Black Music Month was established in 1979 by Kenny Gamble, Dyana Williams, and Ed Wright to promote the contributions of Black professionals in the music industry. The group convinced President Jimmy Carter to declare June Black Music Month, and it was first celebrated on the lawn of the White House with a huge music festival. Celebrating music is fine, but it’s a multi-billion dollar business that includes artist managers, record labels, publishers, distributors, promoters, agents, and marketing agencies.
Black musicians had to fight for equality, recognition, and control in the industry from the start. Before recordings existed, smart Black musicians published their own sheet music. However, the emergence of recordings in the late 1800s, radio broadcasting, and the establishment of record companies in the 1920s, opened the door for another way of musicians being cheated. Artists, both Black and White were routinely cheated by record companies. A typical record deal included an artist giving up the rights to their music in exchange for a financial advance, a car, and whatever was left after the record label reclaimed the advance, the marketing budget, tour support, and other expenses.
Black Music Publishers and Record Labels
Copywriting and publishing your music is one of the most important things an artist can do to control their product. Publishing is the oldest part of the music business. In the early 20th Century before recordings, sheet music publishing ran the music business. Publishers were in charge of putting compositions to paper, producing song-books, distributing them to stores, and compensating authors for the commercial use of their works. Back then, that meant paying them a percentage of songbook sales. Today it also includes collecting royalties on their behalf. A music publisher collects royalty payments on the rights connected to the composition, not the recording of it. Royalty payments come through performance rights organizations like the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI). There are two types of copyrights that come with every song: composition rights and master recording rights.
Ferdinand Joseph LeMott, known as “Jelly Roll Morton, who became a professional piano player at 14 in New Orleans playing what was then called jass (jazz), published “Jelly Roll Blues,” in 1915. It is said to be the earliest example of published jazz sheet music. Morton said publishing his own sheet music helped get his compositions to a wider audience.
Modern Black artists like Prince, Michael Jackson, Jay Z, and others have followed in the footsteps of their predecessors by publishing their own music, running their own record labels, and owning their master recordings, but in the early 20th Century there were few. Founded in New York in 1921 by Harry Pace, Black Swan Record Label was the first Black-owned record company in the nation. On the suggestion of W.E.B. Du Bois, Pace named the label after Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, a renowned Black singer from the 1800s known as the Black Swan. He also established the Pace Phonograph Corporation pressing plant. In its first year of business, the company made $100,000. A successful businessman and community leader in Memphis, Pace had entered the music business earlier when he met blues composer W.C. Handy and started the Pace and Handy Music Company in 1912, writing and publishing successful songs including Handy’s 1914 hit “St. Louis Blues.” They moved the business from Memphis to Harlem in 1918, and Handy eventually left. The company’s talent included Alberta Hunter, Ma Rainey, Fletcher Henderson, and Ethel Waters. Waters was instrumental in the success of the company and became the highest-paid Black recording artist in the nation. The emergence of radio was the beginning of the end for Black Swan. After a successful run of more than 180 releases, Black Swan issued its last record in 1923. That same year, Pace joined a group of Black businessmen who sent a letter of complaint to the US Attorney General expressing their negative feelings regarding the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) led by the “unscrupulous demagogue” Marcus Garvey.
Vee-Jay Records was founded by husband and wife team Vivian Carter and James Bracken in 1953. The label’s genre included jazz, blues, rock & roll, R&B, soul, and gospel. Their biggest acts include The Impressions, co-founded by Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler, and blues singer/ instrumentalist Jimmy Reed. The label’s acts included artists at the beginning of their careers such as The Pips (known as Gladys Knight and the Pips), Wayne Shorter, and The Staple Singers. Vee-Jay released the first Beatles album released in the US through the former major label EMI. After facing legal troubles Vee-Jay filed bankruptcy in 1964.
