Various Artists – Vee-Jay: The Definitive Collection
Vee-Jay Records of Chicago was not the first successful black-owned label — Duke-Peacock of Houston stakes a better claim to that title — but until Motown exploded, it was certainly the most successful. This four-disc box is unquestionably a definitive collection, far superior to 1993’s three-CD The Vee-Jay Story.
Founded in Gary, Indiana, in 1953 by former DJs and record-store owners Vivian (Vee) Carter and James (Jay) Bracken, the label had but a 13-year run before imploding, but staked out considerable turf in that short time. Its first two artists were doo-wop (the Spaniels) and blues (Jimmy Reed), but Vee-Jay was more an across-the-board label whose roster was a mirror of the evolution of black music (much like across-the-street rival Chess, only with less emphasis on Chicago blues).
Though a house band eventually stabilized there, Vee-Jay never had a sound, like Atlantic or Motown. Instead, it had a great A&R man/producer in Calvin Carter, Vivian’s brother, who had an astute sense of the marketplace and a keen ear, within those confines, for what made each artist different. Under his guidance, the label moved into R&B and nascent soul, gospel, jazz and even white rock (Vee-Jay launched the Four Seasons and, more or less by accident, the Beatles’ American career). All these sounds get at least a little play here.
Doo-wop? The label’s first release, the Spaniels’ “Baby It’s You”, was a #10 R&B hit, though their “Goodnite, Sweet, Goodnite” was far more influential. Then there’s the El Dorados’ bopping “At My Front Door” and the Dells’ sublime “Oh What A Nite”. There was enough continuity at the label that it also reaped rewards from the early-’60s doo-wop revival, most memorably with Gene Chandler’s immortal “Duke Of Earl”.
As for Jimmy Reed, who Carter found cutting up cattle in the stockyards by day while playing harp for King David by night, he was the most consistent blues crossover artist of the ’50s and ’60s. Shuffling, countrified, molasses-dripping hits such as “Honest I Do”, “Baby What You Want Me To Do”, “Big Boss Man” and “Bright Lights, Big City” were so casually simple that everyone — rockers, country singers, other bluesmen — thought they could match his sound, though this proved easier said than done.
John Lee Hooker did some of his most profound work (including “Boom Boom”) at Vee-Jay, while the label also released strong material by stars such as Elmore James and lesser-knowns such as Floyd Jones (whose Chessworthy “Ain’t Times Hard” is a real find). To say nothing of calling cards “Bad Boy” and “Big Town Playboy” by Eddie Taylor, Reed’s second guitarist, who sounded sort of like Jimmy with a chip on his shoulder.
Vee-Jay boasted such gospel quartet kingpins as the Swan Silvertones (“Mary Don’t You Weep” never fails to thrill) and the Original Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. But they also recorded throwbacks the Sallie Martin Singers, and were maverick enough to capture truly unclassifiable (“progressive traditionalist”?) gospel such as the Staple Singers’ shimmering “Uncloudy Day”.
And when it came to R&B and soul, they were all over the map. Gene Allison’s churchy 1957 ballad “You Can Make It If You Try” (later done by the Stones) is one of the earliest harbingers of soul. Jerry Butler’s tracks, from “For Your Precious Love” with the Impressions to “He Will Break Your Heart” and “Make It Easy On Yourself”, trace black ballad styles from doo-wop to orchestrated, middle-of-the-road soul. Betty Everett’s “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” is one-woman girl-group music, while her “You’re No Good”, paradoxically, has a tougher lyric and a softer vocal. (She also had the cult hit “Getting Mighty Crowded”, later revived by Elvis Costello.)
On hits “Nobody But You” and “Raindrops”, Dee Clark puts his resonating but chameleon-like voice against divinely off-the-wall arrangements and productions to create an as-yet-unnamed soul subgenre. Deep soul is represented by the likes of Jimmy Hughes’ “Steal Away”, Gloria Jones’ “Tainted Love” and Joe Simon’s “Let’s Do It Over”, while the comebacking Little Richard conjures up a cross between Sam Cooke and Joe Tex on “I Don’t Know What You’ve Got But It’s Got Me”.
Finally, there are the kind of delightful novelties, miscalculations and obscurities present in the catalogue of any label that, in the grand music-biz tradition, will try pretty much anything in search of one more hit. The Al Smith Combo’s instrumental “Fooling Around Slowly” oozes hoochie-coochie and ooh-la-la. Trinidadian character actor Aki Aleong not only fronts the Nobles on the instrumental “Body Surf”, but gets co-writing credit on Sheriff & the Ravels’ “Shombalor”, which resembles the Bobby Fuller Four trying to rip off the Chips’ “Rubber Biscuits”. You gotta hear it to believe it.
But then, you could say that — usually without such irony — about nearly every track on these four discs. Like its midwestern counterpart King Records of Cincinnati, Vee-Jay has never gotten proper recognition for its role in shaping American popular music. This box is a step toward righting that wrong.