Ralph Bass (record executive and producer; May 1, 1911 – Marcy 5, 1997)

During a lengthy career as a producer and talent scout for the influential independent record labels Savoy, King/Federal, Chess and Black & White, Ralph Bass played a major role in bringing black music into the American mainstream. He recorded some of the greatest figures in black music, including Etta James, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, the Dominoes and T-Bone Walker.

Ralph Bass was born on May 1, 1911, in Bronx, New York. He had an Italian-American-Catholic father and a German-American-Jewish mother. He began studying violin as a young child and played his first concert when he was six. Then, one night at an uptown club changed him. “Chick Webb was playing,” Bass said. “I said to my friends, ‘Listen to that music! Look at those dancers!’”

A few years later, he moved to the West Coast, where he worked at a Los Angeles manufacturing plant. He became the deejay at company picnics and began to think he could make better records than the ones he was playing. Soon, he was hired by Black & White Records and began cutting records by Lena Horne, Ivie Anderson, Slim Gaillard and T-Bone Walker, including the latter’s landmark “Call It Stormy Monday.” In late 1947, Bass and jump-jazzman Jack McVea cut eight sides in three hours at L.A.’s Radio Recorders. “With one more to go and only a few minutes left, the guys ran down a comedy routine called ‘Open the Door, Richard!’,” Bass recalled. “Next thing I knew, I was sitting on a national phenomenon.” “Open the Door, Richard!” – an off-color comedy routine based on an old vaudeville skit – became a major hit and went to Number Three on the pop chart.

Bass then launched his own label, Bop Records, where he recorded a two-part sax battle between Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray titled “The Chase” and “The Hunt.” He then founded Portrait Records, where he recorded Errol Garner. Then, in 1948, he began working at Savoy Records. At Savoy, he recorded such artists as Brownie McGee, Big Jay McNeely, Little Esther Phillips and Johnny Otis.

In 1951, he moved to Federal Records, a subsidiary of King Records. There, he turned out one big R&B hit after another, including such ribald classics as the Dominoes’ "Sixty Minute Man” and Hank Ballard and the Midnighters’ "Work with Me, Annie." Despite its being banned, the latter sold more than a million copies. Bass stayed at King/Federal for seven years. He signed James Brown, and he produced the original version of the R&B standard "Kansas City," then titled "K.C. Lovin" and recorded by Little Willie Littlefield for the label.

In 1958, Bass moved on to Chess Records, the Chicago-based label where he stayed for 18 years. At Chess, Bass worked with an extraordinary roster of blues, gospel, R&B and rock and roll artists. He produced the likes of Clara Ward, the Soul Stirrers, Etta James, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Sonny Boy Williamson. Later, at MCA Records, Bass produced John Lee Hooker.

“All I ever wanted was the musicians’ respect,” Bass said. “And to tell you the truth, I didn’t give a damn if whites ever bought my records!” Ralph Bass died on March 5, 1997.

You know, I looked at Mayfield, and was surprised to find that he didn't seem to have done as much producing as I thought he did. Then again, maybe it's just a matter of his not getting credit. I assumed he did all of the Impressions stuff, but at least some of it (including "People Get Ready") was credited to Johnny Pate. Carl Davis seems to be the producer of the Major Lance hits. I can't really find a producer credit for Jerry Butler's early stuff at all. All I can really find Mayfield being credited for is his own solo material and the soundtracks he did with other singers in the 70s, and I'm not sure that's enough. Maybe it's just a matter of credit not being given where it's due--unfortunately producer credits weren't always given in the 50s and 60s, and unfortunately information on records from that era isn't always easy to find (I've tried to improve some of the Wikipedia articles about pre-Beatles songs, but overall they're woefully lacking).

So if anyone can point me toward anything establishing what else Mayfield did produce, I'd be grateful.

Of the names suggested so far, the only ones that don't really seem to make it are DJ Shadow (doesn't seem to have produced much other than his own releases) and Adrian Sherwood (more of a remixer). If I'm missing something about those, please let me know. I'll update everyone's three artists later today.

If you have a copy of Dave Marsh's "The Heart of Rock & Soul" boook with his picks for the top 1001 singles, he lists the producer of each record that he can find.

Some examples

Like A Rolling Stone - Tom Wilson
The Message - Slyvia Robinson and J. Chase
I'll Be There - Hal Davis
I Only Have Eyes For You - George Goldner
Goin' Back (Byrds) - Gary Usher
Shirelles stuff - Luther Dixon
Wang Dang Doodle - Koko Taylor - Willie Dixon
Huey Smith stuff - Johnny Vincent
Surfin' USA - Nik Venet
Roy Orbison stuff - Fred Foster


Allen Toussaint produced a lot of New Orleans stufff in the 60s.

