George Goldner
Encyclopedia
George Goldner was an American
record label
owner and promoter
. He worked, amongst others, with The Crows
, The Flamingos
, The Cleftones
, The Shangri-Las
, The Teenagers
, The Chantels
, Little Richard
and Lou Christie
. He had a son named Cary and a wife named Grace. His grandson George Goldner, son of Cary Goldner, was named after him.
. In promoting his records
, he resorted to paying DJs
at radio stations, and this widespread practice came to be known as payola
. Tito Puente
was the most famous recording artist on Tico Records.
habit would lead to him selling part or all of his record company to Morris Levy
, another dance hall owner. Goldner and Levy formed Rama Records
, which would record rhythm and blues
. The Crows
' hit
"Gee" on Rama would inspire another record label, Gee Records
, whose most successful act was Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers. Other labels Goldner would help establish included Gone Records
, End Records
, and the longest lasting of his labels, Roulette Records
. All of these labels would wind up under Morris Levy's ownership to cover Goldner's gambling debts.
Goldner recorded some of the most important East Coast doo-wop
music of the 1950s, including records by The Crows, The Wrens
and The Valentines
(for Rama
), The Cleftones
, The Five Crowns, Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers and The Heartbeats
(for Gee), The Chantels
, Little Anthony & The Imperials
, The Starlighters, and The Flamingos
(for End) and The Dubs
, The Channels
, The Isley Brothers
and The Trickles (for Gone).
and its Blue Cat Records
subsidiary, was actually co-founded by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Goldner was made a partner in the company and did the promoting of Red Bird releases, while Leiber and Stoller worked on production. Red Bird only lasted two years, as Leiber and Stoller wanted to get out of the record business, and Goldner again developed gambling debts. After an abortive attempt to merge Red Bird with Atlantic Records
, Leiber and Stoller sold their interest in Red Bird Records to Goldner in 1966 for $1, by which time Goldner's uncontrollable gambling habit had placed the label under the control of the Mafia
The Red Bird catalogue (except for releases by The Shangri-Las
whose contract was sold to Mercury Records
) was sold to Morris Levy's Roulette Records.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
record 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,...
owner and promoter
Promoter (entertainment)
An entertainment promoter i.e. music, wrestling, boxing etc is a person or company in the business of marketing and promoting live events such as concerts/gigs, boxing matches, sports entertainment , festivals, raves, and nightclubs.- Business model :Promoters are typically hired as independent...
. He worked, amongst others, with The Crows
The Crows
The Crows were an American R & B singing group who achieved commercial success in the 1950s. The group's first single and only major hit, "Gee", released in June 1953, has been credited with being the first Rock n’ Roll hit by a rock and roll group...
, The Flamingos
The Flamingos
The Flamingos were a doo wop group from the United States, most popular in the mid to late 1950s and best known for their 1959 cover version of "I Only Have Eyes for You".-Early quintet:...
, The Cleftones
The Cleftones
The Cleftones were a doo-wop group from Queens, New York. They were formed in 1955 at Jamaica High School. The group consisted of Herbie Cox , Charlie James , Berman Patterson, , William McClane , and Warren Corbin . They were originally called The Silvertones...
, The Shangri-Las
The Shangri-Las
The Shangri-Las were an American pop girl group of the 1960s. Between 1964 and 1966 they charted with often heartbreaking teen melodramas, and remain best known for "Leader of the Pack" and "Remember ".- Early career :...
, The Teenagers
The Teenagers
The Teenagers are an American integrated doo wop group, most noted for being one of rock music's earliest successes, presented to international audiences by DJ Alan Freed...
, The Chantels
The Chantels
The Chantels were the second African-American girl group to have nationwide success in the United States, preceded by The Bobbettes. The group was established in the early 1950s and attended St. Anthony of Padua school in The Bronx...
, Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
and Lou Christie
Lou Christie
Luigi Alfredo Giovanni Sacco , known professionally as Lou Christie, is an American singer-songwriter best known for three separate strings of pop hits in the 1960s , including his 1966 smash, "Lightnin' Strikes" and his incredible 3 octave vocal range.-Biography:Sacco was born in Glenwillard,...
. He had a son named Cary and a wife named Grace. His grandson George Goldner, son of Cary Goldner, was named after him.
Early life
Goldner was born in New York City. He originally made his living in the garment industry as a salesman. His love of Latin Music led him to the original dance palace called The Palladium. In 1948 Goldner decided to start his own record company called Tico. His early signings to the label were Joe Loco, Tito Puente, Machito, Tito Rodrigues.Tico Records
In the late 1940s, Golder formed his first record label, Tico RecordsTico Records
Tico Records was a New York record label that was founded in 1948. It was originally owned by George Goldner and later acquired by Morris Levy and incorporated into Roulette Records. It specialized in Latin music and was significant for introducing artists such as Ray Barretto and Tito Puente...
. In promoting his records
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
, he resorted to paying DJs
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...
at radio stations, and this widespread practice came to be known as payola
Payola
Payola, in the American music industry, is the illegal practice of payment or other inducement by record companies for the broadcast of recordings on music radio, in which the song is presented as being part of the normal day's broadcast. Under U.S...
. Tito Puente
Tito Puente
Tito Puente, , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, was a Latin jazz and Salsa musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey de los Timbales" and "The King of Latin Music"...
was the most famous recording artist on Tico Records.
Morris Levy
In a recurring pattern, Goldner's gamblingGambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
habit would lead to him selling part or all of his record company to Morris Levy
Morris Levy
Morris Levy was an American music industry executive, best known as the founder and owner of Roulette Records...
, another dance hall owner. Goldner and Levy formed Rama Records
Rama Records
Rama Records was a record label founded by George Goldner in 1953 in New York City. It recorded doo-wop groups such as The Crows and The Harptones....
, which would record rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
. The Crows
The Crows
The Crows were an American R & B singing group who achieved commercial success in the 1950s. The group's first single and only major hit, "Gee", released in June 1953, has been credited with being the first Rock n’ Roll hit by a rock and roll group...
' hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
"Gee" on Rama would inspire another record label, Gee Records
Gee Records
Gee Records began in 1953 in New York as a subsidiary to George Goldner's Tico Records and Rama Records labels. Sometime in 1955 Goldner sold 50% of Gee to Joe Kolsky who was a business partner of Morris Levy....
, whose most successful act was Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers. Other labels Goldner would help establish included Gone Records
Gone Records
Gone Records was a record label founded by George Goldner that was active in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was founded in 1957. Among the artists that recorded for the label were Bill Haley & His Comets, Ral Donner, Jo-Ann Campbell, and Johnny Rivers. It was acquired by Morris Levy and...
, End Records
End Records
End Records was a record label founded in 1957 by George Goldner. In 1962 the label was acquired by Morris Levy and incorporated into Roulette Records. Among its more successful recording acts were The Flamingos, The Chantels, and Little Anthony and the Imperials...
, and the longest lasting of his labels, Roulette Records
Roulette Records
Roulette Records is an American record label, which was founded in late 1956, by George Goldner, Joe Kolsky, Morris Levy and Phil Khals, with creative control given to producers and songwriters Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore. Levy was appointed as director...
. All of these labels would wind up under Morris Levy's ownership to cover Goldner's gambling debts.
Goldner recorded some of the most important East Coast doo-wop
Doo-wop
The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
music of the 1950s, including records by The Crows, The Wrens
The Wrens
The Wrens are an indie rock band that formed in the late 1980s in New Jersey. The group consists of Charles Bissell, Greg Whelan, Kevin Whelan, and Jerry MacDonald. Their debut album Silver was released in 1994...
and The Valentines
The Valentines
The Valentines may refer to:* The Valentines , an Australian rock 'n' roll band active from 1966-1970, chiefly noted for their lead singer, Bon Scott...
