Biography
Syd Nathan ranked among the music business’s most peculiar personalities as founder and leader of Cincinnati’s King Records. He launched the company to build upon his record retail operation and demonstrated an exceptional gift for recognizing the sounds sought by African-Americans who were leaving the South for northern cities, allowing him to secure contracts with leading R&B and country performers of the era. Nicknamed “Little Ceasar” for his short stature, heavy build, and dictatorial control of the company, Nathan routinely berated and bullied both his roster and his staff. Nevertheless, his autocratic methods produced an unusually broad and gifted collection of talent whose King recordings included Tiny Bradshaw, Cleanhead Vinson, Little Willie John, the Midnighters, the “5” Royales, Cowboy Copas, and, above all, James Brown.
Brown arrived in the late ’50s as lead singer of the Famous Flames and maintained a contentious association with Nathan throughout a tenure exceeding ten years, an association that ultimately prompted litigation resulting in a revised contract granting Brown greater independence. Nathan notably resisted the five-thousand-dollar outlay needed to record Brown’s landmark 1962 Live at the Apollo LP. While such miscalculations occurred, they remained atypical; King otherwise generated some of the strongest independent country and R&B releases of the ’50s and ’60s.
Brown arrived in the late ’50s as lead singer of the Famous Flames and maintained a contentious association with Nathan throughout a tenure exceeding ten years, an association that ultimately prompted litigation resulting in a revised contract granting Brown greater independence. Nathan notably resisted the five-thousand-dollar outlay needed to record Brown’s landmark 1962 Live at the Apollo LP. While such miscalculations occurred, they remained atypical; King otherwise generated some of the strongest independent country and R&B releases of the ’50s and ’60s.