John H. Hammond
Encyclopedia
John Henry Hammond II was an American
record producer
, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s. In his service as a talent scout
, Hammond became one of the most influential figures in 20th century popular music.
Hammond was instrumental in sparking or furthering numerous musical careers, including those of Benny Goodman
, Charlie Christian
, Billie Holiday
, Count Basie
, Teddy Wilson
, Big Joe Turner
, Pete Seeger
, Babatunde Olatunji
, Aretha Franklin
, George Benson
, Bob Dylan
, Freddie Green
, Leonard Cohen
, Bruce Springsteen
, Arthur Russell
, Asha Puthli
and Stevie Ray Vaughan
. He is also largely responsible for the revival of delta blues
artist Robert Johnson's music.
, ambassador to Spain
, and uncle to politician Millicent Fenwick
. Hammond's mother was the former Emily Vanderbilt Sloane, one of three daughters of William Douglas Sloane and Emily Thorn Vanderbilt
. John Hammond and Emily Sloane were wed on April 5, 1899. They also had four daughters: Emily, Adele, Rachel, and Alice, who married musician Benny Goodman
in 1942.
Born in New York
to great wealth as the great-grandson of William Henry Vanderbilt
, Hammond showed interest in music from an early age. At age four he began studying the piano, only to switch to the violin at age eight. He was steered toward classical music by his mother, but was more interested in the music sung and played by the servants, many of whom were black. In his teens he began listening to black musicians in Harlem, who adopted him as a novel mascot, and in 1927 heard Bessie Smith
sing at the Alhambra Theater, a performance which influenced the rest of his life.
Hammond attended the Hotchkiss School
and entered Yale University
as a member of the class of 1933, where he studied the violin and, later, viola
. He made frequent trips into New York and wrote regularly for trade magazines. In 1931 he dropped out of school for a career in the music industry, first becoming the U.S. correspondent for Melody Maker
.
, marking the beginning of a long string of artistic successes as record producer. He moved to Greenwich Village
, where he claimed to have engaged in bohemian life and worked for an integrated music world. He set up one of the first regular live jazz
programs, and wrote regularly about the racial divide. As he wrote in his memoirs, "I heard no color line in the music....To bring recognition to the negro’s supremacy in jazz was the most effective and constructive form of social protest I could think of." This pre-occupation with social issues was to continue, and in 1941 he was one of the founders of the Council on African Affairs
. Hammond was given to exaggeration when speaking of his own achievements, but he had much to be acclaimed for.
By 1932–1933, through his involvement in the UK music paper Melody Maker
, Hammond arranged for the faltering US Columbia label to provide recordings for the UK Columbia label, mostly using the Columbia W-265000 matrix series. Hammond recorded Fletcher Henderson
, Benny Carter
, Joe Venuti, and other jazz performers during a time when the economy was bad enough that many of them would not have had the opportunity to enter a studio and play real jazz.
He played a role in organizing Benny Goodman's band, and in persuading him to hire black musicians such as Charlie Christian
, Teddy Wilson
and Lionel Hampton
. In 1933 he heard the seventeen-year-old Billie Holiday
perform in Harlem and arranged for her recording debut, on a Benny Goodman session. Four years later, he heard the Count Basie
orchestra broadcasting from Kansas City and brought it to New York, where it began to receive national attention.
In 1938, he organized the first From Spirituals to Swing
concert at Carnegie Hall, presenting a broad program of blues
, jazz
and gospel
artists, including Ida Cox
, Big Joe Turner
, Albert Ammons
, Meade "Lux" Lewis
, Sister Rosetta Tharpe
, the Count Basie
orchestra, Sidney Bechet
, Sonny Terry
, James P. Johnson
, and Big Bill Broonzy
(who took the place of the murdered Robert Johnson).
After serving in the military during World War II, Hammond felt unmoved by the bebop
jazz scene of the mid-1940s. Rejoining Columbia Records
in the late 1950s, he signed Pete Seeger
and Babatunde Olatunji
to the label, and discovered Aretha Franklin
, then an eighteen-year-old gospel singer. In 1961, he heard folk singer Bob Dylan
playing harmonica on a session for Carolyn Hester
and signed him to Columbia and kept him on the label despite the protests of executives, who referred to Dylan as "Hammond’s folly". He produced Dylan's early recordings, "Blowin' in the Wind
" and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
."
