Art Rupe
Encyclopedia
Arthur N. "Art" Rupe is an American
music industry executive and record producer
. He started Specialty Records
, noted for its rhythm & blues, blues
, gospel
and early rock and roll
music recordings, in Los Angeles
in 1946.
, Rupe grew up in the nearby suburb of McKeesport
. As a boy, he listened to music sung at a local black Baptist church. He attended college at Virginia Tech, Miami University
, and UCLA. During World War II
, he worked for a shipbuilding company in Los Angeles
. Along the way, he changed his surname from Goldberg to Rupe, which was an ancestral name.
Toward the end of the war, Rupe resolved to get into the entertainment industry. After losing money he had invested in a small record company, he spent $200 on what were called "race records" at the time to systematically analyze them and determine the formula for records that would sell. He decided that the secret lay in a big band sound with a churchy feel. He found the recording talent he needed in the many after-hours clubs in the Watts district. He and Ben Siegert first started Juke Box Records in 1944 and after a few hits, he broke with his partners and started a new company, Specialty Records
. The label soon thrived with Roy Milton
, Percy Mayfield
, and Jimmy Liggins
, along with a very successful gospel catalog. The major producers for the label were Rupe, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, and J. W. Alexander
. Johnny Vincent was a sales representative for the company.
Rupe had a love of gospel music, and in 1947 he began recording gospel quartets such as The Soul Stirrers
, the Swan Silvertones
, the Pilgrim Travelers
, Alex Bradford
, and Sister Wynona Carr
. His taste for gospel carried over into secular music and influenced his choice of artists to record such as Guitar Slim
, Don and Dewey
, Lloyd Price
, Larry Williams
, and Little Richard
. It led him to value feeling over technique in the recording studio. Concerns about religious objections to the secularization of gospel music, combined with a contract dispute, resulted in his decision not to put out a pop record with gospel singer Sam Cooke
. He recorded but ultimately chose not to release two songs that later became big hits, "You Send Me
" and "Summertime"
.
In 1952, Rupe first traveled to New Orleans
because of his attraction to the gospel sound of Fats Domino
who played piano in the band of Dave Bartholomew
, a former trumpeter with Duke Ellington
. It was on this trip that he auditioned and then recorded Lloyd Price
.
Rupe obtained his most successful artist when a then little known recording artist called "Little Richard
" followed Lloyd Price's suggestion and sent Rupe a demo record. Art sent Blackwell to New Orleans to do a recording session. During a recording break Little Richard sang an obscene song while playing the piano. Blackwell sensed that it was a hit and after cleaning up the lyrics there was not time to teach the song to a piano player. So Little Richard both played and sang the only song to emerge out of that first session done in just three takes, "Tutti Frutti
", one of the most significant rock and roll records ever made. Rupe also recorded Guitar Slim
, with a young Ray Charles
on piano. In addition, Specialty issued records such as "Cherokee Dance" by Froggy Landers, "(Everytime I Hear) That Mellow Saxophone" by Roy Montrell, "Drunk" by Jimmy Liggins, and the rock & roll "Moose On The Loose" by Roddy Jackson
.
When asked why Specialty was so successful, Rupe credited his own ability to produce rather than his business skills. In the early 1960s, he stopped producing records but remained active in the music business as a publisher. He returned during the fifties revival period in the late 1960s but only to reissue landmark recordings of the R&B era. Rupe sold Specialty to Fantasy Records
in 1991.
During the 1960s and later, Rupe became increasingly involved in oil and gas investments. Success in this area allowed him to establish the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation, a philanthropy based in Santa Barbara
.
In 2007, Rupe was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame
.
On December 15, 2010, it was announced that Rupe will be awarded the Ahmet Ertegun
Award (along with former Elektra Records
head Jac Holzman
) by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
music industry executive and record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
. He started Specialty Records
Specialty Records
Specialty Records was an American record label based in Los Angeles. It was originally launched as Juke Box Records in 1946, but later renamed by its owner Art Rupe when he parted company with a couple of his original partners...
, noted for its rhythm & blues, blues
Blues
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...
, gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
and early rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
music recordings, in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in 1946.
Career
Born in the Pittsburgh suburb of Greensburg, PennsylvaniaGreensburg, Pennsylvania
Greensburg is a city in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States, and a part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The city is named after Nathanael Greene, a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War...
