‘King of Them All: The Story of King Records’ Doc Tells Improbable Tale of Scrappy Cincinnati Label That Birthed Rock n’ Roll

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland. But as any Cincinnatian will tell you, it was almost built about four hours down the road in the Queen City — at which point, if they’re real music nerds, they will also explain to you why their home town is the actual birthplace of rock n’ roll. If you’re not aware, just ask filmmaker/musician Yemi Oyediran, who has poured nearly a decade of blood, sweat and tears into the new documentary King of Them All: The Story of King Records.

The 75-minute film that debuted on PBS on Oct. 10 — and which can now be streamed on PBS.org and the PBS app — is a deep dive into the story of the scrappy label founded by Syd Nathan in Cincinnati in 1943, as a place to record “hillbilly” country and western players such as Cowboy Copas and the Delmore Brothers, before it stumbled into history as the birthplace of rock, as well as funk.

Using a mixture of contemporary and archival interviews and footage, and period-appropriate rotoscope animated bits, Oyediran describes how Nathan’s one-stop recording shop and printing plant would break barriers by bringing together Black and white musicians in the studio. King Records would ultimately expand to release jazz, blues and R&B albums and singles by the likes of James Brown, Otis Williams, Hank Ballard and Little Willie John.

Oyediran, who was born in New York and spent his childhood in Nigeria — where he unwittingly got his first taste of King music via his grandmother’s bootleg copies of singles from the affiliated label Federal Records — says he’s not the only one making the case for Cincinnati to be given its props as the birthplace for rock. “I do think Cincinnati deserves that credit — and it’s not just me saying that, it’s Vince Gill and Christian McBride, who agree with that,” he says of the country and jazz legends (respectively) who appear in the film.

He describes speaking to McBride about the impact King had on his own music, and how the nine-time Grammy-winning jazz composer and performer proved that he can “go deep” on the King catalog in the same way Gill can go on for hours about all the country acts you’re probably never heard of who recorded for the label. “He knows all the licks and all the King records by heart,” Oyediran says of Gill, who appears in the movie alongside Afghan Whigs bassist/co-Founder and Cincinnati native John Curley and other prominent locals, including former news anchor (and father of George) Nick Clooney.

In the film, former Warner Records VP Seymour Stein recalls label founder Nathan being “larger than life in every way,” saying his boss was like nobody he’d ever met before… or since. Ninth grade drop-out Nathan is described as a kind of Mad Libs image of an old school music man: heavy set and possessed of a a gruff voice, his face framed by oversized glasses and an ever-present fat cigar and, because he was blind, a “scary” figure behind the wheel according to Stein, who interned at King as a high school student in 1957-1958 before taking a gig there from 1961-1963.

After working in a pawn shop and as a wrestling promoter, Nathan opened a photography shop in downtown Cincinnati that eventually turned into Syd’s Record Shop after a customer dropped off some jukeboxes he was looking to get rid of. Aided by local AM powerhouse station WLW’s “Midwestern Hayride” show, which brought a lot of country acts to town, Nathan got to know a number of musicians when they stopped by the shop to flip through records looking for songs they might record.

Because wartime rationing made it hard to find shellac to press LPs, Nathan decided to open his own pressing plant, which led to the label’s first pressing, 1946’s “Filipino Baby” by Cowboy Copas. After building an accompanying recording studio that allowed artists to not sweat how much time they were spending laying down tracks, Nathan soon had a vertically integrated system where he recorded, pressed and printed his own albums and singles, and distributed them through a nationwide network of partners. By 1949, King was the one of the largest independent labels in the nation, and the sixth-largest label in the U.S. overall.

“I learned a lot about Cincinnati and this migration that happened across the country… and in particular the Midwest racial dynamics of Cincinnati being a border town where, on this side of the Mason-Dixon line, things were very different,” says Oyediran of the city, which was considered the “gateway to the North” due to its position just across the river from Kentucky. “African-Americans could have a different freedom of economy they didn’t have in the South. It was an open market for them to buy music, and same with the Appalachians,” he adds. “They were looking for things to connect them back to their homes and keep their culture alive. Syd Nathan saw that opportunity and entered it.”