Luther Dixon is another one I can't believe I didn't name. Most famous for helming all of the Shirelles stuff, which really firmly established the girl group sound that dominated the early 60's. Great songwriter too in a variety of styles.

Jerry "Swamp Dog" Williams was a very legendary sort of underground production genius. A lot of the quirkiest records around, not huge hits, but a very consistent high quality and well-respected by others in music for his work, even if he detested by most artists he worked with eventually, because of the business end of the deals he made with them. He was, shall we say, a thief. The work holds up though and nobody, no matter how much they hated him and sued him (he was sued a lot), ever criticized his work on the music itself. In the music world there are colorful characters galore, but he stood out as being more colorful than almost any of them. He'd be a good choice for #100, kind of the last name to close things out with a bang.

Two more huge names, known for writing together, but both worked independently as producers, Bert Burns, who produced such things as Erma Franklin's "Piece Of My Heart", The Jarmels hit "A Little Bit Of Soap", Solomon Burke's "Cry To Me", The Isley Brother's "Twist & Shout", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl".

His frequent co-writer, Jerry Ragavoy, produced a ton of great records including all of Garnet Mimms stuff ("Cry Baby" being the biggest and most important), all of Howard Tate's sides ("Stop", "Get It While You Can", "Look At Granny Run Run", "Ain't Nobody Home") and maybe the best example of his production, the audacious "Stay With Me" by Lorraine Ellison. He later produced Bonnie Raitt among others.

Eugene Record needs to be mentioned for producing all of the classic Chi-Lites sides, for whom he was the writer, lead singer and multi-instrumentalist, and they cut sides using a wide array of styles, yet it all seemed cohesive. He also produced his wife Barbara Acklin's sides, including the huge hit "Love Makes A Woman".

Another interesting question is people who worked well together, but then separated and kept producing on their own, particular those who were artists. We talked about Hayes/Porter, as well as the MG's at Stax, but how about The Fugees. All three co-produced their stuff, which includes one of the best albums ever, The Score, then when they broke up each produced their own sides, most notably Lauryn Hill overseeing her own classic Miseducation album. Would they be listed together, seperately? A very tough decision.

As for Mayfield, back then there were definitely issues regarding proper credit for things. Pate was a producer however, he did the Live At The Regal albums for Gene Chandler and B.B. King, but his role has always been more accurately defined as an arranger, specifically the string and horns. In fact, on a lot of things that Mayfield later did, Pate is credited as the arranger, since that was always his primary role. So was he given credit as a producer when he was simply arranging? I don't know. It's possible, but I don't want to question the accuracy of the credits. Carl Davis was unquestionably a producer, so anything with his name on it I wouldn't take issue with. Actually, a lot of his productions had Pate credited as the arranger too. The interesting thing however is this: On a lot of the sides Curtis wrote for others - the brilliant "You Can't Hurt Me No More" for the Opals, The Artistics "Patty Cake", all of Walter Jackson's stuff, he and Davis were credited as co-producers. You can take this two ways. Either Davis was sort of teaching Mayfield the intricacies of the job and giving him the rightful credit for it, or Mayfield was really overseeing them and because those artists had less stature and sales potential than a Gene Chandler (most of which were Davis productions) or Major Lance, they felt generous enough to give him a slice of the pie. Actually though, I can't find ANY credits for some early Chandler hits that Mayfield wrote, such as Rainbow, so who was producing them? Mayfield? Pate? Bunky Sheppard? Davis specifically didn't come in until later, that much is known. But overall I guess we have to take the credits at face value, unless there's proof otherwise, but it's probably not a coincidence that once the Impressions went on Mayfield's own Curtom label in 1968, that Mayfield himself got full production credit. Those hits include "Fool For You", "This Is My Country" and "Choice Of Colors", some of their most notable work, plus the acclaimed album The Young Mod's Forgotten Story. Then obviously on his own he produced everything as well as producing the huge hits he wrote for Aretha Franklin ("Giving Him Something He Can Feel", the entire Sparkle album), The Staple Singers #1 hit, "Let's Do It Again", Gladys Knight & The Pips "On and On", and many others. That's certainly enough to get him on the list, though he of course would be much higher if he had produced, or gotten credit for producing, the Major Lance, Gene Chandler and earlier Impressions sides. Carl Davis however SHOULD make the list for what he did on those.

Yes, all two of them.

They had 12 Top Ten R&B Hits, 19 that went Top Twenty. I love how you always try and take jabs at an artist you think I like. Very 3rd grade of you. Go sit in the corner now, Bruce, no recess for you.