, Rupe grew up in the nearby suburb of McKeesport
McKeesport, Pennsylvania
McKeesport is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, in the United States; it is located at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers and is part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The population was 19,731 at the 2010 census...
. As a boy, he listened to music sung at a local black Baptist church. He attended college at Virginia Tech, Miami University
Miami University
Miami University is a coeducational public research university located in Oxford, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1809, it is the 10th oldest public university in the United States and the second oldest university in Ohio, founded four years after Ohio University. In its 2012 edition, U.S...
, and UCLA. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he worked for a shipbuilding company in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Along the way, he changed his surname from Goldberg to Rupe, which was an ancestral name.
Toward the end of the war, Rupe resolved to get into the entertainment industry. After losing money he had invested in a small record company, he spent $200 on what were called "race records" at the time to systematically analyze them and determine the formula for records that would sell. He decided that the secret lay in a big band sound with a churchy feel. He found the recording talent he needed in the many after-hours clubs in the Watts district. He and Ben Siegert first started Juke Box Records in 1944 and after a few hits, he broke with his partners and started a new company, Specialty Records
Specialty Records
Specialty Records was an American record label based in Los Angeles. It was originally launched as Juke Box Records in 1946, but later renamed by its owner Art Rupe when he parted company with a couple of his original partners...
. The label soon thrived with Roy Milton
Roy Milton
Roy Milton was an American R&B and jump blues singer, drummer and bandleader.-Career:Milton's grandmother was a Chickasaw. He was born in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, United States, and grew up on an Indian reservation before moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma...
, Percy Mayfield
Percy Mayfield
Percy Mayfield was an American songwriter famous for the songs "Hit the Road Jack" and "Please Send Me Someone to Love", as well as a successful rhythm and blues artist known for his smooth vocal style.-Career:...
, and Jimmy Liggins
Jimmy Liggins
Jimmy Liggins was an American R&B guitarist and bandleader.-Career:Liggins was born in Newby, Oklahoma, United States. He started out as a professional boxer at age 18 under the name of Kid Zulu, then he quit boxing and took up driving his brother Joe's outfit around on tour...
, along with a very successful gospel catalog. The major producers for the label were Rupe, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, and J. W. Alexander
J. W. Alexander
J. W. Alexander may refer to:* James Waddel Alexander , American Presbyterian minister and author* John White Alexander , American portrait painter and illustrator...
. Johnny Vincent was a sales representative for the company.
Rupe had a love of gospel music, and in 1947 he began recording gospel quartets such as The Soul Stirrers
The Soul Stirrers
One of the most popular and influential gospel groups of the 20th century, the Soul Stirrers were pioneers in the development of the quartet style of gospel and, without intending it, in the creation of soul music, doo wop, and motown sound, some of the secular music that owed much to gospel.The...
, the Swan Silvertones
Swan Silvertones
The Swan Silvertones were an American gospel music group that achieved popularity in the 1940s and 1950s while led by Claude Jeter. Jeter formed the group in 1938 as the "Four Harmony Kings" while he was working as a coal miner in West Virginia...
, the Pilgrim Travelers
Pilgrim Travelers
The Pilgrim Travelers were a gospel group popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s.-Musical career:Formed in the early 1930s in Houston, Texas, they were strongly influenced by another Texas-based quartet, the Soul Stirrers...
, Alex Bradford
Alex Bradford
Professor Alex Bradford was a multi-talented gospel composer, singer, arranger and choir director who was a great influence on artists such as Little Richard, Bob Marley and Ray Charles and who helped bring about the modern mass choir movement in gospel.Born in Bessemer, Alabama, he first appeared...
, and Sister Wynona Carr
Wynona Carr
Wynona Carr was an African-American gospel, R&B and rock and roll singer-songwriter, who recorded as Sister Wynona Carr when performing gospel material.-Biography:...
. His taste for gospel carried over into secular music and influenced his choice of artists to record such as Guitar Slim
Guitar Slim
Eddie Jones , better known as Guitar Slim, was a New Orleans blues guitarist, 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"...
, Don and Dewey
Don and Dewey
Don and Dewey were an American rock and roll duo, comprising Don "Sugarcane" Harris and Dewey Terry . Both were born and grew up in Pasadena, California....
, Lloyd Price
Lloyd Price
Lloyd Price is an American R&B vocalist. Known as "Mr. Personality", after the name of one of his biggest million-selling hits...
