Fact #30943
When:
Short story:
R'n'b pioneer Big Joe Turner records Chains Of Love, The Chill Is On, After My Love Came Tears and Bump Miss Suzie for Atlantic Records in New York City, USA.
Full article:
Ahmet Ertegun (found of Atlantic Records and composer of Chains Of Love) : I'm not really a composer. I had to write songs because we had no songs, and the singers didn't write in those days. The music-publishing establishment didn't have any songs for us.
We had a group of writers: Danny "Run Joe" Taylor, Otis Blackwell, Rudy Toombs. They would come down, sit around. None of them played any instrument, but they would clap hands and sing, "I've got fever," or whatever. Miriam [Abramson] chased Otis out of the office because he asked for $10 for Fever. That's how we didn't get that song.
We used to cut people in. I wrote Chains of Love. [Harry] Van Walls played such a beautiful introduction that I gave him half the song. Five years later, he called me and said he was going to sell his half of the song for $200 or $500 or something. I said, "Please don't, it's something I gave you, and I don't want you to sell it."
He said he needed the money, so I said, "Well, I'll come down and see you." He was playing in Asbury Park or one of those New Jersey summer places, with some little R'n'B band, so I gave him $500 and bought it back.
Now people say he wrote the song and I put my name on it. He never wrote a song in his life - lyrics, I mean. He was a beautiful pianist, still is. I'm going to record him, playing solo, just for fun.
(Source : interview in Billboard magazine, Feb 16, 2007)
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We had a group of writers: Danny "Run Joe" Taylor, Otis Blackwell, Rudy Toombs. They would come down, sit around. None of them played any instrument, but they would clap hands and sing, "I've got fever," or whatever. Miriam [Abramson] chased Otis out of the office because he asked for $10 for Fever. That's how we didn't get that song.
We used to cut people in. I wrote Chains of Love. [Harry] Van Walls played such a beautiful introduction that I gave him half the song. Five years later, he called me and said he was going to sell his half of the song for $200 or $500 or something. I said, "Please don't, it's something I gave you, and I don't want you to sell it."
He said he needed the money, so I said, "Well, I'll come down and see you." He was playing in Asbury Park or one of those New Jersey summer places, with some little R'n'B band, so I gave him $500 and bought it back.
Now people say he wrote the song and I put my name on it. He never wrote a song in his life - lyrics, I mean. He was a beautiful pianist, still is. I'm going to record him, playing solo, just for fun.
(Source : interview in Billboard magazine, Feb 16, 2007)