Billy Vera Interview

This attractive 4 cd box set holds almost 6 hours of stompin', joyous, exuberant rhythm & blues. Specialty exemplifies the post World War II independent labels which sprang up to record the hot new musical styles emanating from America's inner cities. Specialty's owner Art Rupe-- like the founders of Chess, Atlantic, Sun, Imperial, and other indies -- was a small-time white entrepreneur with a love for black music, an adventurous, pragmatic approach to recording, and a shrewd sense for finding and marketing the hot artists which ghetto audiences loved but major labels were ignoring. Building their rosters on the jumping new small band R&B sound, Rupe and the other independents ushered in a new era in the mid- '50's, when the music, shifting gears only slightly, found a huge new audience of white teenagers, and became known as rock & roll.

Rupe was based in Los Angeles, and recorded primarily in L.A. and also, significantly in New Orleans. As this fact suggests, the bands and artists he found and showcased represent, not the raw, gritty, Mississippi-based styles which attracted the Chess brothers in Chicago and Sam Phillips in Memphis, but rather the more polished, swing-based, "jump" blues sound which emigrated to the West Coast from Texas, Kansas City, New Orleans. With rollicking boogie-woogie piano weaving through tight riffing horn sections, Rupe's artists represented the good-humored, upbeat new music which dominated the R&B charts in the late '40's and early '50's.

Specialty's most successful artist in this period was the veteran drummer-singer Roy Milton, and this box includes the nineteen R&B hits he charted, all displaying his hearty, straight-ahead vocal style, inventive horn arrangements, driving rhythm, and the marvelous Camille Howard's incendiary piano playing, which soars and swoops delightfully through the band, adding the magic touch to all of these sides. There are also a few numbers by Howard as a vocalist; and five wonderful sides each by the bands of brothers Joe Liggins and Jimmy Liggins, who are actually better singers and inventive writer-arrangers than Milton even though they didn't match his track record on the charts. The unique and deeply soulful blues poet Percy Mayfield makes his debut with 7 cuts here, including his original recording of "Please Send Me Someone to Love." And there are numerous individual entries, some by artists better known on other labels (Clifton Chenier, Floyd Dixon, Earl King), others the only hit by obscure talents such as Li'l Millet, Johnny Fuller, and the now-legendary Guitar Slim

To make the transition to rock'n'roll superhit status in the '50's, the R&B indies needed wild, charismatic, younger stars whose charm and individuality would make them irresistible to the expanding white audience. Specialty found its greatest star in the magical Little Richard, and the later discs of this set are dominated by the 19 hits he blasted out for the label from 1955 to '57, before (temporarily) abandoning rock & roll for the ministry. The rock and roll period also brought Specialty the amazing duo of Don & Dewey, whose razor-sharp duet vocals were the model for both the Righteous Brothers and Sam & Dave, and whose music ("Koko Joe", "Big Boy Pete," etc.) is if anything even wilder and harder-driving than Richard's -- too wild (and too black), in fact, to be accepted on white radio at the time. Rupe also scored several solid and influential pop hits each by New Orleans singers Lloyd Price and Larry Williams,among others. And there is a hint of the soul music era to come: we hear the wonderfully fluid, affecting vocal style of Sam Cooke dominating two gospel outings by the Soul Stirrers, and the same style translated effortlessly into one of his first secular pop numbers. Specialty's chronology essentially ends here, as Art Rupe, disenchanted with payola practices and other changes in the music industry, quit recording to pursue other business interests by around 1960.

The Specialty Story includes an attractive 44-page booklet with cool period photos and ads, thorough discographical documentation, and well-written, informative notes by compiler Billy Vera. Some of the selections might be debatable, featuring a name performer not at his peak, a Vera fave, or a novelty song which does not fit equally well in this context. However, many of the obscurities in the set are indeed under-recognized classics. A case could also be made in favor of more outstanding gospel from the outstanding Specialty vaults than this set includes. You can find many of these fine gospel tracks on Specialty's Greatest Gospel Gems, a 70 minute single cd. Overall, the total value and impact of The Specialty Story is enormous; it provides a snapshot of a crucial period in 20th Century music, and dozens upon dozens of rich classic performances which are soulful, rockin', and indispensable.