Howard Kessel — like the Delmore Brothers — is linked to the King Record Company’s earliest beginnings. In a November 15, 1944 article entitled, “Cincinnatian Ignores Swooners – Puts His Chips on Hillbilly ‘Gittar’ Tunes,” The Cincinnati Post‘s Leo Hirtl explains that “Sinatra may come and Crosby may go,” but Syd Nathan and his backers were placing their bets on what would later be known as country, bluegrass, and western swing:
Mr. Nathan, Howard and Evelyn Kessel are associated in the company, which is opening a plant at 1540 Brewster Avenue. They will produce 10,000 records a day, every one of them hillbilly tunes.
When asked, “why hillbilly,” Nathan pointed out how the major labels “left the hillbilly field alone,” and asserted, furthermore, that the top labels like Columbia, Decca, and Victor “are producing only 25 per cent of the records that can be sold.”
Because of wartime restrictions on building recording equipment to order, King worked around that obstacle by redesigning hydraulic presses originally intended for woodworking to produce records instead, Hirtl reported.
King’s physical plant
idealized rendering
Two years later, The Cincinnati Post reported in its October 8, 1946 edition that King had restructured itself into two companies: King Record Company, producers of King “hill-billy” records and Queen “jazz” records, and the Royal Distributing Company, distributors of all recorded product. A.E. Slapin, Samuel A. Rubenstein, and Howard Kessel were all named as “incorporators” of the new King pressing plant operation.
Cincinnati’s Germanic heritage — evident in such place names as Over-the-Rhine — has long been expressed in various fine arts traditions, such as symphony, opera, and the city’s May Festival annual choral events. Birthing a record label that expressly recorded American “folk” music (and also, jazz and rhythm & blues) rubbed against the cultural grain of “the Queen City,” as made plain in the opening paragraphs of J.F. Cronin‘s article, “Strummin’ ‘Geetar’ Is Music To Millions, So Hillbilly Record Company Prospers,” for The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s November 27, 1946 edition:
If Cincinnati has become a seat of musical culture by importing the immortal works of Bach, Beethoven or Verdi, it is widening the field of its musical pursuits by exporting to every corner of the nation the “classics” of the top hillbilly artists.
It takes a great symphony orchestra to satisfy the tastes in music of the followers of established artists, but one fellow with a solid nasal rendition of a corny ballad, accompanied by a “geetar,” can satisfy the musical tastes of an astonishingly large audience of hillbilly-music lovers.
Cronin’s article informs of the widespread popularity of “hillbilly” music throughout the US, as verified by Nathan’s extensive market research that, believe it or not, identified Washington, DC as “one of the top-ranking centers of hillbillies.” Cronin parses the terminology in order to describe the various musical strains that can be found within the broader array of what later came to be known as country and western:
Altogether, hillbilly music is the folk songs of America, Nathan feels. But all hillbilly tunes are not in the same category. There is the swingbilly type, two or three forms of tear-jerker variations, a couple of variations of corn-belt type, the hillbilly boogie, freight train boogie, low-down corn, serious sacred hillbilly types, the Broadway hillbilly and a variety of novelty types.
Later in the piece, Cronin summarizes the complex manufacturing process overseen by Kessel:
A complete manufacturing unit is operated at the Evanston plant. Howard Kessel, President of Royal Plastic, directs the operation. Master recordings are received from the studios. They are duplicated in copper then put through a series of chemical processes to produce the plate from which the records are made.
Record Pressing @ Royal Plastics
Billboard ad
“Our facilities have been enlarged and we can now accommodate the many companies for whom we are doing plating”
A lengthy piece about the integrated workforce at King Records in the December 13, 1947 edition of Cleveland’s Call And Post, an African American newspaper, acknowledged Howard Kessel’s unqualified support for the pioneering staffing policies — developed by the record company’s new personnel director, Ben Siegel — that demonstrate how “it is possible, even in Cincinnati” for people of differing backgrounds and ethnicities to work side-by-side:
“When I was taking a photo in the accounting department, Mr. Howard Kessel, vice president of the King Record Company, stopped by, introduced himself and indicated that he was in full accord with Mr. Siegel’s program.
