OKeh Album Discography

The OKeh Record label's predecessors were founded in Germany in 1910, by Carl Lindström, a German who owned record labels in several countries. In 1918 the OKeh label was established in the United States under Otto Heineman, had come to the US in 1914 and who was backed by Lindström. Heineman coined the word "okeh" and claimed it was an Indian word, but used it to highlight his initials on the early labels, which featured a large "O" and "H" as well as an Indian head logo. After World War I, the OKeh Label was reorganized as a US company called General Phonograph Corporation, based in New York City. OKeh recorded all types of music, but in 1920 it started the black music recording industry by recording and releasing Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues." With unexpectedly strong sales, the Okeh staff began crossing the country looking for not only blues singers, but other non-mainstream genres. In the following decade it distinguished itself by recording blues and jazz, including Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven Combos.

In the spring of 1923, Okeh put out one of the stranger records ever to reach the best selling charts, "The Okeh Laughing Record" [OKeh 4678]. The record consisted of nothing but laughing, starting with mild amusement and building to uproarious laughter. If there were any spoken lyrics, it would have been classified as a foreign-language disc, since it was recorded in Germany, but laughter is a universal language all its own. The disc entered the Billboard charts in early May, 1923, reaching #8. The strange thing about the record was that it had no artist or songwriter's credit, just the title of the record, making it the only literally anonymous record ever to chart. (The record found its way to CD on a 1991 various artist set called The Roaring Twenties [Intersound CDC 1012].)

In 1926, the General Phonograph Corporation was sold to the Columbia Phonograph Company. Eight years later, the Columbia Phonograph Company itself was purchased by the American Record Corporation (ARC). The new company kept the Columbia and Vocalion label names but dropped the OKeh label. In 1938, the Columbia Broadcasting System purchased ARC, and two years later, CBS revived the OKeh name by changing the name of the Vocalion label to OKeh.

OKeh, as a division of record giant Columbia, was independently distributed and used for rhythm and blues and country and western releases. Columbia knew that their mainstream distribution network could not handle these non-pop records effectively, so they farmed out the distribution of the OKeh label to distributors more in tune with the record shops, clubs, disc jockeys and radio stations involved with these genres.

In the early 1950s, OKeh hit it big with Detroit-based crooner Johnnie Ray, whose plaintive weeping rocketed his "Cry" to the #1 spot on the pop charts [Okeh 6840]. It was an anomaly for the label, which was issuing mostly R&B material by Chuck Willis, Joe Williams, Red Sanders, and the Ravens, as well as the country tunes. Ray soon switched labels to the more pop-based parent label, Columbia.

In 1956, OKeh released the outrageous "I Put a Spell on You" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins [Okeh 7072], which didn't chart, but has nevertheless become a '50s classic, perhaps being better known today than it was in the 1950s. At the time, Okeh was not releasing albums, so the companion album, At Home with Screamin' Jay Hawkins, came out as Epic LN 3448. There were also several minor chart hits on Okeh in 1957, including "Peanuts" by Little Joe & the Thrillers, "Shirley" by the Schoolboys, and "Dumplin's" by Doc Bagby. But the hits slowed down, and by the early 'sixties the label was practically inactive.

In 1961, the label showed some signs of life when Atlanta-based blues pianist Willie "Piano Red" Perryman, who had amused and entertained rhythm and blues audiences since the 1940s with his zany, inimitable style, joined OKeh. Perryman and his group of musicians, at that time not yet named, gathered in Columbia's Nashville studio at 2:30 in the afternoon on May 31, 1961, and by 6:30 had recorded eight new songs, including a remake of Piano Red's 1950 hit "The Wrong Yo-Yo" [RCA Victor 50-0106]. They also recorded an original song which the Beatles would make very famous a few years later — "Mister Moonlight" — and another novelty song, "Doctor Feel-Good," about a "doctor of love" who only liked women who weighed over 400 lbs. When the latter song was released on January 5, 1962, the group became known as Dr. Feelgood & the Interns. Although "Dr. Feel-Good" [Okeh 7144] and second followup "Right String But the Wrong Yo-Yo" [Okeh 7156] both charted, and a subsequent album was issued, we have been left all these years with the question, "Who were the Interns?" We knew that "Dr. Feelgood" was Willie Perryman, who played piano on the session, but there was no information on the album or anywhere else, it seemed, to identify the backing group. One well-known reference source even claims Willie Perryman was the whole group! But after digging up the recording session sheet from the Sony Archives, we can now say with assurance that the others were Roy Lee Johnson, Jr. (guitar), Howard Hobbs (bass), Bobby Lee Tuggle (drums), Curtis Smith (guitar), and Beverly Watkins (guitar). [Whew. Another mystery solved.]

