Okeh Records began as an
independent record labelAn independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels.-Overview:...
based in the
United States of AmericaThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in
1918-Events:* March 3 - Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 2 is premiered in Budapest* May 24 - Béla Bartók's opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle is premiered in Budapest.*April 30/May 1 - Toivo Kuula is mortally wounded in the Finnish Civil War....
; from the late 1920s on, it was a subsidiary of
Columbia RecordsColumbia Records is an American record label founded in 1888.Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in pre-recorded sound, being the first record company to produce pre-recorded records as opposed to blank cylinders. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of notable singers,...
.
History
Okeh was founded by Otto K. E. Heinemann (1877–1965), a German-American manager for the U.S. branch of
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
-owned
Odeon RecordsOdeon Records was a record label founded by Max Strauss and Heinrich Zunz in Berlin, Germany. It was named after a famous theatre in Paris, whose classical dome appears on the Odeon record label....
. As
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
raged in Europe, Heinemann thought it best to have an American based company. He incorporated the
Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation in 1916, set up his own
recording studioA recording studio is a facility for sound recording. Ideally, the space is specially designed by an acoustician to achieve the desired acoustic properties...
and
gramophone recordA gramophone record, commonly known as phonograph record, vinyl record, or simply record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed modulated spiral groove usually starting near the periphery and ending near the centre of the disc...
pressing plant in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, and introduced the company's line of records for public sale in September 1918. Heinemann formed the name of the record label "Okeh", from his initials; early disc labels rendered the name as
OkeH. The first discs were vertical cut. In 1919 Okeh switched to the lateral cut method of sound recording, more usual for disc records. That same year the name of the label's owning company was changed to the
General Phonograph Corporation. The name on the labels was changed to
OKeh. The common 10 inch discs retailed for 75
centsThe United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States. The U.S. dollar is normally abbreviated as the dollar sign, $, or as USD or US$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies and from others that use the $ symbol. It is divided into 100 cents .The U.S...
each; the 12 inch discs for $1.25. The company's musical director was Fred Hager, who also appeared under the pseudonym of "Milo Rega" (Hager's middle name and his surname reversed).
Okeh began by issuing popular songs, dance numbers, and vaudeville skits similar to the fare of other labels, but Heineman also wished to experiment with music for audiences neglected by the larger record companies. Okeh produced lines of recordings in German, Czech, Polish, Swedish, and Yiddish for the USA's immigrant communities. Some were pressed from masters leased from European labels, others were recorded by Okeh in New York.
In 1920,
Ralph PeerRalph Peer was born Ralph Sylvester Peer in Independence, Missouri. He died in Hollywood, California. Peer was a talent scout, recording engineer and record producer in the field of music in the 1920s and 1930s...
's recordings by African-American
bluesBlues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre created within the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
singer
Mamie SmithMamie Smith was an American vaudeville singer, dancer, pianist and actress, who appeared in several motion pictures late in her career. As a vaudeville singer she performed a number of styles including jazz and blues...
were a surprise smash hit for Okeh. The company perceived the significant little tapped market for blues and
jazzJazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
by
African AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry...
artists. In 1922, Okeh hired Clarence Williams to act as director of "
RaceRace records were 78 rpm gramophone records made by and for African Americans during the early 20th century, particularly during the 1920s and 1930s. They primarily contained race music, which comprised a variety of African American genres music such as blues, jazz, and gospel music, but many also...
" (African American) recordings for Okeh's New York studios, in addition to making recordings under his own name. Okeh then opened a recording studio in Chicago, Illinois, the center of jazz in the 1920s, where
Richard M. JonesRichard M. Jones, born Richard Marigny Jones, was a jazz pianist, composer, band leader, and record producer. Numerous songs bear his name as author, including "Trouble in Mind".Jones grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana...
served as "Race" recordings director. Many classic jazz performances by the likes of King Oliver,
Lucille BoganLucille Bogan was an American blues singer, among the first to be recorded. She also recorded under the pseudonym Bessie Jackson. Bogan sang straight-talking blues about drinking , prostitution , gambling, lesbianism and other facets of what her generation called 'the life'...
,
Sidney BechetSidney Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He was one of the first important soloists in jazz , and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist of any sort...
,
Hattie McDanielHattie McDaniel was an American actress and the first black performer to win an Academy Award. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind ....
, and
Louis ArmstrongLouis Daniel Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
were recorded by Okeh. As part of the
Carl Lindstrom CompanyCarl Lindström A.G. was a global record company founded in 1893 and based in Berlin, Germany. Founded by Carl Lindström , a Swedish inventor living in Berlin, it originally produced phonographs or gramophones with the brand names "Parlograph" and "Parlophon" and eventually began producing records...
, Okeh recordings were distributed by other Lindstrom labels including
ParlophoneParlophone is a record label, founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company. The ₤ trademark is a German L, for Lindström. It also resembles the British pound sign , which itself is derived from the letter L for Libra, meaning pound in Latin...
in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
.
Location recording
Okeh Records pioneered the practice of "location recording" in 1922. Starting in 1924, Okeh also sent mobile recording trucks to tour other parts of the country to record performers not heard in New York or Chicago. Regular return trips were made once or twice a year to
New Orleans, LouisianaNew Orleans is a major U.S. port and the largest city in the state of Louisiana. New Orleans is the center of the New Orleans Metropolitan Area, the largest metro area in the state....
