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Specialty Records was an American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 record label
Record label

In the music industry, a record label can be a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of recorded sound and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the Record producer, manufacturing, distribution , marketing and promotion, and enforcement of copyright protec...
 based in Los Angeles. It was originally launched as Juke Box Records
Juke Box Records

Juke Box Records was the first record label of Art Rupe, launched in 1946. He renamed the label to Specialty Records.Another, unrelated "Juke Box" label appeared in the mid-1970s, attached to a few TV-mail-order compilation albums....
 in 1946
1946 in music

Events *February 8 - B?la Bart?k's Piano Concerto No. 3 is premiered posthumously by Gy?rgy S?ndor with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra...
, but later renamed by its owner Art Rupe
Art Rupe

Arthur N. Rupe started Specialty Records in Los Angeles in 1946. Specialty is noted for the rhythm & blues, blues, gospel and early rock & roll music recordings....
 when he parted company with a couple of his original partners. Specialty is noted for the rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular music first created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s....
, blues
Blues

Blues is a music genre based on the use of the blues chord progressions and the blue notes. Though several blues musical form s exist, the 12-bar blues chord progressions are the most frequently encountered....
, gospel
Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
 and early rock & roll
Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a form of music that evolved in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its roots lay mainly in rhythm and blues, Country music, folk music, gospel music, and jazz....
 music recorded by the label. The major producers for the label were Rupe, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, Johnny Vincent
Johnny Vincent

Johnny Vincent , a former United States record producer for Art Rupe at Specialty Records, founded Ace Records in 1955 in Jackson, Mississippi, 165 miles away from New Orleans....
 and J. W. Alexander
J. W. Alexander

J. W. Alexander can refer to:* James Waddel Alexander , American Presbyterian minister and author* John White Alexander , American portrait painter and illustrator....
.

Art Rupe was known for being one of the most honest owners of a independent R&B record company in the 1950s.






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Specialtyrecord
Specialty Records was an American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 record label
Record label

In the music industry, a record label can be a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of recorded sound and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the Record producer, manufacturing, distribution , marketing and promotion, and enforcement of copyright protec...
 based in Los Angeles. It was originally launched as Juke Box Records
Juke Box Records

Juke Box Records was the first record label of Art Rupe, launched in 1946. He renamed the label to Specialty Records.Another, unrelated "Juke Box" label appeared in the mid-1970s, attached to a few TV-mail-order compilation albums....
 in 1946
1946 in music

Events *February 8 - B?la Bart?k's Piano Concerto No. 3 is premiered posthumously by Gy?rgy S?ndor with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra...
, but later renamed by its owner Art Rupe
Art Rupe

Arthur N. Rupe started Specialty Records in Los Angeles in 1946. Specialty is noted for the rhythm & blues, blues, gospel and early rock & roll music recordings....
 when he parted company with a couple of his original partners. Specialty is noted for the rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular music first created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s....
, blues
Blues

Blues is a music genre based on the use of the blues chord progressions and the blue notes. Though several blues musical form s exist, the 12-bar blues chord progressions are the most frequently encountered....
, gospel
Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
 and early rock & roll
Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a form of music that evolved in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its roots lay mainly in rhythm and blues, Country music, folk music, gospel music, and jazz....
 music recorded by the label. The major producers for the label were Rupe, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, Johnny Vincent
Johnny Vincent

Johnny Vincent , a former United States record producer for Art Rupe at Specialty Records, founded Ace Records in 1955 in Jackson, Mississippi, 165 miles away from New Orleans....
 and J. W. Alexander
J. W. Alexander

J. W. Alexander can refer to:* James Waddel Alexander , American Presbyterian minister and author* John White Alexander , American portrait painter and illustrator....
.

Art Rupe was known for being one of the most honest owners of a independent R&B record company in the 1950s. He was known for paying his artists, recording them well, and allowed some of the wildest R&B to be issued on any label of the day. He was also known for hating the payola environment at the time and never paid it, which probably hindered some potential sales.

Specialty also had two music publishing companies, Venice Music for BMI
Broadcast Music Incorporated

Broadcast Music, Incorporated is one of three United States performing rights organization, along with ASCAP and SESAC. It collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed....
 licensed songs and Greenwich Music for ASCAP licensed songs.

