Shelby Singleton, famed producer, record executive and promoter, dies at 77 at tennessean.com | Tune In Music CityShelby Singleton, famed producer, record executive and promoter, dies at 77
Shelby Singleton died just before 1 p.m. Wednesday in Alive Hospice Care at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, at age 77.Shelby Singleton (photo: Jack Corn)
Mr. Singleton was a renegade producer, record executive, song-hunter and promoter who helped fuse country and R&B music in the 1960s and who perpetuated the Sun Records label since 1969. He had been battling brain cancer.
“A lot of people in this town owe a lot to Shelby,” said friend and protégé Jerry Kennedy, himself a famed producer. “He created a place here for a lot of us. Shelby did things in a different way. He was a maverick.”
Mr. Singleton produced Jeannie C. Riley’s “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” a No. 1 country hit that became one of the biggest independent records in Nashville history when released on his Plantation Records. He was an essential enabler in the careers of Ray Stevens, Jerry Reed, Roger Miller, Merle Kilgore and many others, He may be the only producer to record three No. 1 country records in one day on three different artists: Stevens, Leroy Van Dyke and Joe Dowell.
He was also, as Belmont University music business professor Don Cusic noted, “A wheeler-dealer.” And, as Kennedy said, “A clique-buster.” Most everyone who came into contact with him agreed that he was a character. He was also the owner of a brand new Rolls Royce.
“The Rolls came in on Monday,” Cusic said. “I’d seen him last week and he told me he’d ordered it. He said he’d always wanted one, and he said, ‘At my age and in my condition, I figured I’d better get it soon.’”If Mr. Singleton’s career in music is any indication, it’s likely a very, very nice car. And he probably got it at a good price. During the early 1960s, he headed Mercury Records’ Smash imprint, where over and again he found quality recordings and viable artists, snapped them up for Smash and released hit records.
He heard a Texas pop duo named Jill and Ray on a recording of a song called “Hey Paula.” The recording was soon reissued on Smash, but not before Mr. Singleton changed the duo’s name to Paul and Paula. Jill and Ray didn’t like the idea at first, but they grew used to it by February 1963, when the song topped American pop charts.
A year earlier, he heard Bruce Channel’s “Hey! Baby,” a song that featured distinctive harmonica from a young Delbert McClinton. That one became a No. 1 hit for Smash after Mr. Singleton bought the master recording. With Smash, Mr. Singleton also presided over a roster that grew to include Roger Miller, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bobby Hebb, Ivory Joe Hunter, Pete Drake, Patti Page and James Brown. That roster included artists of varying styles, and it was not uncommon for Mr. Singleton to preside over sessions that featured African-American artists and white musicians.
“He brought (African-American) artists to town and put them up at his house,” said Kennedy, who often engineered sessions that Mr. Singleton produced, and who also produced hundreds of records for Kennedy-owned labels. “He brought people like Clyde McPhatter, Brook Benton and Ruth Brown here, and the only hotel where they were allowed to stay was the old Eldorado, in North Nashville. So most of the time, the artists stayed with Shelby.”
When Mr. Singleton heard Roger Miller singing witty, up-tempo numbers that were at odds with the serious-sounding material Miller was recording for RCA, Mr. Singleton signed Miller and told him he’d been singing the wrong songs. Miller immediately entered the studio and recorded 16 sides, including “Dang Me,” and his career turned a corner. And when Mr. Singleton — at the time a southeastern regional promotions man for Mercury — heard Stevens singing in an Atlanta nightclub, he soon offered the young performer a job in Nashville.
“When I left that job, he did the same thing for Jerry Reed,” Stevens said. “Shelby brought a lot of people to town. And working with him on the music later on, he had good instincts. Sometimes he did things I didn’t think were right at the time, but it turned out the decisions he made were right. Like, ‘Ahab’ was a four-minute song. He sliced it up and made it shorter. That bothered me at the time, but there’s no way the song would have been a radio hit if it had been four minutes long.”
In 1967, Mr. Singleton left Mercury and started Shelby Singleton Productions Inc. with $1,000. Twenty months later, his corporate value was estimated at more than $2 million. Much of that increase was due to “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” a song from the pen of Tom T. Hall. On Friday, July 26, 1968, Mr. Singleton produced Riley’s recording with featured instrumentation on the “pickin’ Dobro” from Kennedy. That night, he rushed the finished product to influential WSM disc jockey Ralph Emery. By daybreak, it was a hit: a literal overnight success. In a country music era dominated by Music Row’s major labels, Mr. Singleton’s little Plantation label sold millions of copies of “Harper Valley P.T.A.”