Motown was founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. as Tamla Records in 1959, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation in 1960. In April 1959, Gordy and his sister Gwen also founded Anna Records, which released about two dozen singles between 1959 and 1960. “The Motown Sound” was a type of soul music focused on pop appeal. Motown acts were groomed, dressed, and choreographed for live performances. The acts went on tour with the “Motown Revue,” first, on the “Chitlin’ Circuit” and later worldwide. Gordy also established several secondary labels that focused on different genres like country, jazz, hip-hop, rock, and gospel. Motown also expanded into tel- evision and film. Gordy sold Motown in 1988 to MCA, which in turn sold it to Polygram that sold it to Universal.
Sam Cooke launched a music publishing company, Kags Music, in 1958 and founded SAR Records in 1959, becoming the first major Black artist to start his own independent record label. He wanted to expand his artistic abilities as a writer/producer and give other Black artists a venue to record and be treated fairly. SAR’s artists included gospel and R&B artists like Cooke’s old group, the Soul Stirrers with Jimmie Outler, and Johnnie Taylor singing lead. The Valentinos with Bobby Womack, Mel Carter, The Simms Twins, Johnnie Morisette, and L. C. Cooke, his younger brother, were also signed to SAR. It was dissolved shortly after Cooke’s death in 1964, and the rights to the recordings and the publishing were bought by Cooke’s last manager Allen Klein. Many feel that Cooke’s murder was connected to his publishing company and a contract he negotiated with RCA in 1960 that would have given him ownership of his master recordings after 30 years.
Chicago-based singer-songwriter Curtis Mayfield who was inspired by Cooke founded Curtom Publishing in 1960 and Curtom Records in 1968 with Eddie Thomas, the Impressions’ manager. In addition to the Impressions’ and Mayfield’s solo material, Curtom produced the Five Stairsteps, Donny Hathaway, Linda Clifford, Leroy Hutson, the Staple Singers, and Mavis Staples’ solo material among others.
James Brown was not only the “Godfather of Soul,” but by the end of the 1960s, he owned a publishing company, Jim Jam Music, and three radio stations. He also established several record labels, Try Me in 1963 and Brownstone Records in 1970, that released 11 singles in 1970/1971 before being superseded by People Records. Brown used his labels to release recordings by performers associated with his James Brown Revue.
T-Neck Records was founded by the Isley Brothers and named after their hometown of Teaneck, New Jersey. T-Neck was launched first in 1964 but folded after a few years, and was reactivated by the brothers in 1969 with much success. The first known recording of Jimmy Hendrix was on the single “Testify,” one of the brothers’ first T-Neck releases. The label released the Isley’s hit albums and singles during the 1970s. However, the label went defunct again in 1985 because of financial and legal issues.
The legendary songwriting and production team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff founded Philadelphia International Records in 1971 with a distribution deal through CBS Records. In addition to Patti LaBelle’s solo career in the 1980s, the label was known for being the home of The Sound of Philadelphia and its artists. The label went defunct in the early 2000s due to financial and legal issues after a failed attempt to revive it in the 90s.
SOLAR (Sound of Los Angeles Records) grew out of the dissolution of Soul Train Records in 1977, which was co-founded by Don Cornelius and Dick Griffey. Cornelius left Soul Train Records, which Griffey renamed SOLAR. SOLAR had success with groups like Shalamar, The Whispers, Dynasty, and The Deele (Babyface and L.A. Reid who later formed LaFace Records). SOLAR was as- sociated with writers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who started the Tabu label, in 1980, and Leon Sylvers III of The Sylvers. The label went defunct in 1992.
The American Recording Company (ARC) was co-founded by singer-songwriter/producer Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire. Some of E,W & F’s albums were released through the label. However, it only existed from 1978-1982. White founded Kalimba Productions in the mid-1980s, producing work for The Emotions, Ramsey Lewis, with whom he started his career, Deniece Wil- liams, Jennifer Holliday, Barbara Streisand, Neil Dia- mond, and others.
The husband and wife team of Sylvia and Joe Robinson, along with Milton Malden, founded hip-hop label Sugar Hill Records in the 1970s. Sylvia, known as the “mother of hip-hop,” was a singer-songwriter/guitarist who had major success with her 1970s hit “Pillow Talk” before starting three record labels. Sugar Hill was her second label. The label is known for their biggest group, the Sugarhill Gang who released the first hip-hop/rap hit single, “Rapper’s Delight,” in 1979. Other acts on the label include Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. The label went defunct in 1986 due to legal issues with their distributors, but fortunately, the Robinsons’ sons control the label’s publishing.