He surprised me by his knowledge of the Call And Post.”
The following month, Kessel would be photographed sandwiched between King’s Al Miller and Saul Halper (below) at the fifteenth annual coin-op confab held in Chicago, one month into an American Federation of Musicians-led recording ban that would last almost the entire year.
1948 Annual Coin Machine Industries Convention
Cash Box
The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s February 19, 1948 edition noted that eight new distribution branches were being planned to join the six existing branches in Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles, and New York, a move that was approved at the King Record Company stockholders annual meeting, where directors were elected for leadership positions at both King (led by Nathan) and Royal Plastics (led by Kessel). Approval was given for the “construction of additional storage space adjoining the Evanston plant,” reported the Enquirer.
At year’s end, The Cincinnati Post, in its December 28, 1948 edition, referenced Billboard as having rated King “the best selling ‘race music’ label and third in the ‘western’ category.” Cash Box — in a January 1, 1949 article entitled “King Records See Bright Future In Disk Biz With Ban At End” — quoted Syd Nathan, confident and optimistic, “now we have a five-year contract with the American Federation of Musicians which gives us the big break we have been looking for.”
“In recording under the new five-year deal, our plans are to record under a system where details, tunes and musicians can be carefully picked well in advance so that when we go into the studio we feel that the sides we are about to cut are in our opinion the best material available to us up to that moment.” — Syd Nathan
Howard Kessel once again represented King at the following month’s annual coin-op convention in Chicago as part of a delegation that included Al Miller, Lee Sives, and Irving Marcus (below), as reported in Cash Box‘s January 29, 1949 edition.
1949 Annual Coin Machine Industries Convention
(L to R)
Al Miller; Howard Kessel; Lee Sives; Irving Marcus
Weeks later, The Cincinnati Enquirer would report the highlights of the annual meeting of King Records shareholders in the business section of its January 26, 1949 edition. In an address to shareholders, Syd Nathan, the company’s president, noted that the number of distribution branches throughout the United States had increased to sixteen, while record sales of the previous year — during which a recording ban had been instituted by James Petrillo, head of the American Federation of Musicians — had “experienced a big jump.” Stockholders then elected the following slate to the Board of Directors:
Syd Nathan
Elmer G. Hummel 1
Jack Pearl
Jack Kelley
Morry Goret
After the stockholders meeting had concluded, the directors then met and elected the following corporate officers, as reported in Cash Box‘s February 5, 1949 edition:
At the conclusion of the King shareholders meeting, the Royal Plastics Corporation then held its annual stockholders meeting, during which Howard Kessel was reelected president. Kessel reported to stockholders that the Manufacturing Division had accomplished a great deal of expansion, while “a new studio and building to house additional offices was nearing completion,” noted Cash Box. The stockholders subsequently elected these individuals to the Board of Directors:
Howard Kessel
George W. Weitlauf
Jack Kelley
Sydney Nathan
Elmer G. Hummel
Upon the adjournment of the stockholders meeting, Royal Plastics directors elected the following corporate officers:
Kessel’s contributions to King’s successful operations would be also acknowledged the next month in Jack Ramey‘s profile of Syd Nathan’s enterprise — “Juke-Box Operator’s $6 Debt Makes Hillbilly Hits” — for the Enquirer‘s Sunday edition of February 6, 1949:
Syd called in his friend, Howard Kessel, who now is president of Royal Plastics Corporation, one of [King’s] five subsidiaries.
Kessel went out and bought old machinery, some of it from the Federal government.
They obtained a small site in an ice house at 1540 Brewster Ave. in Evanston, put in the cement work themselves, started on the machinery …
They got a machinist in Dayton, Ky., to help at night. The machinist now runs their machine tool department — on a contract to be terminated only if the corporation is dissolved …
They finally got a small unit going, worked it up to a production of 200 platters a day and tried to make it break even. They voted themselves $12.50 a week salaries the first year. But didn’t draw a cent, left it all in the business. The second year they upped it to $25 a week and started drawing it. Their employees, mostly Japanese because of the war, earned twice as much.
