Results for “Fats Domino”

2014

We continued exploring Bob Thiele’s fascinating Flying Dutchman label, putting out Gil Scott-Heron’s second and third albums on CD and vinyl. Those records were as important as Marvin Gaye’s and Curtis Mayfield’s in the new wave of black awareness and commentary emerged in the US in the early 70s. Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong may not be the names that immediately spring to mind when talking about this surge of black politically inspired music but the albums they made for Flying Dutchman were, in their own way, part of this new movement. Ellington’s album was a live celebration of a century of inspirational black figures. Armstrong’s was a celebration of the jazz pioneer himself, including ‘Give Peace A Chance’ and a re-cut of ‘What A Wonderful World’ - which Thiele co-wrote.

At long last! John Broven, a consultant with Ace Records between 1991 and 2006 with many of his CD compilations still in catalogue, has updated and revised his history of New Orleans R&B, originally titled Walking to New Orleans and now known as Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans. He discussed the major changes in the introduction to the new edition, published by Pelican Publishing Co. of Gretna, Louisiana:

Both myself and Ace Records were deeply saddened to hear of the recent passing of Ron Kavana, one of the label's former recording artists and compiler of a series of heritage Irish CDs for the company's Globestyle imprint.

 I very much regret not having had any thoughts of interviewing the man during the twenty or so years I followed his music and got to know him to some extent, so the following piece as the heading suggests is written largely from memory with more than a little help from album notes and credits and retained scraps of conversations with the man himself. The likes of Wikipedia have been purposely avoided. It also helps that I was privileged to work at both Rock On and Ace Records.