Duke Henderson born Sylvester C. Henderson, was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 blues shouter

Blues shouter

A blues shouter is a blues singer, often male, capable of singing with a band. The singer must project, or "shout", to be heard over the drums and musical instruments of the band. Blues shouting was a major pathway by which jazz music edged over into rock and roll...

 and jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 singer in the mid-1940s. His styles included West Coast blues

West Coast blues

The West Coast blues is a type of blues music characterized by jazz and jump blues influences, strong piano-dominated sounds and jazzy guitar solos, which originated from Texas blues players relocated to California in the 1940s...

 and jump blues

Jump blues

Jump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues and rock and roll...

. In the late 1940s he renounced his past and began broadcasting as a minister and gospel

Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....

 DJ

Disc jockey

A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...

. He eventually became a preacher.

Music career

In 1945 Henderson made his debut recordings

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 with the New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 based Apollo

Apollo Records (1944)

The third and best known Apollo Records to exist was an independent record label in business from 1944 until 1962 in the United States. It was formed in New York City in 1944 by Bess Berman and her husband Isaac "Ike" Berman together with Hy Siegel and Sam Schneider...

 label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

. Jack McVea

Jack McVea

Jack McVea was an American swing, blues, and rhythm and blues woodwind player; he played clarinet and tenor and baritone saxophone...

 recommended Henderson to the label, and he was backed on the recording dates by several notable Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 session musician

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

s. These included McVea, Wild Bill Moore

Wild Bill Moore

William M. Moore , known as Wild Bill Moore, was an American jazz and R&B tenor saxophone player....

 and Lucky Thompson

Lucky Thompson

Eli "Lucky" Thompson was a United States jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist...

 (saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

s), Gene Phillips

Gene Phillips

Gene Phillips was an American jump blues guitarist and singer.He was influenced by, and a fan of, Louis Jordan, Wynonie Harris, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, Big Joe Turner and Jimmy Rushing.-Career:He joined the St Louis bands of Dewey Jackson and Jimmy Powell and was later taught lap steel...

 (guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

), Shifty Henry

Shifty Henry

John Willie "Shifty" Henry was an American musician, most noted as a double bass and bass guitar player, and blues songwriter. He also played flute, violin, viola, saxophone, and oboe and was in demand as a session musician and arranger in Los Angeles in the 1940s and 1950s...

 and Charlie Mingus

Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...

 (bass violin

Bass violin

Bass violin is the generic modern term used to denote various 16th- and 17th-century forms of bass instruments of the violin family. They were the direct ancestor of the modern cello. Bass violins were usually somewhat larger than the modern cello, but tuned the same or sometimes just one step...

), plus Lee Young

Lee Young

Lee Young was an American jazz drummer and singer. His musical family included his father Willis Young and his older brother, saxophonist Lester Young. In 1944 he played with Norman Granz's first "Jazz at the Philharmonic" concert.-Early life and education:Young was born in 1914 in New Orleans,...

 and Rabon Tarrant (drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

s). The recordings were not a commercial success and Henderson lost his recording contract with Apollo.

In 1947 Al "Cake" Wichard

Al "Cake" Wichard

Al "Cake" Wichard, born Albert Wichard, was an American blues and jazz drummer, especially active as a recording artist in the late 1940s. Little is known about Wichard except that he died in the early 1950s.-Biography:...

 recorded for Modern Records

Modern Records

Modern Records was an American record label formed in 1945 in Los Angeles by the Bihari brothers. In the 1960s, Modern Records went bankrupt and ceased operations, but the catalogue went with the management into what became Kent Records. This back catalogue was eventually licensed to the UK label...

 billed as the Al Wichard Sextette, and featured vocals by Henderson. Henderson subsequently recorded material for a number of labels over several years. His work was released by Globe, Down Beat, Swing Time

Swing Time Records

Swing Time Records was a United States based record label, active in the 1940s. The label was founded by Jack Lauderdale in 1947 and was headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Swing Time went bankrupt in 1953....

, Specialty

Specialty Records

Specialty Records was an American record label based in Los Angeles. It was originally launched as Juke Box Records in 1946, but later renamed by its owner Art Rupe when he parted company with a couple of his original partners...

 ("Country Girl" b/w "Lucy Brown", October 1952), Modern, and Imperial

Imperial Records

Imperial Records is a United States based label started in 1947 by Lew Chudd and reactivated in 2006 by label owner EMI.- The independent and Liberty Records years :...

. Henderson ended up at Flair Records

Flair Records

Flair Records was an American record label owned by the Bihari brothers, launched in the early 1950s. It was a subsidiary of Modern Records. Its most famous artist was Elmore James, who released ten singles with this label .-Singles:...

, where his 1953 release, "Hey Mr. Kinsey", was billed as recorded by Big Duke, and displayed a knowledge of the then current thinking

Kinsey Reports

The Kinsey Reports are two books on human sexual behavior, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female , by Dr. Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy and others and published by Saunders...

 on human sexual activity.

Later in the decade, Henderson renounced his past, and commenced broadcasting on XERB billed as Brother Henderson. His ministrial gospel DJ career there was short-lived, although the radio station

Radio station

Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

 was later utilised by Wolfman Jack

Wolfman Jack

Robert Weston Smith, known commonly as Wolfman Jack was a gravelly voiced US disc jockey who became famous in the 1960s and 1970s.-Early career:...

. In the late 1950s Henderson broadcast with KPOP

KTNQ

KTNQ is a radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, with a Spanish News/Talk format. It is owned by Univision. on June 13, 1925 until 1955 it was called . From August 1, 1955 until 1960 it was called KPOP. From June 29, 1960 until 1976, it was called KGBS...

 in Los Angeles. After his DJ career, Henderson went on to become a preacher.

In February 1959 Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

reported that Proverb Records was being jointly formed by Brother Henderson. By 1964 its subsidiary label, Gospel Corner, was initiated.

Henderson died in Los Angeles in 1972.

In 1994 Delmark

Delmark Records

Delmark Records is an independent American jazz and blues record label, based in Chicago since 1958. The label originated in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1953 when owner Bob Koester released a recording of the Windy City Six, a traditional jazz group, under the "Delmar" imprint.-History:Born in 1932 in...

 issued a compilation

Compilation album

A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...

 CD

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

, containing 20 tracks from Henderson's late 1945 Apollo recordings.

Compilation album

Album title	Record label	Year of release
Get Your Kicks	Delmark Records Delmark Records Delmark Records is an independent American jazz and blues record label, based in Chicago since 1958. The label originated in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1953 when owner Bob Koester released a recording of the Windy City Six, a traditional jazz group, under the "Delmar" imprint.-History:Born in 1932 in...	1994