Syd Nathan He was rock music's unlikely legend
Barry M. Horstman * 02/25/99
The Cincinnati Post
(Copyright 1999)
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Syd Nathan seems an improbable
candidate for rock immortality.
His dream was to become a jazz or dance band drummer, but he
wasn't good enough. He thought James Brown stank as a singer. He
didn't like "The Twist," allowing someone else to get credit for one
of the biggest dance hits of all time. And Nathan - bald, stout and
with thick glasses necessitated by cataracts - certainly never looked
the part of a rock legend.
Yet Nathan was one of the cornerstones of rock's early days,
transforming an abandoned ice house in Evanston into one of the
nation's most important independent record labels - where many big-
name country, pop, blues and jazz artists got their start.
"Godfather of Soul" Brown, Hank Ballard, Mel Torme, Steve
Lawrence, the Platters, Grandpa Jones, the Stanley Brothers, Freddy
King, Wynonie Harris, Bullmoose Jackson, Joe Tex and Otis Redding
were among the incongruous mix of artists who produced almost 500
hits from the late 1940s through the '60s at Nathan's King Records.
And it all came about because a jukebox operator once owed Nathan
six bucks.
A high school dropout from the West Side, Nathan had a street
hustler's nerve and hunger, talents he put to use in jobs ranging
from pawn shop operator and jewelry salesman to wrestling promoter
and park concessionaire.
In the late 1930s, he opened Syd's Record Shop on West Fifth
Street downtown. When a jukebox operator could not afford to repay
$6 he borrowed from Nathan, he instead sold him 300 old records at 2
cents each, convincing Nathan that he could recoup the loan by
reselling them for a nickel or a dime.
"The first afternoon, I made $18," Nathan recalled.
Within several years, Nathan was buying and selling records by the
thousands. But he wanted to make his own, figuring that's where the
big money - and the fun - was.
The success of WLW's "Midwestern Hayride" convinced Nathan that
* there was a market for country music. So, along with three relatives
and a friend, during World War II he opened a small recording studio
on Brewster Avenue in Evanston, which soon became a popular
destination for artists passing through town to play on radio
stations or at local clubs.
Starting off with a second-hand plastics pressing machine that
could produce about 200 records a day, Nathan - dubbed "The King of
King" - by the 1950s had built the company into one of the largest
record firms in the country, with an annual production of 6 million
records.
Under one roof, Nathan developed a complete record company -
recording studios, mastering facilities, pressing plant and printing
presses for album covers, making it possible for songs to be on their
way to radio stations and stores around the country hours after being
recorded. He even had an on-site pony keg in case any artists needed
some liquid inspiration.
Country-western and R&B artists worked side by side at King -
unusual less because of the widely divergent styles of music than the
state of racial relations at the time. Music historians credit
Nathan with building a creative, dynamic world at King where
musicians, singers and songwriters from different genres could
cross-pollinate.
"The country artists would record some R&B song that would sound
country. R&B artists would record the country songs," said former
Cincinnatian Steve Tracy, a professor of African-American studies at
the University of Massachusetts. "(Nathan) did a good job sending
those songs back and forth."
But Tracy and others say Nathan failed to recognize the music's
full crossover potential, not sensing how an Elvis Presley could
merge R&B, country and rockabilly styles to create rock 'n' roll.
Instead, his marketing remained focused on music's different niches.
It was not the only miscalculation in Nathan's career. "The man
couldn't hear a hit to save his life," said Hank Ballard, whose hits
at King put him in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Ballard recalled once bringing a young man with a demo tape - by
the name of James Brown - to meet Nathan, who quickly sized up the
newcomer as having no future in the music business. "Syd thought his
music would never sell," Ballard said.
Yet Brown would record some of his biggest hits at King, including
"Please, Please, Please," "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" and "I Got You
(I Feel Good)." Still, Nathan remained a hard sell. Ballard
remembered Nathan passing this judgment on Brown's "Live at the
Apollo" album: "I'm not going to pay you for that hollering and
screaming all over that record."
Ballard himself was involved in another King episode ripe for
second-guessing. In 1959, Ballard wrote and recorded "The Twist" at
King. While versions on what happened next differ, Ballard says
Nathan did not think much of the song, and - jumping at the chance to
make some quick money - made a deal with Dick Clark that allowed a
young artist to record it. Ernest Evans - a.k.a. Chubby Checker -
performed the note-for-note cover on "American Bandstand," and the
rest is history.
But there were far more hits than misses at King, which
unfortunately died when the 63-year-old Nathan did in 1968. The
company was sold to a Nashville firm and later changed hands a number
of times, and the complex itself was gutted and became a UDF
warehouse before being abandoned totally. Most of the records made
there, though, are considered classics and have been reissued both in
this country and around the world.
Seymour Stein, former president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
remembered that Nathan often cautioned his artists against becoming
too impressed with themselves.
"He always said the worst thing you could think was that you were
a genius, that that was a fatal flaw," Stein said. "But he was a
genius."