Nathan also saw how the then-burgeoning R&B style was shifting into something else — via its mix of R&B, blues and country, a trend he hopped on thanks to a cast-off tune that randy blues shouter Wynonie Harris initially turned down. “Good Rocking Tonight” was written by musician Roy Brown, who tried to sell it to Harris for $50. When Harris rejected the price, Brown recorded it himself, prompting Harris to reconsider once he heard the track on wax.

And while some say the 1951 single “Rocket ’88” by Jackie Brenston (fronting Ike Turner’s band) has what the Whigs’ Curley says are all the building blocks of what became rock — the left hand hitting a boogie woogie phrase on piano, a driving beat and handclaps —  Harris’ 1948 rendition of “Good Rocking Tonight” had all those elements, plus it was released three years earlier in 1948. Thus, Cincinnati has a “very legitimate claim” to being the birthplace of rock n’ roll, according to Curley.

Despite the groundbreaking, color-blind work that was going on at King, Cincinnati was still “very segregated” during the label’s early days, with label studio drummer Phillip Paul recalling playing shows at clubs and then walking across the street and not being able to get a cup of coffee. Things were different at King, which had an open hiring practice that didn’t discriminate based on race. By the late 40s, Nathan, a Jewish man who was quite familiar with bite of discrimination, ran the most racially integrated label in the nation. As the 1950s dawned, he also hired producer Henry Glover as his No. 2, making the arranger/songwriter and A&R man the first Black executive at a label at level.

In addition to King, Nathan set up a galaxy of other affiliated labels to sell and record what were then called “race records,” including Queen Records and Federal Records, the latter of which signed a hot young singer named James Brown. Starting with Brown’s 1958 debut, Please Please Please, which featured the No. 1 R&B hit “Try Me,” Brown had a epic run with the label, which also released 1960’s Think!, 1961’s The Amazing James Brown and his sixth, and final album for Nathan, 1963’s Prisoner of Love. The recordings helped provide the template for what would become funk music.

Oyediran says at a time when our nation is as divided as ever over race and political differences, Nathan’s focus on diversity is worth paying attention to. “Everything has to make dollars and sense,” he says of the label boss’ laser-focus on the bottom line. “You can have discord and harmony in a song, but how do you make sure you’re all grooving the same and on the same page? That’s the process that helped create America.”

The label went into decline by the mid-1960s, following a payola scandal in 1959 in which Nathan was accused of making payments to radio DJs to promote his songs. While Nathan sought a potential buyer as he battled health issues, King got a sudden jolt in 1965 when Brown released his first Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit, “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” which made the label boss reconsider walking away.

“Syd Nathan only believed in me after we recorded ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,’” Brown says in an archival interview. “And from that point on, I can do anything I want.” And, not for nothing, many consider the next song Brown recorded at the Brewster Ave. studio, 1967’s “Cold Sweat,” the opening shot in the funk revolution.

Despite the boost from Brown — who left in 1968 in order to sign with Polydor Records — King fully shut down that year, and Nathan, who was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, died in Florida a short time later at age 63 following years of heart issues. But King’s bulging roster of releases by the likes of jazz greats Roland Kirk, R&B acts the Platters, the Midnighters, Clyde McPhatter, Hank Ballard, the Ink Spots, Little Willie John, Brown and country performers the Delmore Brothers, the Stanley Brothers and Webb Pierce, among many others, secured its place in music history.

“We learn about how to interact with each other with play, whether it’s playing sports or playing music,” says Oyediran. “These are things that really help us figure out how to get through these divides, because we are practicing how we just make it work… You used to have to do that a lot more in America. That process is what King was and found successful, they draw people together and they made it work.”

The filmmaker says he thinks that coming together with an eye towards excellence regardless of race or background is what the nation needs to overcome the vicious divides that have torn us asunder over the past decade. “This film really articulates all of those things and points to how business can do it and how we can do it socially and the importance of doing it in America today,” he says. “We can look at all our unique stories of how working class, down-on-their-luck Americans came together to make some dope s–t.”

You can watch the King of Them All doc here.