fox: Syd Nathan felt, to the end of his life, that he as an individual and King as a company never got anywhere near the appropriate respect or even acknowledgment.

His reasoning for that-- he's a Jew running a record company that records Blacks and hillbillies.

That's strike 3 in Cincinnati at that time.

Cochran: I held her close, I kissed her our last kiss... Fox: Motown in Detroit and Sun in Memphis are both worldwide tourist attractions that contribute a lot to the local economies.

Cochran: I lost my love, my life that night... Fox: I think Cincinnati could have had that but blew it.

Cochran and singers: Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh... Fox: The image that the city wanted to cultivate didn't include King Records.

Cochran and singers: Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh Cochran: Ooh, ooh Man on radio: Partly cloudy in the evening, becoming cloudy overnight, low around 55 degrees.

Announcer: Wentz hammers it high, deep center field, and that ball is gone.

Man: Whenever you're feeling good and hungry It's Skyline time [Radio static] [Funk drums playing] Man: King Records is a staple that paved the way to where we are today.

I think one of my first time hearing the James Brown Funky Drummer break was, um...Dr.

Dre, Dr.

Dre: With all the homies saying Singers: Swing down, sweet chariot Stop and let me ride Hell yeah Singers: Swing down, sweet chariot Stop and let me ride Jones: It's one of the most sampled breaks in hip-hop.

They all coming from listening to James Brown, so they were fusing that vibe into hip-hop.

Whose house?

Run's house Mama said knock you out Fight the power Fight the power Fight the power Man: I think King Records is so important because the catalog is so vast and so significant that you can really argue that if there hadn't been a King Records, today's music would be a little different.

Oh, where, oh, where can my baby be?

The Lord took her away from me Man: The catalog of music, the integration of styles.

I am a man... Jones: They had a hand in some of the best music that we've ever heard.

Give me fever When you kiss me And fever when you hold me tight... Jones: Maybe something else can come from Cincinnati that can spark a whole new, different movement Fever [Brown's "There Was a Time" playing] Jones: I think that the energy's still out here to continue the legacy.

Anderson: King is connected to so many other parts of American history and parts of American culture.

"Good Rockin' Tonight," "Blues Stay Away from Me," "The Twist"-- those were very important in shaping music.

Brown: Feeling good Feeling good... Fox: King brought together music and business infrastructure and progressive racial relations.

Brown: Now, everybody I want you to repeat after me... Nathan: The King Record Company was started by accident.

Brown: Repeat after me Let me hear you say I Singers: I... Nathan: Later, we developed it into an organization.

Brown: I Singers: I Brown: I got that feeling... Nathan: You're not part of a small record company, believe me.

You're part of a big record company and one that is proud of the way they do business.

Brown: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey I Singers: I Brown: I got that feeling Singers: Got that feeling Brown: I got that feeling Singers: Got that feeling Brown: I got that feeling Singers: Got that feeling Brown: I got that feeling Singers: Got that feeling Brown: Aah [Crowd cheering] [Crackling]