Duke Records was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

, started in Memphis

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, in 1952 by David James Mattis (WDIA

WDIA

WDIA is an AM radio station in Memphis, Tennessee, in the United States of America. Its radio frequency is 1070 kHz. In 1962 it became the first U.S. radio station programmed by African-Americans, though its ownership was white.-History:...

 program director and DJ) and Bill Fitzgerald, owners of Tri-State Recording Company. Their first release was Roscoe Gordon

Rosco Gordon

Rosco Gordon was an American blues singer and songwriter. He is best known for his 1952 #1 R&B hit single, "Booted", and two #2 singles "No More Doggin'" and "Just a Little Bit" .-Biography:...

 singing "Hey Fat Girl", issued on Duke R-1, later amended to R-101.

After forming a partnership with Mattis in the summer of 1952, Don D. Robey (founder of Houston's Peacock Records

Peacock Records

Peacock Records was a record label started in 1949 by Don D. Robey in Houston, Texas."Hound Dog" by Big Mama Thornton was a bit hit for Peacock in 1953. Other significant rhythm & blues artists on Peacock were Marie Adams, James Booker, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Little Richard, Memphis Slim, and...

) took control of Duke. Both labels then headquartered at his Bronze Peacock club at 2809 Erastus Street in Houston, focusing on R&B

Rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 and gospel music

Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....

. Robey started a subsidiary, Back Beat Records

Back Beat Records

Back Beat Records was the soul sub-label of Duke Records started in 1957. It was later acquired by ABC Records in the 70's. The label's biggest hits included "Treat Her Right" by Roy Head & The Traits, "Tell Me Why" by Norman Fox and The Rob Roys, and "Everlasting Love" by Carl Carlton...

, in 1957 and this later specialised in soul music

Soul music

Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

.

Robey sold his labels to ABC Dunhill Records on 23 May 1973.

Artists who recorded on Duke, Peacock and Back Beat included:

• Buddy Ace
  Buddy Ace
  Buddy Ace was an American blues singer, known as the "Silver Fox of the Blues." His best known tracks were "Root Doctor" and "Pouring Water on a Drowning Man"....
  
  
• Johnny Ace
  Johnny Ace
  Johnny Ace , born John Marshall Alexander, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, was an American rhythm and blues singer. He scored a string of hit singles in the mid-1950s before dying of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound....
  
  
• Bobby "Blue" Bland
  Bobby Bland
  Robert Calvin Bland better known as Bobby "Blue" Bland, is an American singer of blues and soul. He is an original member of the Beale Streeters, and is sometimes referred to as the "Lion of the Blues"...
  
  
• Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown
• Carl Carlton
  Carl Carlton
  Carl Carlton is an American R&B, soul, and funk singer and songwriter, best known for his hits "Everlasting Love" and "She's a Bad Mama Jama ".-Career:...
  
  
• Larry Davis
  Larry Davis
  Rev. Larry Davis is a Baptist minister who pled guilty to charges stemming from misappropriation of church funds.- Before entering the ministry:...
  
  
• Ernie K Doe
• Jerry Foster
• Roscoe Gordon
  Rosco Gordon
  Rosco Gordon was an American blues singer and songwriter. He is best known for his 1952 #1 R&B hit single, "Booted", and two #2 singles "No More Doggin'" and "Just a Little Bit" .-Biography:...
  
  
• Roy Head
  Roy Head
  Roy Head is an American singer, best known for his hit "Treat Her Right."-Career:Head achieved fame as a member of a musical group out from San Marcos, Texas known as The Traits. The group's sponsor landed their first recording contract in 1958 with TNT Music in San Antonio, Texas while they were...
  
  
• Joe Hinton
  Joe Hinton
  Joe Hinton was an American soul singer.Hinton, who was born in Evansville, Indiana, began as a gospel singer with the Chosen Gospel Quartet and the Spirit of Memphis Quartet. Producer Don Robey asked the singer to try doing secular tunes, and Hinton began recording for Robey's record label,...
  
  
• Long John Hunter
  Long John Hunter
  Long John Hunter is an American Texas blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He has released seven albums in his own name, and in his later years found critical acknowledgement outside of his homeland...
  
  
• Junior Parker
  Junior Parker
  Junior Parker was an American Memphis blues singer and musician. He is best remembered for his unique voice which has been described as "honeyed," and "velvet-smooth"...
  
  
• Fenton Robinson
  Fenton Robinson
  Fenton Robinson was an American blues singer and exponent of the Chicago blues guitar.-Biography:Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, United States, Robinson left his home at the age of 18 to move to Memphis, Tennessee where he recorded his first single "Tennessee Woman" in 1957. He settled in Chicago...
  
  
• Otis Rush
  Otis Rush
  Otis Rush is a blues musician, singer and guitarist. His distinctive guitar style features a slow burning sound and long bent notes...
  
  
• Big Mama Thornton
  Big Mama Thornton
  Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was an American rhythm and blues singer and songwriter. She was the first to record the hit song "Hound Dog" in 1952. The song was #1 on the Billboard R&B charts for seven weeks in 1953. The B-side was "They Call Me Big Mama," and the single sold almost two million...
  
  
• Lavelle White
• Lester Williams
  Lester Williams (musician)
  Lester Williams was an American Texas blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is best known for his songs, "Winter Time Blues" and "I Can't Lose with the Stuff I Use". His main influence was T-Bone Walker.Williams released several singles in the 1950s, but remained a stalwart...
  
  
• Andy Wilson
• O.V. Wright
  O.V. Wright
  Overton Vertis "O. V." Wright was an American singer who is regarded as one of Southern soul's most authoritative and individual artists...
  
  

External links

• Don Robey's Labels (accessed March 2008)
• HIPO's Johnny Ace bio