Hammond oversaw the highly influential posthumous reissues of Robert Johnson’s recorded work (produced by Frank Driggs), convincing Columbia Records to issue the album King of the Delta Blues Singers in 1961. Musicians Hammond signed to the label included Leonard Cohen
and Bruce Springsteen
.
Hammond retired from Columbia in 1975, but continued to scout for talent. In 1983, he brought guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan
to Columbia and was credited as executive producer on his debut album.
, Douglas Hammond (born and died 1944), and Jason Hammond. They divorced in 1948.
The next year, Hammond married Esme Sarnoff (née O'Brien), the former wife of NBC
chairman Robert W. Sarnoff and a daughter of Mary and Esmond O'Brien. By this marriage Hammond had one stepdaughter, (Esme) Rosita Sarnoff (born 1943). Esme Hammond died May 19, 1986 of complications of AIDS
, which had been contracted from a blood transfusion
.
for being credited with co-producing a Bessie Smith reissue in 1971, and in 1986 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
.
He died in 1987 after a series of strokes.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s. In his service as a talent scout
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...
, Hammond became one of the most influential figures in 20th century popular music.
Hammond was instrumental in sparking or furthering numerous musical careers, including those of Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, Teddy Wilson
Teddy Wilson
Theodore Shaw "Teddy" Wilson was an American jazz pianist whose sophisticated and elegant style was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.-Biography:Wilson was born in Austin, Texas in...
, Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." Although he came to his greatest fame in the 1950s with his pioneering rock and roll recordings, particularly "Shake, Rattle and...
, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, Babatunde Olatunji
Babatunde Olatunji
Babatunde Olatunji was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist and recording artist.- Biography :Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, a small town near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nigeria. A member of the Yoruba people, Olatunji was introduced to traditional African music at...
, Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
, George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Freddie Green
Freddie Green
Frederick William "Freddie" Green was an American swing jazz guitarist. He was especially noted for his sophisticated rhythm guitar in big band settings, particularly for the Count Basie orchestra, where he was part of the "All-American Rhythm Section" with Basie on piano, Jo Jones on drums, and...
, Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
, Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, Arthur Russell
Arthur Russell
Arthur Russell may refer to:* Arthur Russell, 2nd Baron Ampthill , Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India* Arthur Russell , British athlete...
, Asha Puthli
Asha Puthli
Asha Puthli is an Indian-born singer-songwriter, producer and actress.Best recognized for her daredevil vocals on the "Science Fiction" album by jazz iconoclast Ornette Coleman, Asha Puthli has recorded ten solo albums for labels like EMI, CBS/Sony, and RCA...
and Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. He was the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan and frontman for Double Trouble, a band that included bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Born in Dallas, Vaughan moved to Austin at the age of 17 and...
. He is also largely responsible for the revival of delta blues
Delta blues
The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...
artist Robert Johnson's music.
Early years and family
Hammond was christened John Henry Hammond, Jr., although both his father and grandfather shared the same name. He was the youngest child and only son of John Henry Hammond. His father attended Yale, graduating with a law degree from Columbia. His grandfather was Civil War General John Henry Hammond, who married Sophia Vernon Wolfe. His father was a brother of Ogden H. HammondOgden H. Hammond
Ogden Haggerty Hammond was an American businessman, politician and diplomat who served as United States Ambassador to Spain from 1925 to 1929...
, ambassador to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, and uncle to politician Millicent Fenwick
Millicent Fenwick
Millicent Hammond Fenwick was an American fashion editor, politician and diplomat. A four-term Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from New Jersey, she entered politics late in life and was renowned for her energy and colorful enthusiasm...
. Hammond's mother was the former Emily Vanderbilt Sloane, one of three daughters of William Douglas Sloane and Emily Thorn Vanderbilt
Emily Thorn Vanderbilt
Emily Thorn Vanderbilt was a member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family.The second daughter of William Henry Vanderbilt and Maria Louisa Kissam , Emily Thorn Vanderbilt was named after her aunt, Emily Almira Thorn, daughter of dynasty founder Cornelius Vanderbilt.The Sloanes were...
