The very first items to appear with a Parrot label are in the same U4300 matrix series out of Universal. Campbell.īenson seems to have had Parrot in mind well before he had amassed the wherewithal to launch his own record company. Willie Mabon on the very first Parrot release. Our King Kolax discography presents details of the Williams and Overbea sides. The Chess brothers were his best (as far as we know, his only) customers, purchasing masters by Willie Mabon, Danny Overbea, and Joe Williams and issuing them on their Chess and Checker labels. The session includes Benson himself singing (well, reciting) "I Can't Give You Anything but Love." In 1952 he started a series of recording sessions at Universal Recording, in the hope of selling the material to established companies a U4300 matrix series was opened for this effort. In March 1951, he supervised a session by jazz violinist Eddie South, which he sold to the Chess brothers (see our Eddie Johnson page for details). Consequently Old Swing-Master shut down in June 1950.īenson couldn't stay away from recording for long. Sonderling decided to phase out his involvement in the record business, closing down his pressing operation and acquiring radio station WOPA. By the end of 1949, Old Swing-Master became inactive except as a conduit for some material Miracle had turned over to Sonderling to settle debts. Benson may have done a little freelance recording for sale to other labels while involved with Old Swing-Master at least the session done at some point in 1949 by the Blues Rockers (later sold to Aristocrat) is thought to be his work. And, so far as we can determine, those projects were done before the label was launched. Just the releases by the Benson All Star Orchestra, Old Swing-Master 15 and 16, and the Four Shades of Rhythm, Old Swing-Master 23, came out of Al Benson recording projects. The label sustained itself by ingesting material acquired from defunct local labels like Rhumboogie, Marvel, Planet, and Sunbeam. Benson was really a front man the outfit had come into being so his business partner, Egmont Sonderling, who owned Master Records and the United Broadcasting Studios, could issue jazz and R&B masters that Vitacoustic had recorded at his studio and failed to pay for. He was in the studios a few months later, recording four numbers by the Benson All-Star Orchestra (see the Eddie Johnson pages for details), followed in the fall by a session with the Four Shades of Rhythm.īenson opened his first company - it was called Old Swing-Master, after his DJ handle - in January 1949. Quickly he became one of the biggest powers in the R&B business.īenson began doing freelance recording in the spring of 1948 (when he taped at least 6 tracks at a live session at the Pershing Ballroom, edited them, and sold them to Aristocrat). His skill at selling commercial time on his church program landed him an R&B show at WGES toward the end of 1945. Al Benson began his career as a DJ in 1943, with a new gospel show on Chicago radio station WGES. (There is a biographical profile in "Al Benson-The Godfather of Black Radio in Chicago" by the late Charles Walton, available on the Jazz Institute of Chicago website.) In his earlier days, Benson sang, produced shows at a theater in Jackson, worked as a probation officer, and preached. Born Arthur Leaner in Jackson, Mississippi, he arrived in Chicago in 1923. Parrot Records was the creation of noted Chicago DJ Al Benson (1908-1978). An advertisement for Parrot 1000 and Parrot 782, from Cash Box on August 29, 1953, has led us to realize that the Bessie Griffin single (Parrot 1000) is from 1953 and was released in the company's second official batch. We've discovered that Parrot did not merely lease masters from Swing Time for distribution-there was a formal alliance between the companies from September 1953 through January 1954, during which time they shared a national sales manager. Savoy 1165, with two Joe Williams sides recorded for Blue Lake, came out in July 1955. We have an earlier date for Savoy's first acquisition from Parrot/Blue Lake: it dawned on us that this took place while the label was still active and Al Benson still owned it. We have added to our biography of pianist Henry Gray, who died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Februhe was 95 years old.
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