,
Atlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta is the capital and most populous city in the state of Georgia, as well as the urban core of one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the United States....
,
San Antonio, TexasSan Antonio is the second-largest city in the state of Texas and the seventh-largest city in the United States. The city is characteristic of other Southwest urban centers in which there are sparsely populated areas and a low density rate outside of the city. It was the fourth-fastest growing...
,
St. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. With an estimated population of 354,361 in 2008, it is the principal municipality of Greater St. Louis, population 2,866,517, the largest urban area in Missouri and sixteenth largest in the United States...
,
Kansas City, MissouriKansas City is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. It is one of two county seats of Jackson County, the other being Independence, just to the city's east...
, and
Detroit, MichiganDetroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Wayne County. Detroit is a major port city on the Detroit River, in the Midwest region of the United States. Located north of Windsor, Ontario, Detroit is the only major U.S. city that looks south to Canada. It was founded...
, recording a wealth of jazz and early
country musicCountry music is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains...
artists.
In 1926, Okeh switched to the electric
microphoneA microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike , is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1876, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...
system of audio recording. On November 11 of that year, controlling interest in Okeh was purchased by Columbia Records. Beside the legendary OKeh Race 8000 Series (which featured some of the great blues and black jazz of the era), OKeh recorded a series of legendary "chamber" hot jazz sessions with Joe Venuti and
Eddie LangEddie Lang was an American Jazz guitarist, regarded as the most important Chicago jazz guitarist and the Father of the Jazz Guitar...
, Frank Trumbauer's studio groups,
Miff MoleIrving Milfred Mole, better known as Miff Mole was a jazz trombonist and band leader. He is generally considered as one of the greatest jazz trombonists and credited with creating "the first distinctive and influential solo jazz trombone style." His major recordings included "Slippin' Around",...
's studio groups, among others. These are considered among the best of the 1920s hot small-group white jazz sessions.
Later years
Okeh releases grew infrequent after 1932, although the label continued into 1935. Columbia again revived it in 1940 after they lost the rights to the
VocalionVocalion Records was a record label active for many years in the United States and in the United Kingdom.Vocalion was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Piano Company of New York City, which introduced a retail line of phonographs at the same time. The fledgling label first issued single-sided...
name (by dropping the
BrunswickBrunswick Records is a United States based record label. The label is currently distributed by Koch Entertainment.-From 1916:Records under the "Brunswick" label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company...
label) and pressed it until 1946. It was revived once again in 1951 and used sporadically through the 1990s.
Epic RecordsEpic Records is an American record label. It is owned and operated by Sony Music Entertainment. The label was founded in 1953 as a jazz label, and was eventually expanded to several genres of music. The label manages several imprints as well.-History:...
took over management of Okeh in 1965. Among the artists during Okeh's "pop" phase of the 50s and 60s were
Johnnie RayJohn Alvin Ray was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a major precursor of what would become rock and roll, for his jazz and blues-influenced music and his animated stage persona.-Early life:Ray was born in Hopewell, Oregon,...
, Little Joe & The Thrillers, and
Little RichardRichard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, pianist and recording artist, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s...
. With Soul music coming to the forefront in the 60s, Okeh signed
Major LanceMajor Lance was an American R&B/Northern soul singer. Allmusic journalist, Stephen Thomas Erlewine, states "blessed with a warm, sweet voice, Lance was one of the leading figures of Chicago soul during the 1960s and the top-selling artist for OKeh Records during the decade...
, who gave the label two big successes with "The Monkey Time" and "Um Um Um Um Um Um". The success of Okeh in the 1960s was dependent on producer Carl Davis and songwriter
Curtis MayfieldCurtis Lee Mayfield was an American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions and composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly. From these works and others, he is highly regarded as a pioneer of funk and of...
. After they left the label (due to disputes with Epic/Okeh head Len Levy), Okeh gradually slipped in sales, and was finally deactivated discreetly by CBS Records in 1970.
Sony Music EntertainmentSony Music Entertainment is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America.-History:...
today owns the Okeh catalogue with Epic continuing to manage the Okeh material. Blues musician and singer
Keb' Mo'Keb' Mo is an American blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter.-Early life:...
records for the Epic group of Sony Music under the Okeh and Red Ink labels.
Popular culture
The OKeh Laughing Record, which featured a man and woman laughing uncontrollably, was featured extensively in the Walter Lantz Productions cartoon short
Sh-h-h-h-h, the last short directed by
Tex AveryFrederick Bean "Fred/Tex" Avery was an American animator, cartoonist, voice actor and director, famous for producing animated cartoons during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation. He did his most significant work for the Warner Bros...
. The record was recorded in Germany by
Beka RecordsBeka Records was a record label based in Germany, active from about 1903 to 1925. Before World War I, Beka also made gramophone records for the United Kingdom market under the Beka-Grand Records label. The company became a subsidiary of the Carl Lindström Company which was sold to the Columbia...
in 1923, and would be issued in the U.K. as
The Parlophone Laughing Record.
See also
- Okeh Records artists
- List of record labels
- Ralph Peer
Ralph Peer was born Ralph Sylvester Peer in Independence, Missouri. He died in Hollywood, California. Peer was a talent scout, recording engineer and record producer in the field of music in the 1920s and 1930s...
External links