Last year they declared a dividend of $5 a share. And as for salaries, Syd says they’re in the money now. Syd contends he never looks at accounting figures. “So long as they don’t have to tell me anything. I know everything is going fine and don’t have to worry about it.”
Not long after, The Cincinnati Post published their own praise piece – written by Jerry Ransohoff – that focused on King’s progressive employment policies under the title, “Record Firm Here Smashes Jim Crow; Worker’s Positions, Pay Keyed To Ability” in their March 21, 1949 edition.
EXCERPT
Two years ago they told Ben Siegel, of the King Record Co. of 1540 Brewster Avenue, that it couldn’t be done.
“Cincinnati is a border town,” said the skeptics, “you can’t get Negroes and white people to work together. It’s too close to the south.”
But Mr. Siegel didn’t believe them. He told [Sydney] Nathan and Howard [Kessel] officers of the company, that he’d be King’s personnel manager only if they’d let him run his department as he saw fit. They backed his policies.
The skeptics were wrong. King hires 400 employees, and the non-discrimination policies have needed no “backing.” Here’s the way things stand today: The musical director [i.e., Henry Glover], assistant office manager, foreman of the mill room, set-up man on the production line, assistant promotion director, legal secretary, a dozen stenographers and 20 per cent of the factory workers are Negroes.
The following year, Howard Kessel earned what might be his sole songwriting credit — shared with Henry Glover and Lois Mann (i.e., Syd Nathan) — on a song, “As Long As Forever,” that was recorded in Detroit on August 30, 1950 by vocalist, Red Miller, who received musical backing on that session from Ted Sheely (piano), Emmitt Slay (guitar), and Levi Mann (bass), according to the recording session information compiled by Michel Ruppli, with assistance from Bill Daniels.
“As Long As Forever“
Catalog of Copyright Entries (1950)
In early 1951, King announced that the company had agreed to begin retooling operations to accommodate the “new” turntable speed of 45 revolutions per minute. Syd Nathan told Billboard that King was gearing six presses of the Royal. Plastics Corporation for use in producing 45 rpm records, as reported in the January 20, 1951 edition.
Cash Box‘s coverage of 1951’s Music Operators of America (MOA) conference held at Chicago’s Palmer House included shout-outs to King staffers Howard Kessel, Jim Wilson, Mary Lou Smith, and (in absentia) Syd Nathan, who was “in Florida,” gossiped the trade journal in its April 7, 1951 edition.
Cash Box‘s July 28, 1951 reporting of that same year’s National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) convention – also held at Chicago’s Palmer House – noted the presence of Howard Kessel, Bernie Pearlman and “Sid” Nathan representing King, whose risque rhythm and blues platter, “Sixty Minute Man,” was one of the year’s big records despite being prohibited from radio airplay.
Later that year, Kessel – accompanied by Jim Wilson – represented King at a “record nite” themed monthly meeting of the Automatic Phonograph Owners Association held at Cincinnati’s Sheraton Gibson Hotel that brought a number of record distributors, including MGM, Delta, Columbia, and Capitol, according to Cash Box‘s December 1, 1951 edition.
Six months later, Cash Box took the unusual step of reprinting an article about the critical importance of copper in King’s record manufacturing process that had originally been published in The Revere Patriot, the house publication of the Revere Copper Company. Unusually rich with technical details about the complex process of vinyl production, this article informs us that King’s Royal Plastics Manufacturing Division – “under the direction of President Howard Kessel” – utilizes forty presses in its disc-making operation, “which gives them the capacity to rank among the top ten record producers in the country.” A 30-second pressing process for each disc, consequently, allows each press to produce about 800 records a day, reported The Revere Patriot.
Copper Plating‘s Importance in Vinyl Manufacturing
Cash Box‘s Jun. 28, 1952 issue
lengthiest article title in Cash Box history:
“The Rise of Syd Nathan and King Records Detailed In Revere Copper House Organ As It Tells The Part Copper Plays In The Manufacture Of Records”
From start to finish, the Revere article underscores, plating plays a big part in vinyl manufacturing, a process that includes the use of copper anodes, as well as the implementation of continuous quality-control checks to ensure that “stampers have stayed in good condition and not broken down anywhere that would cause imperfections in the groove.” Royal Plastics, the article notes, is likewise tasked with the preparation of base material for vinyl (known as a “biscuit”) made of plastic or shellac and subjected to 300 degrees of heat when the press is completed closed.