In June, 1962, Dave Kapralik, the head of the A&R department at Columbia, hired veteran Chicago producer Carl Davis as an A&R producer for the Columbia label and in April, 1963, made him the A&R director for OKeh. Davis immediately hired Curtis Mayfield as an Associate Producer; Mayfield was at that time a singer/songwriter with the Impressions and a much-respected figure in the Chicago music scene. Davis and Mayfield were able to rejuvenate the label and within a year OKeh became a major soul label. Almost all of the hits on OKeh were written by Curtis Mayfield and produced by Carl Davis in Chicago. The sound that Davis and Mayfield created is often called "Chicago Soul". The music featured brass instruments and highly melodic vocals, and was the foundation for the later Chicago rock sound of groups like the Buckinghams, Mob, Mauds, and the Chicago Transit Authority [Chicago], who picked up on the brass, especially. The "Chicago Soul" records did not have the hard rock and roll beat that characterized the Motown and Stax soul records of the time, but reflected an easier, more relaxed, mood. Carl Davis had huge hits with Major Lance, and moderate chart hits with Ted Taylor, Walter Jackson, Billy Butler and the Enchanters and the Artistics.

During the time that Davis was Director of A&R for OKeh, he continued to produce artists on other labels, including Gene Chandler on Vee Jay and Constellation and Mary Wells on Atco, a situation which Dave Kapralik at Columbia discreetly ignored. The downfall for OKeh came in 1965 with a corporate reorganization at Columbia. Columbia management decided to separate the Columbia and Epic labels, and OKeh was put under the Epic organization headed by Len Levy. Levy did not get along with Carl Davis, and when Davis produced a big hit for Mary Wells titled "Dear Lover" on Atco, Levy made an issue of Carl's moonlighting. Davis quit and went to Brunswick. With Davis gone, arranger Johnny Pate and songwriter Curtis Mayfield also lost interest in OKeh.

OKeh still had a pretty good year in 1966 on the strength of the productions that Carl Davis left in the vaults, but from there it started going downhill. Production duties were taken by Larry Williams on the West Coast and Ted Cooper, who produced Walter Jackson from the East Coast. If the "Chicago Soul" sound had left with Davis, Williams worked to create an "Angel Town Sound" from L.A. He brought Johnny "Guitar" Watson to the label, as well as getting his old Specialty label-mate Little Richard on board. Williams re-recorded both his own and Little Richard's Greatest Hits, as well as some albums with Watson, but hits were increasingly hard to come by, and the "Angel Town Sound" never really took off. By 1969, Richard Parker was hired as A&R chief to resuscitate a dying label, but he didn't make much progress. Columbia quietly shut it down at the end of 1970.

During the 1960s, OKeh put out a mere 30 albums, none of which reflected the rich legacy of music recorded before 1960. This was partly rectified in 1993 with the wonderful 3-CD box set The OKeh Rhythm and Blues Story 1949-1957 [Epic/OKeh/Legacy E3K 48912] compiled by Bob Irwin and Vic Anesini of Sony/Legacy. Other compact disc offerings and various artists albums have also somewhat filled the gap.

This discography was prepared using our own collections, original research from the Sony Music Archives, Schwann Catalogs from 1960 to 1970, The History of the OKeh Record Label 1918- 1960 by Rick Dembinsky in Record Finder, Allan Sutton's The Origins of OKeh, and Chicago Soul by Robert Pruter (who is acknowledged as the foremost research authority on Chicago soul).