Only two of them were classics.

Apparently you seem to overrate artists that you like. And underrate artists that you don't like, such as Chubby Checker.

On the other hand, I am currently arguing against my all time favorite artist (Fats Domino) as to where he should rank in relation to Chuck Berry.

I'm not overrating or underrating anything. I never said where Eugene Record should appear on the list, only that he is deserving of being mentioned. He was a good producer in a wider variety of styles than the uptown soul genre was generally known for and had a long track record of success. Don't read so much into a casual comment in your usual witch hunt fashion.

YOU on the other hand, have one notoriously biased ranking on two of your lists that is SO BAD that it could be used to wipe out the rest of your good work here. That's the absurd placement of The Showmen's "It Will Stand" as the ninth best song of 1961. It doesn't deserve to be in the Top 100 by any criteria imaginable. It wasn't a big hit at all, #61 on the charts, (The Chi-Lites non-hits were bigger than that) and it had no influence or impact of any kind. You simply like it. Then you compound your mistake by placing it in the Top 200 songs of the 1960s, over something like "Cold Sweat", which is only one of the handful of most influential records of the decade and a Top Ten hit besides. If you were put on the stand in front of a jury of rock history experts and asked to defend that decision the Funky Judge would lock you up for eternity.

You said that the Chi-Lites should be in the hall of fame, but not the Spinners or Chubby Checker.



Apparently you've never been to the Carolinas where a magazine about Beach Music was named after the song.



Also, check its placement on the "Greatest Beach Music" list, which has become one of the more popular lists on the site:

http://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_songs-beach.html

How many other songs had magazines named after them?

Now, let's talk about your placement of "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" by the Temptations on your "Greatest R&B/Soul Songs" list, number one for 10 weeks on the soul chart and you have it at #132, below lots of records that belong nowhere near it....


77. Adventures In Paradise - Minnie Riperton
84. Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song) - Otis Redding
99. What Am I Gonna Do With You - Barry White
103. Bootzilla - Bootsy Collins
115. At Midnight - Rufus featuring Chaka Khan
118. Stop! - Howard Tate
119. He Was Really Sayin' Something - The Velvelettes
124. Cissy Strut - The Meters
128. Show Me - Joe Tex
129. Rockin' Chair - Gwen McRae
132. Ain't Too Proud To Beg - The Temptations

Play nice, children.

For the record, I think a case can be made that Bruce is overrating "It Will Stand", but to say it doesn't belong on the list is severely underrating it. It has lasting popularity (it even re-charted in '64) and its importance in beach music is significant.

Anyway, here are the additional candidates since I initally posted the list. This does NOT include the ones Sampson was just talking about in the post that started with Luther Dixon--I'll get to them in the last batch. As Sampson mentions, it can sometimes be really difficult to ascertain just who produced some of those pre-Beatles era records (and even a few Beatles-era ones). BTW, I did find that "We're A Winner" is another Impressions hit which Mayfield did indeed produce. A list of exactly what, say, Richard Barrett or Rick Hall produced would be helpful.


Leonard Chess (Chuck Berry, Etta James, Lowell Fulson)
Andrew Loog Oldham (Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull, Del Shannon)
The Bomb Squad (Public Enemy, Ice Cube, LL Cool J)
Willie Mitchell (Al Green, Ann Peebles, Otis Clay)
Chris Blackwell (Bob Marley, Free, Toots & The Maytals)
Prince Paul (Stetsasonic, De La Soul, Big Daddy Kane)
Isaac Hayes (himself, Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd)
Teddy Riley (Blackstreet, Bobby Brown, Keith Sweat)
Norman Petty (Buddy Holly, Buddy Knox, The Fireballs)
Lee Hazelwood (himself, Nancy Sinatra, Duane Eddy)
James Brown (himself, Bobby Byrd, Lyn Collins)
George Clinton (Parliament, Funkadelic, Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Rick James (himself, Mary Jane Girls, The Temptations)
Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley, The Black Keys, Beck)
Flood (Nine Inch Nails, Erasure, Smashing Pumpkins)
will.i.am. (Black-Eyed Peas, Usher, John Legend)
Sly Stone (Sly & The Family Stone, Beau Brummels, Bobby Freeman)
Phil Ramone (Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Julian Lennon)
Lou Adler (The Mamas & The Papas, Carole King, Johnny Rivers)
Chips Moman (Elvis Presley, Booker T & The MGs, The Box Tops)
Rick Hall (Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, Jimmy Hughes)
John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival, himself) (Has he ever produced anything but his own stuff? He really doesn't seem to contribute to others' records much at all.)
Curtis Mayfield (The Impressions, The Staple Singers, Aretha Franklin)
Johnny Otis (Johnny Otis Show, Johnny Ace, Big Mama Thorton)
Terry Melcher (The Byrds, Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Rip Chords)
Nick Lowe (himself, Elvis Costello, Graham Parker)
Mitch Easter (Let's Active, REM, Game Theory)
Frank Wilson (The Supremes, The Four Tops, Eddie Kendricks)
Richard Barrett (himself, The Chantels, The Three Degrees)
Fred Foster (Roy Orbison, Ray Stevens, Kris Kristofferson)