On July 1, 1969, Mr. Singleton purchased Sun Records, the label for which Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich and others had recorded. Mr. Singleton began mining many of those artists’ back catalogs for release on Sun, and he oversaw licensing of reissues and the marketing of the ever-popular Sun Records T-shirts and other souvenirs.
“He was the all-around record guy,” Kennedy said. “Just a great merchandising guy, promoter and producer. He did it all, and he seemed to get along with everybody. Shelby was one of the biggest-hearted people around.”
Stevens, himself one of the most unique souls to smack boot heels on a Music City sidewalk, said, “Shelby Singleton was absolutely one of a kind.”
October 7, 2009
RIP Shelby Singleton, famed producer, record executive and promoter, dies at 77 | at tennessean.comTune In Music City
Un cáncer mata a Willy DeVille | El Periódico de Catalunya | Cultura
Un cáncer mata a Willy DeVille | El Periódico de Catalunya | CulturaUn cáncer mata a Willy DeVille
- • El autor de ‘Demasiado corazón’ fallece en EEUU a los 55 años
Vídeo: YOUTUBE. VER MÁS VÍDEOS
- El rockero Willy DeVille, en una imagen del año pasado.
EL PERIÓDICO
nueva yorkWilly DeVille se ha unido a Edith Piaf». Con estas palabras, la empresa organizadora de conciertos Caramba Spectacles anunció ayer la muerte de una de sus perlas: el cantante y guitarrista estadounidense Willy DeVille, autor de cientos de temas; entre ellos, la mil veces cantada Demasiado corazón.
DeVille –aunque su verdadero nombre era William Borsey– murió «en paz» durante la noche del pasado jueves, 6 de agosto, en Nueva York. «Su música y su espíritu estarán siempre con nosotros», se leía ayer en su web oficial. El líder del grupo Mink DeVille tenía 55 años y llevaba dos meses luchando contra un cáncer de páncreas. Meses antes le había sido diagnosticada una hepatitis C que agravó su estado de salud. De hecho, había cancelado todos las citas preparadas para este año. Sus seguidores estaban informados de todo gracias a su web, en la que los comentarios médicos iban acompañados una frase demoledora: «El corazón roto».
Nada más conocer la noticia, Caramba Spectacles lanzó un comunicado en el que decía que DeVille se había «unido» a Piaf –la diva francesa que le inspiró y con la que colaboró en El gato azul–, a su productor Jack Nitzsche y a su compañero, el guitarrista Johnny Thunders.
DeVille comenzó su carrera en Nueva York en plena época punk, pero su música se abrió mejor paso en Europa que en su país natal. Su reconocimiento mundial llegó de la mano de su grupo, Mink DeVille, que se deshizo a mediados de los años 80. A finales de la década publicó su primer disco en solitario, Miracle, producido por Mark Knopfler. De hecho, el líder de los Dire Straits versionó una de sus canciones, Storybook love, para incluirla en la banda sonora de la película La princesa prometida. La pieza llegó a conseguir una nominación al Oscar. Para su primer disco en solitario, DeVille también contó con la colaboración del músico de country Chet Atkins.
DANDI Y MARIACHI / DeVille era un artista multidisciplinar. En los 90 adoptó un look entre dandi y mariachi, con el que será siempre recordado. Lucía tupé, llevaba el pelo largo y un bigote fino. Calzaba unas llamativas botas de vaquero y vestía un chaleco igual de llamativo. Tiempo después, dio un paso hacia el rythm & blues, el soul y la salsa, dos estilos muy presentes en sus últimos trabajos, Crow Jane Alley (2004) y Pistola (2008).
DeVille era el mejor ejemplo de músico autodidacta. Sin embargo, el éxito no le sonrió siempre. Cuando, en 1971, decidió marcharse a Londres y convertirse en un profesional de la música, terminó completamente frustrado por la terrible falta de éxito.
Sin embargo, siguió persiguiendo su sueño. Cansado de Londres, hizo las maletas y se volvió a su país natal. Pero esta vez fue a San Francisco, donde consiguió dar conciertos en pequeños locales. Después, decidió probar suerte en Nueva Orleans, cuyos ritmos ya no le abandonaron nunca, y Nueva York. Allí también tuvo un merecido éxito, aunque tuvo bastante más reconocimiento artístico en Europa. Tras varios conciertos en el Olympia de París, se declaró como «un gran amante de Francia».
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I'm taking the easy way out here because there simply are no words for how amazing McQueen is and was this season. He is a leader, an innovator, and on top of his game.
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