, Larry Williams
Larry Williams
Larry Williams was an American rhythm and blues and rock and roll singer, songwriter, producer, and pianist from New Orleans, Louisiana...
, and Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
. It led him to value feeling over technique in the recording studio. Concerns about religious objections to the secularization of gospel music, combined with a contract dispute, resulted in his decision not to put out a pop record with gospel singer Sam Cooke
Sam Cooke
Samuel Cook, , better known under the stage name Sam Cooke, was an American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He is considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of soul music. He is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocal abilities and...
. He recorded but ultimately chose not to release two songs that later became big hits, "You Send Me
You Send Me
-Background:Cooke made a demo recording of "You Send Me" featuring only his own guitar accompaniment in the winter of 1955. The first recording of the track was made in New Orleans in December 1956 in the same sessions which produced "Lovable", the first release outside the gospel field for Cooke...
" and "Summertime"
Summertime (song)
"Summertime" is an aria composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. The lyrics are by DuBose Heyward, the author of the novel Porgy on which the opera was based, although the song is also co-credited to Ira Gershwin by ASCAP....
.
In 1952, Rupe first traveled to New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
because of his attraction to the gospel sound of Fats Domino
Fats Domino
Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino, Jr. is an American R&B and rock and roll pianist and singer-songwriter. He was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Creole was his first language....
who played piano in the band of Dave Bartholomew
Dave Bartholomew
Dave Bartholomew is a musician, band leader, composer and arranger, prominent in the music of New Orleans throughout the second half of the 20th century...
, a former trumpeter with Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
. It was on this trip that he auditioned and then recorded Lloyd Price
Lloyd Price
Lloyd Price is an American R&B vocalist. Known as "Mr. Personality", after the name of one of his biggest million-selling hits...
.
Rupe obtained his most successful artist when a then little known recording artist called "Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
" followed Lloyd Price's suggestion and sent Rupe a demo record. Art sent Blackwell to New Orleans to do a recording session. During a recording break Little Richard sang an obscene song while playing the piano. Blackwell sensed that it was a hit and after cleaning up the lyrics there was not time to teach the song to a piano player. So Little Richard both played and sang the only song to emerge out of that first session done in just three takes, "Tutti Frutti
Tutti Frutti (song)
"Tutti Frutti" is a 1955 song by Little Richard, which became his first hit record. With its opening cry of "A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bop-bop!" 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...
", one of the most significant rock and roll records ever made. Rupe also recorded Guitar Slim
Guitar Slim
Eddie Jones , better known as Guitar Slim, was a New Orleans blues guitarist, 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"...
, with a young Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
on piano. In addition, Specialty issued records such as "Cherokee Dance" by Froggy Landers, "(Everytime I Hear) That Mellow Saxophone" by Roy Montrell, "Drunk" by Jimmy Liggins, and the rock & roll "Moose On The Loose" by Roddy Jackson
Roddy Jackson
George Rodrick "Roddy" Jackson is an American rockabilly and rock and roll singer, songwriter, pianist and saxophonist, who recorded for Specialty Records in the 1950s.-Life and career:...
.
When asked why Specialty was so successful, Rupe credited his own ability to produce rather than his business skills. In the early 1960s, he stopped producing records but remained active in the music business as a publisher. He returned during the fifties revival period in the late 1960s but only to reissue landmark recordings of the R&B era. Rupe sold Specialty to Fantasy Records
Fantasy Records
Fantasy Records is a United States-based record label that 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.
During the 1960s and later, Rupe became increasingly involved in oil and gas investments. Success in this area allowed him to establish the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation, a philanthropy based in Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
.
In 2007, Rupe was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame
Blues Hall of Fame
The Blues Hall of Fame is a listing of people who have significantly contributed to blues music. Started in 1980 by the Blues Foundation, it honors those who have performed, recorded, or documented blues.-1980:*Big Bill Broonzy*Willie Dixon*John Lee Hooker...
.
On December 15, 2010, it was announced that Rupe will be awarded the Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegün was a Turkish American musician and businessman, best known as the founder and president of Atlantic Records. He also wrote classic blues and pop songs and served as Chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum...
Award (along with former Elektra Records
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
head Jac Holzman
Jac Holzman
Jac Holzman was the founder, chief executive officer and head of both Elektra Records and Nonesuch Records.-Biography:He founded Elektra Records in his St. John's College dorm room in 1950 and Nonesuch Records in 1964...
) by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
.