I can share a cell with the most famous rock critic in history, Dave Marsh. He's got "It Will Stand" as the #144 single of all time, ahead of things like "Layla" and "Searchin'" and "Get Up I Fell Like Being A Sex Machine."

77. Adventures In Paradise - Minnie Riperton

This record did not chart pop and only got to #72 on the soul chart. In what fucking galaxy would it be the #77 R&B record of all time?

Look, I LIKE "It Will Stand" and the Showmen in general (Johnson - inside joke). But being a big hit in a cult regional style is not reason enough to place it in the Top Ten for the year. Hell, Chubby Checker's #1 hit "Let's Twist Again", is ranked WAYYYY below it on the 1961 list and in no way do I like that, but it's a far more significant song for 1961 than The Showman's minor hit.

What "It Will Stand" has going for it that makes it notable are lyrics that celebrate rock 'n' roll (but since YOU hate lyrics, that's kind of ironic, wouldn't you say?), therefore it becomes a useful song when someone is celebrating rock 'n' roll and makes for a good title for things such as magazines celebrating that particular KIND of rock 'n' roll. It's defiant in a way, which is a very appealing quality for people who want to keep alive a style of music past its usual mainstream expiration date, nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't make it the 9th Greatest Song of 1961 by any objective criteria. You like it personally and that, more than any other reason, is why you put it where you did.

I accept the fact that you like it and overrated it greatly as a result, but I only bring it up when you start throwing around the same charges at me in an attempt to piss me off and get into one of these arguments that you and the other patients seem to like so much in your wing of the mental institution. Personally I'd think you'd want to have it changed, if only to stop me from using it against you in the future, but also because it is such a glaring weak spot on the lists. It's not as if any more people are going to check it out simply because of the artificially high placement. On the Beach Music list, sure it belongs high, because the normal criteria wouldn't apply, since we're talking popularity in a very narrowly confined region and demographic.

Oh, as for my R&B songs lists, as I have mentioned far too many times to count, they were among the first lists done here and the application of solid criteria was not yet in place by me. They are awful, I've never liked them, and have repeatedly said they should be taken down, and have offered them to Trance to take over if he wants. In fact, he might've and that could be his, or someone else's revision of my list you're commenting on, at least in this case, because I NEVER had Minnie Riperton's song there in any version of my list. I don't even KNOW that song, don't care much for Riperton ("Loving You" I'd consider including because it'd earn it based on popularity), so how it got there I have absolutely no idea, but THAT song making any list here had nothing whatsoever to do with me. You can criticize the original lists that I DID make all you'd like and I'll criticize them even more myself (and can tell you the totally indefensible choices on them), so you're wasting your time, I feel they were worthless. You, however, feel "It Will Stand" is justified in its place and it's not and therein lies the difference.

Brett Alan, this IS playing nice for Bruce, he's just a little unhinged, that's all. We just laugh at it now. Other than that though, we're all good.

"Let's Twist Again" was not a number one hit. It was not even a top 5 hit.




You're listed as the editor, and there has not been a revision on the list since 2004.

Additional candidates, from Sampson's post and also from that British list Bruce linked to:

Luther Dixon (The Shirelles, Chuck Jackson, Jimmy Reed)
Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams (himself, ZZ Hill, Gene Pitney)
Burt Burns (The Isley Brothers, Van Morrison, Solomon Burke)
Jerry Ragavoy (Howard Tate, Garnet Mimms, Lorraine Ellison)
Eugene Record (The Chi-Lites, Barbara Acklin)
Johnny Rivers (himself, The Fifth Dimension, Al Wilson)
Butch Vig (Nirvana, Garbage, Sonic Youth)
T-Bone Burnett (Elvis Costello, Counting Crows, The Wallflowers)
Arif Mardin (Bee Gees, Phil Collins, Hall & Oates)
Jim Steinman (Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, Air Supply)
Jimmy Iovine (Tom Petty, Patti Smith, Stevie Nicks)