. John Hammond and Emily Sloane were wed on April 5, 1899. They also had four daughters: Emily, Adele, Rachel, and Alice, who married musician Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
in 1942.
Born in 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...
to great wealth as the great-grandson of William Henry Vanderbilt
William Henry Vanderbilt
William Henry Vanderbilt I was an American businessman and a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family.-Childhood:William Vanderbilt was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1821...
, Hammond showed interest in music from an early age. At age four he began studying the piano, only to switch to the violin at age eight. He was steered toward classical music by his mother, but was more interested in the music sung and played by the servants, many of whom were black. In his teens he began listening to black musicians in Harlem, who adopted him as a novel mascot, and in 1927 heard Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
sing at the Alhambra Theater, a performance which influenced the rest of his life.
Hammond attended the Hotchkiss School
Hotchkiss School
The Hotchkiss School is an independent, coeducational American college preparatory boarding school located in Lakeville, Connecticut. Founded in 1891, the school enrolls students in grades 9 through 12 and a small number of postgraduates...
and entered Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
as a member of the class of 1933, where he studied the violin and, later, viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
. He made frequent trips into New York and wrote regularly for trade magazines. In 1931 he dropped out of school for a career in the music industry, first becoming the U.S. correspondent for Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
.
Career
In 1931, he funded the recording of pianist Garland WilsonGarland Wilson
Garland Lorenzo Wilson was an American jazz pianist born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, perhaps best-known for his work with Nina Mae McKinney. Wilson was a boogie-woogie and stride pianist.- Career :...
, marking the beginning of a long string of artistic successes as record producer. He moved to Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, where he claimed to have engaged in bohemian life and worked for an integrated music world. He set up one of the first regular live 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...
programs, and wrote regularly about the racial divide. As he wrote in his memoirs, "I heard no color line in the music....To bring recognition to the negro’s supremacy in jazz was the most effective and constructive form of social protest I could think of." This pre-occupation with social issues was to continue, and in 1941 he was one of the founders of the Council on African Affairs
Council on African Affairs
The Council on African Affairs , until 1941 called the International Committee on African Affairs , was a volunteer organization founded in 1937. It emerged as the leading voice of anti-colonialism and Pan-Africanism in the United States and internationally before Cold War anti-communism and...
. Hammond was given to exaggeration when speaking of his own achievements, but he had much to be acclaimed for.
By 1932–1933, through his involvement in the UK music paper Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
, Hammond arranged for the faltering US Columbia label to provide recordings for the UK Columbia label, mostly using the Columbia W-265000 matrix series. Hammond recorded Fletcher Henderson
Fletcher Henderson
James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. was an American pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music. His was one of the most prolific black orchestras and his influence was vast...
, Benny Carter
Benny Carter
Bennett Lester Carter was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He was a major figure in jazz from the 1930s to the 1990s, and was recognized as such by other jazz musicians who called him King...
, Joe Venuti, and other jazz performers during a time when the economy was bad enough that many of them would not have had the opportunity to enter a studio and play real jazz.
He played a role in organizing Benny Goodman's band, and in persuading him to hire black musicians such as Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
, Teddy Wilson
Teddy Wilson
Theodore Shaw "Teddy" Wilson was an American jazz pianist whose sophisticated and elegant style was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.-Biography:Wilson was born in Austin, Texas in...
and Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...
. In 1933 he heard the seventeen-year-old Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
perform in Harlem and arranged for her recording debut, on a Benny Goodman session. Four years later, he heard the Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
orchestra broadcasting from Kansas City and brought it to New York, where it began to receive national attention.
In 1938, he organized the first From Spirituals to Swing
From Spirituals to Swing
From Spirituals to Swing was the title of two concerts presented by John Hammond in Carnegie Hall on 23 December 1938 and 24 December 1939. The concerts included performances by Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson, Helen Humes, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Mitchell's...
concert at Carnegie Hall, presenting a broad program of blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, 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...
and gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
artists, including Ida Cox
Ida Cox
Ida Cox was an African American singer and vaudeville performer, best known for her blues performances and recordings...
, Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." Although he came to his greatest fame in the 1950s with his pioneering rock and roll recordings, particularly "Shake, Rattle and...
, Albert Ammons
Albert Ammons
Albert Ammons was an American pianist. Ammons was a player of boogie-woogie, a bluesy jazz style popular from the late 1930s into the mid 1940s.-Life and career:...
, Meade "Lux" Lewis
Meade Lux Lewis
Meade Lux Lewis was a American pianist and composer, noted for his work in the boogie-woogie style. His best known work, "Honky Tonk Train Blues", has been recorded in various contexts, often in a big band arrangement...
, Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an Amercian pioneering gospel singer, songwriter and recording artist who attained great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and early rock and roll accompaniment...
, the Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
orchestra, Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He was one of the first important soloists in jazz , and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist...
, Sonny Terry
Sonny Terry
Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...
, James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson was an American pianist and composer...
, and Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences...
(who took the place of the murdered Robert Johnson).
After serving in the military during World War II, Hammond felt unmoved by the bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
jazz scene of the mid-1940s. Rejoining Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
in the late 1950s, he signed Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
and Babatunde Olatunji
Babatunde Olatunji
Babatunde Olatunji was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist and recording artist.- Biography :Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, a small town near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nigeria. A member of the Yoruba people, Olatunji was introduced to traditional African music at...
to the label, and discovered Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
, then an eighteen-year-old gospel singer. In 1961, he heard folk singer Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
playing harmonica on a session for Carolyn Hester
Carolyn Hester
Carolyn Hester is an American folk singer and songwriter. She was a figure in the early 1960s folk music revival.-Biography:...
and signed him to Columbia and kept him on the label despite the protests of executives, who referred to Dylan as "Hammond’s folly". He produced Dylan's early recordings, "Blowin' in the Wind
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...
" and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962. It was first recorded in Columbia Records' Studio A on 6 December 1962 for his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The lyric structure is based on the question and answer form of the traditional ballad "Lord...
."
Hammond oversaw the highly influential posthumous reissues of Robert Johnson’s recorded work (produced by Frank Driggs), convincing Columbia Records to issue the album King of the Delta Blues Singers in 1961. Musicians Hammond signed to the label included Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
and Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
.
Hammond retired from Columbia in 1975, but continued to scout for talent. In 1983, he brought guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. He was the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan and frontman for Double Trouble, a band that included bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Born in Dallas, Vaughan moved to Austin at the age of 17 and...
to Columbia and was credited as executive producer on his debut album.
Marriages
Hammond married Jemison McBride, actress and daughter of Robert McBride, on March 8, 1941. The couple had three sons, John P. HammondJohn P. Hammond
John Paul Hammond is an American blues singer and guitarist. The son of record producer John H. Hammond, he is sometimes referred to as "John Hammond, Jr.".-Background:...
, Douglas Hammond (born and died 1944), and Jason Hammond. They divorced in 1948.
The next year, Hammond married Esme Sarnoff (née O'Brien), the former wife of NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
chairman Robert W. Sarnoff and a daughter of Mary and Esmond O'Brien. By this marriage Hammond had one stepdaughter, (Esme) Rosita Sarnoff (born 1943). Esme Hammond died May 19, 1986 of complications of AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
, which had been contracted from a blood transfusion
Blood transfusion
Blood transfusion is the process of receiving blood products into one's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used in a variety of medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood...
.
Legacy
Hammond received a Grammy Trustees AwardGrammy Trustees Award
The Grammy Trustees Award is awarded by the Recording Academy to "individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording". Through 1983, performers could also receive this award...
for being credited with co-producing a Bessie Smith reissue in 1971, and in 1986 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
.
He died in 1987 after a series of strokes.
External links
- John Hammond on American MastersAmerican MastersAmerican Masters is a PBS television show which produces biographies on the artists, actors and writers of the United States who have left a profound impact on the nation's popular culture. It is produced by WNET in New York City...
(PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
) - Induction to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- John Hammond Papers at Yale University Music Library