{"id":2070095,"date":"2025-10-05T09:09:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T09:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2070095"},"modified":"2025-10-05T09:09:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T09:09:21","slug":"king-records-doc-on-pbs-to-show-cincinnatis-place-in-music-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/king-records-doc-on-pbs-to-show-cincinnatis-place-in-music-history\/","title":{"rendered":"King Records doc on PBS to show Cincinnati’s place in music history"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

The story of King Records<\/a> is going out around the country.<\/p>\n\n

The record company that launched James Brown\u2019s career<\/a> and has a legitimate claim of producing the first rock \u2018n\u2019 roll records is the subject of a new documentary by Clifton filmmaker Yemi Oyediran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cKing of Them All: The Story of King Records\u201d<\/a> makes its national debut on PBS at 9 p.m. Oct. 10.<\/p>\n

(Full disclosure: I was interviewed about Cincinnati history for the documentary, but the footage didn\u2019t make the final cut.)<\/p>\n

King Records, operating in an old ice factory at 1540 Brewster Ave. in Evanston, was an influential independent record label in the 1940s through \u201960s.<\/p>\n

King founder Syd Nathan<\/a>, a Jewish shop owner selling used jukebox records, decided to start his own record company in 1943<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

King started out recording country and western performers, such as Cowboy Copas and the Delmore Brothers<\/a>, for what was then called \u201chillbilly music.\u201d He expanded to Black musicians doing \u201crace\u201d records, basically R&B, including Otis Williams<\/a>, Hank Ballard<\/a> and Little Willie John<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Nathan hired the first Black record producer, Henry Glover<\/a>, who worked with both Black and White musicians recording the same songs. That synthesis was the foundation for a new sound \u2013 rock \u2018n\u2019 roll.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Our History: <\/strong>Who is that on Cincinnati’s massive mural? A closer look at the 10 influential musicians<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

PBS open to different stories about race<\/h2>\n

Oyediran and producer JP Leong, partners in the production company Afrochine<\/a>, started working on the King Records film in 2016, when the country was having conversations about diversity.<\/p>\n\n

They then answered an open call from PBS for documentaries from diverse perspectives, and \u201cKing of Them All\u201d was accepted.<\/p>\n

Oyediran spent his early years in Nigeria before moving to the U.S. in the late 1980s. He first heard the name Cincinnati in a news report about the Klan placing a cross on Fountain Square<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOutside of Cincinnati, most of our references to Cincinnati were around race,\u201d Oyediran said. \u201cSo, we wanted to find a story that went differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

They settled on King Records, a story of race, music, diversity, creativity \u2013 and Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Finding the Cincinnati sound<\/h2>\n

\u201cI was really interested in trying to find the Cincinnati sound,\u201d Oyediran told The Enquirer. \u201cI\u2019ve always been into the fact that you have so many cities in America that are really synonymous with particular sounds …<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe Cincinnati sound that I landed on ended up being the James Brown sound, the funk sound, which is trombone, saxophone and trumpet, as the horn section.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Where did that Cincinnati sound come from?<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of it, I think, goes back to the West End of Cincinnati,\u201d Oyediran said. \u201cFrom the 1880s on, you started having a serious population of Black talent in the West End. And that talent really started to get kind of a reputation \u2026 I\u2019d really say a lot of the Cincinnati sound started there.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then when you start mixing in Appalachians that moved to the area after World War I decimated those populations, you end up now having this mixed sound that starts to develop.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s reflective of what was happening in southern communities, but now you have a community that it\u2019s not illegal for a Black and a White person to be in a room together. So now things can really start happening in more creative and interesting ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

The first rock \u2018n\u2019 roll records came from King<\/h2>\n

In the documentary, historians make a strong case for \u201cGood Rockin\u2019 Tonight\u201d by Wynonie Harris<\/a>, recorded at King in 1948, as the first rock \u2018n\u2019 roll record. The backbeat, the rhythm, the use of \u201crock\u201d in the lyrics.<\/p>\n

Does the claim of King\u2019s place in rock music history hold any water outside of Cincinnati?<\/p>\n

\u201cWith music nerds, yes. With the general American public, no,\u201d Oyediran said. \u201cBecause the first time that most of the American public really heard about rock \u2018n\u2019 roll was in the mid-\u201950s with Sun (Records). They marketed towards teenagers. \u2026\u00a0In the \u201940s, King didn\u2019t. And that\u2019s why they missed the boat on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cincinnati was considered for the location of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame<\/a>. But no one in the city took up the cause, Oyediran said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody was interested. Largely because I think nobody was aware of Cincinnati\u2019s place in American musical history. Cincinnati really dropped the ball by not championing it, and that\u2019s why people outside of Cincinnati aren\u2019t really familiar (with it). And the people who were familiar are passing away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

With King Records getting national attention, audiences can now hear for themselves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cincinnati.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story of King Records is going out around the country. The record company that launched James Brown\u2019s career and has a legitimate claim of producing the first rock \u2018n\u2019 roll records is the subject of a new documentary by Clifton filmmaker Yemi Oyediran. \u201cKing of Them All: The Story of King Records\u201d makes its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2070096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[39915,28769,22220,309616,387654,307353,305127,23849,22846,314147,364177,6297,21741,240269,305252,22296,359763,21993,42645,368582,387656,38937,21944,349110,22270,358764,352118,21739,298114,305244,311710,21800,22437,211924,28774,39215,239343,239453,305243,367112,21750,239393,27784,86850,387649,387652,21939,387653,22366,387650,387651,387655,24557,21946,387657,305245,239344,100640,239391],"class_list":["post-2070095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-affiliate","tag-and","tag-arts","tag-black","tag-black-history","tag-brown","tag-cincinnati","tag-country","tag-country-music","tag-documentary","tag-documentary-films","tag-eamotion","tag-entertainment","tag-exclude","tag-exclude-from-paywall-logic-testing","tag-fame","tag-filmmakers","tag-films","tag-from","tag-funk","tag-funk-music","tag-hall","tag-hip-hop","tag-history","tag-industry","tag-james","tag-james-brown","tag-local","tag-local-affiliate-arts-u0026-entertainment","tag-logic","tag-museum","tag-music","tag-music-industry","tag-neutral","tag-of","tag-oh","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-paywall","tag-pbs","tag-people","tag-people-u0026-society","tag-recording","tag-recording-industry","tag-retro","tag-retro-cincinnati","tag-rock","tag-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-and-museum","tag-rock-music","tag-roll","tag-ru0026b","tag-ru0026b-music","tag-society","tag-soul","tag-soul-music","tag-testing","tag-u0026","tag-urban","tag-urban-u0026-hip-hop"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/King-Records-doc-on-PBS-to-show-Cincinnatis-place-in.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2070095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2070097,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070095\/revisions\/2070097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2070096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2070095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2070095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2070095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}