Ike & Tina Turner

Liberty Records was a United States-based record label. It was started by chairman Simon Waronker in 1955 with Al Bennett as president and Theodore Keep as chief engineer. It was reactivated in 2001 in the United Kingdom and had two previous revivals. Liberty's early releases focused on film and... orchestral music. Its first single was Lionel Newman's "The Girl Upstairs." Its first big hit, in 1955, was by Julie London singing her version of torch song Cry Me a River, which climbed to US#9. It helped Liberty sell her first album, Julie Is Her Name. She was to record 32 albums in her career. In 1956, Liberty signed the little-known Henry Mancini. They released two singles and several albums for him, but he left in 1959 when he got hot. Billy Rose and Lee David song Tonight You Belong to Me scored a US#4 and UK#28 as performed by teen sisters Patience and Prudence , selling over a million copies. Their biggest early rock and roll artist was Eddie Cochran, who had just starred in his second film, Untamed Youth. His first hit for the label was John D.
more

Blue Thumb Records was an American record label founded in 1968 by Bob Krasnow, along with former A&M Records executives Tommy LiPuma and Don Graham. Krasnow had been in the record business for a number of years, working as a promotion man for King Records and also working for Buddah/Kama Sutra... Records. Blue Thumb was originally intended to be the name of Captain Beefheart's band, but Bob didn't think the name was right for the group. However, he chose the name for his label. Acts that appeared on the label include Beefheart, The Crusaders, Hugh Masekela, Sam Lay, Robbie Basho, Tom Rapp, Aynsley Dunbar's Retaliation , Modereko, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, Jimmy Smith, Dave Mason, The Pointer Sisters, T-Rex , Ike & Tina Turner, Love, Gábor Szabó, Mark-Almond, and National Lampoon . Blue Thumb started out using independent distribution, but went to Capitol/EMI for distribution during late 1970 until mid 1971.
more

Minit Records was a record label originally based in New Orleans and founded by Joe Banashak. After making a distribution deal with Imperial Records, the label released its biggest hit, the #1 Mother-in Law by Ernie K-Doe. A number of Allen Toussaint productions were issued on Minit, including hits... by Irma Thomas. After the hits dried up, the label was sold to Imperial Records. Banashak also owned Instant Records which he kept. Minit was acquired by Liberty Records in 1963 as part of its acquisition of Imperial Records. Later its records were re-issued between 1966 and 1970 by Sunset Records and the label was active during the same time period as a soul music label. The Minit catalog is currently owned by EMI.
more

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily 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. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll is characterized by specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues chord progression is the most common. The blue notes that, for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent in relation to the pitch of the major scale, are also an important part of the sound. The blues genre is based on the blues form but possesses other characteristics such as specific lyrics, bass lines and instruments. Blues can be subdivided into several subgenres ranging from country to urban blues that were more or less popular during different periods of the 20th century. Best known are the Delta, Piedmont, Jump and Chicago blues styles.
more

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has... its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources. Musically, rock has centered around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music with a 4/4 beat utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
more

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 heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. The term has subsequently had a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, the term rhythm and blues was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. By the 1970s, rhythm and blues was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as "Contemporary R&B". Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine coined the term "rhythm and blues" in 1948 as a musical marketing term in the United States. It replaced the term "race music", which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed offensive in the postwar world.
more