Black Music Unions and Associations
There were more than 50 independently chartered Black musicians’ locals during the 20th Century, due to discrimination by the white American Federation of Musicians. The AFM was founded in 1896 by working musicians who needed a union to represent their interests. When they were barred by white locals Black musicians started their own AFM locals in Pittsburgh in 1897, in Chicago in 1902, and in more than 50 cities nationwide. The Black locals provided members with benefits like better pay, protection against abusive contractors, lodgings, and practice space. In Philadelphia, Black musicians established AFM Local 274 in 1935 and became known as the Clef Club, which included the headquarters, bar, and performance space that the local ran. Local 274 became very important, in part because Philadelphia was an important center for Black musicians like John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Golson, Nina Simone, Jimmy, and Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, Clara Ward, Bobby Timmons, Shirley Scott, Trudy Pitts, and Jimmy Oliver – all members of the local. For many years the AFM was the most segregated union in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). When integration brought an end to segregated unions, Local 274 did not want to give up what they had gained over the years to merge with the white Philadelphia Local 77. As a result, it was expelled from the AFM in 1971. Local 274 lasted longer than any other independent Black musicians’ affiliate, and the Clef Club still provides Black musicians with practice and performance space, music instruction, and presents noted jazz artists.
Founded in 1919 in Washington, D.C. at a conference of Black musicians under the leadership of Henry Grant and Nora Holt, the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. is the nation’s oldest organization “dedicated to the preservation, encouragement, and advocacy of all genres of the music of Black Americans.” The mission is to provide a central location for the gathering and purchase of library collections of sheet music, compositions, and original documents from which out-of-print works may be compiled for historic use; to conduct research on the works of composers and artists of African descent and to publish or copyright the results of such research. There are now chapters of NANM in every region of the nation.
In September 1978, producer Kenny Gamble helped launch the Black Music Association, an advocacy group to “recognize and celebrate the economic and cultural power of Black music as well as those who made and promoted it.” The BMA promoted both artists and executives that both faced industry racism. The BMA’s slogan was “Black Music Is Green.” The original BMA cut across the industry’s various factions, including artists, executives, distributors, and broadcasters. However, differences between the factions resulted in its demise in the early 2000s.
In 1995, country singer/surgeon Cleve Francis convened the first meeting of the Black Country Music Association in Nashville. The BCMA’s mission was to educate the public about the role Black artists have played in country music’s history and provide a space for Black artists currently working in the genre to unite in force. Frankie Staton assumed leadership in 1996 after Francis resumed his cardiology practice. Staton single-handedly accomplished many of the organization’s initial goals. She prioritized the development of Black country music artists. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the BCMA became a thriving community of Black Nashville artists. Its live “Black Country Music Showcase” drew artists from around the nation and was the organization’s visible manifestation of its mission. By 1999, Staton had grown the BCMA into a flourishing organization with more than 80 dues-paying members. Country music has come a long way from Ray Charles, who also sang country music, and the renowned Charlie Pride, country music’s biggest Black star. The 2021 Country Music Awards included several Black artists who won top awards.
There are several new music associations focused on advocating for Black professionals in the music business. Founded in 2017, the Black American Music Association is a professional trade organization of music professionals, creators, scholars, stakeholders, and communities working to preserve, protect and promote the legacy and future of authentic Black American music as an indigenous art form. The Black Music Action Coalition is an advocacy organization formed to address racism within the music industry and society at large. It advocates on behalf of Black artists, songwriters, producers, managers, agents, executives, lawyers, and other passionate industry professionals.
Trac is a new Black-owned music technology platform founded by Cardin Campbell, CEO of Trac Technologies, Inc. Trac will provide independent artists with unlimited music distribution and marketing services through their artist webpage without taking a percentage of the revenue the artist generates and will allow the artist to maintain creative control.
Black people have come a long way in the business of music and will continue to be successful if we keep handling our business.