The record label was sold to Fantasy Records
Fantasy Records

Fantasy Records is a United States based record label, which was founded by Max and Sol Weiss in 1949 in San Francisco, California. They had previously operated a record pressing plant called Circle Record Company before forming the Fantasy label....
 in 1991
1991 in music

See also:* 1991 in music * :Category:Record labels established in 1991...
 and is now part of the Concord Music Group
Concord Music Group

Concord Music Group is a record company formed in 2004 in music by the merger of Concord Records and Fantasy Records. In 2005, the company acquired the classics and jazz label Telarc International....
. The music publishing unit was sold to Sony/ATV Music Publishing
Sony/ATV Music Publishing

Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC is one of the world's largest Music publisher companies. The company was formed by the 1995 merger of the Sony Corporation of America's music publishing business and ATV Music?which Michael Jackson purchased, in 1985, for United States dollar47.5 million from Australian businessman Robert Holmes ? Court....
.

Highlights

  • Wynona Carr
    Wynona Carr

    Wynona Merceris Carr was an African-American gospel music, rhythm & blues and rock & roll singer/songwriter, who recorded as "Sister" Wynona Carr when doing gospel material....
  • Eugene Church
    Eugene Church

    Eugene Church was an American singer.Church collaborated with Jesse Belvin in the 1950s as The Cliques, releasing singles on Modern Records. Late in the 1950s he released a four singles of his own, as Eugene Church & the Fellows....
  • Sam Cooke
    Sam Cooke

    Samuel Cook, better known as Sam Cooke, was an United States gospel music, R&B, soul music, and popular music singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur....
     (with The Soul Stirrers and a couple of pop singles before his major stardom)
  • John Lee Hooker
    John Lee Hooker

    John Lee Hooker was an influential United States post-war blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter born in Coahoma County, Mississippi near Clarksdale, Mississippi....
  • Little Richard
    Little Richard

    Rev. Richard Wayne Penniman , better known by the stage name Little Richard, is anAmerican singer, songwriter and pianist. He is considered a key figure in the transition from Rhythm and blues to Rock and roll in the 1950s....
     - Tutti Frutti
    Tutti Frutti (song)

    "Tutti Frutti" is a song by Little Richard, which became his first hit record in 1955. With its opening cry of "Womp-bomp-a-loom-op-a-womp-bam-boom!" and its hard-driving sound and wild lyrics, it became not only a model for many future Little Richard songs, but also one of the models for rock and roll itself....
  • Guitar Slim
    Guitar Slim

    Eddie "Guitar Slim" Jones was a New Orleans blues guitar player from the 1940s and 1950s best known for the million-selling song produced by Johnny Vincent at Specialty Records, "The Things That I Used to Do", a song that is listed in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll....
     - The Things That I Used to Do
    The Things That I Used to Do

    "The Things That I Used to Do" is a blues song written by Guitar Slim and his 1953 recording of it in New Orleans, was arranged and produced by a young Ray Charles....
  • Roddy Jackson (one of the few white rock and rollers Specialty signed)
  • Jimmy Liggins
    Jimmy Liggins

    Jimmy Liggins was an United States Rhythm and blues guitarist and bandleader....
  • Joe Liggins
    Joe Liggins

    Joe Liggins was a notable jazz, blues, and mostly Rhythm and blues pianist, who played with the band Joe Liggins and the Honeydrippers in the 1940s and 1950s, as their frontman....
  • Roy Milton
    Roy Milton

    Roy Milton was an United States Rhythm and blues singer, drummer and bandleader....
  • Percy Mayfield
  • Lloyd Price
    Lloyd Price

    Lloyd Price is an American vocalist. His first sound recording and reproduction, "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" was a huge hit single on Specialty Records in 1952, and although he continued to turn out gramophone record, none were as popular until several years later, when he refined the New Orleans beat and achieved a series of national hits....
     - Lawdy Miss Clawdy
    Lawdy Miss Clawdy

    "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" is a song by Lloyd Price. It was first recorded by Price at the New Orleans recording studio of Specialty Records in March of 1952....
  • Soul Stirrers
  • Larry Williams
    Larry Williams

    Larry Williams was an United States rhythm and blues and rock and roll singer, songwriter and pianist from New Orleans, Louisiana, Louisiana. Williams is best known for writing and sound recording and reproduction some rock and roll Traditional pop musics from 1957 to 1959 for Specialty Records, including "Short Fat Fannie", "Bony Moronie" a...


See also

  • List of record labels
    List of record labels

    This is a list of notable record labels.Owing to the large number of entries, the list has been divided by the first letter of the label's name, with labels starting with a number added to this page:...


External links