(for Rama
Rama
Rama or full name Ramachandra is considered to be the seventh avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism, and a king of Ayodhya in ancient Indian...
), The Cleftones
The Cleftones
The Cleftones were a doo-wop group from Queens, New York. They were formed in 1955 at Jamaica High School. The group consisted of Herbie Cox , Charlie James , Berman Patterson, , William McClane , and Warren Corbin . They were originally called The Silvertones...
, The Five Crowns, Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers and The Heartbeats
The Heartbeats
The Heartbeats were a 1950s American doo-wop group best known for their song "A Thousand Miles Away", which charted at #53 in the US Billboard listings in 1957....
(for Gee), The Chantels
The Chantels
The Chantels were the second African-American girl group to have nationwide success in the United States, preceded by The Bobbettes. The group was established in the early 1950s and attended St. Anthony of Padua school in The Bronx...
, Little Anthony & The Imperials
Little Anthony & The Imperials
Little Anthony and the Imperials is a rhythm and blues/soul/doo-wop vocal group from New York, first active in the 1950s. Lead singer Jerome Anthony "Little Anthony" Gourdine was noted for his high-pitched falsetto voice, influenced by Jimmy Scott...
, The Starlighters, and The Flamingos
The Flamingos
The Flamingos were a doo wop group from the United States, most popular in the mid to late 1950s and best known for their 1959 cover version of "I Only Have Eyes for You".-Early quintet:...
(for End) and The Dubs
The Dubs
The Dubs are an American doo wop vocal group formed in 1956, best known for their songs "Could This Be Magic", "Don't Ask Me To Be Lonely" and "Chapel of Dreams".-Original career, 1956-1958:The original members of the Dubs were:...
, The Channels
The Channels
The Channels were an American doo wop group from New York City.The Channels formed in 1955 around the singers Larry Hampden, Billy Morris, and Edward Doulphin; they started as a quintet with two additional part-time members, but soon after they permanently added Earl Michael Lewis and Clifton...
, The Isley Brothers
The Isley Brothers
The Isley Brothers are a highly influential, successful and long-running American music group consisting of different line-ups of six brothers, and a brother-in-law, Chris Jasper...
and The Trickles (for Gone).
Red Bird Records
Goldner's last successful label, Red Bird RecordsRed Bird Records
Red Bird Records was a record label started by American pop music songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1964. Though often thought of as a "girl-group" label, female-led acts made up only 40% of the artist roster on Red Bird and its associated labels...
and its Blue Cat Records
Blue Cat Records
Blue Cat Records was the name of two unconnected record labels.Blue Cat Records ' was a subsidiary label of Red Bird Records. It had a hit in 1965 with "The Boy from New York City" by the Ad Libs....
subsidiary, was actually co-founded by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Goldner was made a partner in the company and did the promoting of Red Bird releases, while Leiber and Stoller worked on production. Red Bird only lasted two years, as Leiber and Stoller wanted to get out of the record business, and Goldner again developed gambling debts. After an abortive attempt to merge Red Bird with Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
, Leiber and Stoller sold their interest in Red Bird Records to Goldner in 1966 for $1, by which time Goldner's uncontrollable gambling habit had placed the label under the control of the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
The Red Bird catalogue (except for releases by The Shangri-Las
The Shangri-Las
The Shangri-Las were an American pop girl group of the 1960s. Between 1964 and 1966 they charted with often heartbreaking teen melodramas, and remain best known for "Leader of the Pack" and "Remember ".- Early career :...
whose contract was sold to Mercury Records
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is a record label operating as a standalone company in the UK and as part of the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group in the US; both are subsidiaries of Universal Music Group. There is also a Mercury Records in Australia, which is a local artist and repertoire division of Universal...
) was sold to Morris Levy's Roulette Records.