Revere concludes their piece with one last reference to Kessel:
Royal Plastics under President Howard Kessel, has been a loyal Revere customer. By furnishing them good material and doing our best to keep our delivery promises, we can show our appreciation of that loyalty which helps to furnish added employment for Revere people.
*
Later that summer, Cincinnati’s Cuvier Press Club served as the setting for an intimate gathering that included Bill Sachs (correspondent for Billboard, a Cincinnati-based publication, originally), Eddie Smith, Saul Halper, Morry Goret, Bernie Pearlman, and Howard Kessel to wish Syd Nathan bon voyage before his transatlantic passage to London by boat, reported the The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s September 5, 1952 edition. Nathan’s efforts were directed at increasing overseas record sales for King, who had already set up a “special distributing office in Paris,” according to the Enquirer.
In July of 1953, Kessel would help Syd Nathan and Jack Kelley conduct labor negotiations with the AFL-affiliated Vending Machine Service Employees Local 122, an independent union (represented by Harry Friedman and George Starling), that resulted in King becoming “the first record manufacturing company to become allied with this Union,” as reported in the July 4, 1953 edition of Cash Box.
Help Wanted @ Royal Plastics
Text of 1953 newspaper ad
Kessel’s next notable media appearance would be a February 25, 1954 Cincinnati Post news item about a ten-year-old Mulberry, Ohio singing hopeful (below) who had won a recording session at King, where he got to witness the plating process firsthand:
For The Record —
Glenn Loudermilk, right, 10, Mulberry, O., a boy soprano who hopes to be a recording star when he grows up, has cut his first record. The Post-Coca-Cola Big Wheels Club arranged with Howard Kessel, left, president of Royal Plastics, maker of King Records, to show the young singer how voices are recorded.
Any boy or girl, 6-14, can write letters to The Post telling their grownup ambitions. The best letter each week gives the writer the opportunity to preview those ambitions.
Record Pressing @ Royal Plastics
Billboard ad
“Best pressing deal anywhere”
Three years later, chief executives, Kessel and Nathan, merited a passing mention in Dick Schaefer‘s lengthy chronicle of a Henry Glover-produced Bill Doggett recording session at King Studios that was published in the The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s Sunday edition of May 19, 1957.
In May of 1958, King had found a new general manager, Hal Neely, to join the company’s leadership team — Jack Kelley, Howard Kessel, Al Miller, and Jack Pearl — “in a concentrated drive to attain major status for the label in the next two years,” reported Billboard in its May 5, 1958 edition.
Billboard‘s Bill Sachs caused pulses to quicken, however, when he posted this dramatic news item in the trade magazine’s July 6, 1959 edition:
Tempers flared at King Records here the other day and when the smoke cleared, Howard Kessel, for many years in charge of promotion and production, had tendered his resignation. King prexy Syd Nathan is reported to have purchased Kessel’s 16 per cent interest in the firm.
The following week’s edition of Billboard would check in with Howard Kessel on his future retirement plans:
Howard Kessel, who recently sold his interest in and retired from King Records here, where for many years he guided promotion and production, infos that his plans for the future are indefinite but that after a brief vacation he plans to continue in the record business.
Decades later, when asked by The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s Cliff Radel about the prospect of historic recognition by the City of Cincinnati, former King investor and long-time Royal Plastics president, Howard Kessel (“of Deer Park”) gave the following forthright response for a piece entitled, “King Records Plant Touches Souls In City” in the newspaper’s October 21, 1996 edition:
I’ll be surprised if the city recognizes the building. When we were in Evanston (1944-1970), they never wanted anything to do with us. To them, we were just making records for hillbillies and black people.
POSTSCRIPT
1540 Brewster Avenue and The City Of Cincinnati
1994 = Former Cincinnati mayor Dwight Tillery organizes a coalition of stakeholders and preservationists, the King Records Museum Project Committee — a group that includes The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s Cliff Radel and Randy McNutt, plus members of the Evanston Community Council — whose mission was to take ownership of the original King buildings and reimagine the space as an historic site that recognizes and honors the worldwide reach of this independent music operation during its nearly 30-year history.
1996 = Cliff Radel prompts Cincinnati Enquirer readers to send letters to the City of Cincinnati’s urban conservator recommending that the King buildings be deemed a city landmark — over two dozen letters would be sent. The City’s Historic Conservation Board, however, fails to produce a historic designation report, as originally promised.
2002 = King Records and its legendary artists are awarded the Michael W. Bany Lifetime Achievement Award at the sixth annual Cincinnati Enquirer Cammy Awards.
2007 = WVXU airs a four-hour documentary, “King Records: Cincinnati Legacy,” which surveys the record company’s history and features interviews with such King artists as Otis Williams, Philip Paul, Bonnie Lou, and Rusty York, as well as historians and journalists, including Lee Hay, Darren Blase, Randy McNutt, and Larry Nager.
2008 = The City Of Cincinnati plants a historic marker at the site of the former King Records building.
2015 = The City Of Cincinnati designates the King Records building a historic landmark: a place deserving of protection, preservation, and restoration. The City’s move was in response to the purchase of a 12-acre parcel on Brewster Avenue that included — remarkably, and to everyone’s surprise — the land on which the very King building resides. Dynamic made clear their intention to raze the King building.
2017 = City officials, under the direction of Cincinnati mayor, John Cranley, file a court motion to seize the King site by eminent domain.
2018 = The City Of Cincinnati, in a land-swap with Dynamic Industries, takes control of the original King site so as to preempt the building’s demolition. The City also approves the formation of a 501(c)(3) organization, The King Records Legacy Foundation (KRLF), comprised of business leaders, as well as former King artists, and tasked with the revitalization of the King site.
2019 = Mayor John Cranley proclaims January 5, 2019 to be Bernard Purdie Day in the City of Cincinnati.
2021 = The design of Newport, Kentucky’s new PromoWest Pavilion at Ovation includes a King Records Room that features a mural of King recording artists, while the Hard Rock Casino does something similar for its entertainment complex in downtown Cincinnati.
2022 = King Records site is added to the National Register of Historic Places, thanks to the diligent efforts of Charlie B. Dahan of the King Records Legacy Foundation, Dr. Carroll Van West of the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University, and Diamond Crowder of the Underrepresented Communities Survey and National Register at the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office.
2024 = King Records Legacy Foundation launches a capital campaign for restoration of the original King building as a museum, while that same year, Cincinnati City Council appropriates $205,000 toward the King project.
2025 = KRLF hosts a special fundraising event in July at Cincinnati’s legendary venue, Ludlow Garage. Later that Fall, PBS airs Yemi Oyediran‘s one-hour documentary film, King Of Them All.
ADDENDUM
King Custom Pressings
45RPM‘s King Identification & Dating Guide provides some historical background about King Custom Pressings:
Nathan wanted King to be a self-contained record company that could record, master, press, print and ship records entirely in-house. He created a subsidiary company, Royal Plastics, to handle the pressing of records. In the early 1950’s, a growing market for recording local artists was recognized. As the seven inch wide, 45 rpm format became popular many local artists and groups wanted to record their own record and try their luck in the booming music business. Sometime during 1954, King began to market their custom pressing services to local musicians. Over the next 15 years, King produced thousands of releases for small, independent labels and artists.
LINK
King Custom Pressings Discography
45Cat website also has a special section devoted to King Custom Pressings that allow you the flexibility to arrange the items according to release date vs. alphabetical artist listing vs. alphabetical label listing.
NEW! NEW! NEW!
Zero to 180 outlines its research methodology for augmenting the historical record captured in the King recording session discography compiled by Michel Ruppli in a new journal article:
CLICK ON LINK
King Records & Early Country Music:
Extending The Historical Record Via PragueFrank’s Discographies
Journal article published in
International Country Music.net
- Cash Box‘s account of this same annual shareholders meeting (published Feb. 5, 1949) includes the same slate of Board members, however with James Mulroy in place of E.G. Hummel. ↩︎
