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A pioneering behind-the-scenes figure,
Henry Glover was one of the first truly successful black executives in the music business, rising to prominence in the late '40s with Syd Nathan's independent (and white-owned) King label. No mere pencil-pusher,
Glover was a talented jack of all trades who served at various times as a producer, arranger, songwriter (sometimes under the alias
Henry Bernard), engineer, trumpet player, talent scout, A&R rep, studio builder, and -- later on -- label owner in his own right. Eclectic in his musical tastes as well,
Glover worked with country, blues, R&B, pop, rock, and jazz artists over the course of his long career, and played a major role in building King into one of the biggest -- and best -- independents of its era.
Born May 21, 1921, in Hot Springs, AR,
Glover grew up listening to all kinds of music on local radio, and as he got older, he moved freely among the different types of music available on the local club scene. A skilled trumpet player through high school and college, he joined
Buddy Johnson's big band in early 1944, and caught on with
Lucky Millinder's orchestra as both a musician and arranger in the spring of 1945. It was there that he met King Records founder Syd Nathan, who was impressed enough with
Glover's intelligence and knowledge of the music industry to hire him as an A&R man, with an eye toward beefing up King's roster in the area then dubbed "race music."
Glover signed on and quickly proved himself in a variety of areas in addition to A&R, even physically helping to build King's first recording studio. A country fan since his boyhood, he produced sessions for the label's already-established set of country artists, including
the Delmore Brothers,
Hawkshaw Hawkins,
Cowboy Copas,
Moon Mullican,
Grandpa Jones,
Wayne Raney, and the York Brothers, among others. The
Delmore Brothers gig in particular was groundbreaking:
Glover co-wrote the oft-covered classic "Blues Stay Away from Me" with them, rearranging saxman Paul Williams' "The Huckle-Buck" for country audiences; not only was the record a pre-rock & roll fusion of black and white sensibilities, it also made
Glover quite probably the first black producer in country music history. His first success with black audiences came with
Bull Moose Jackson's 1945 cover of
Joe Liggins' "The Honeydripper," and over the next two years
Glover helmed a steady stream of releases on King's "race" and gospel subsidiary, Queen.
Nathan encouraged a blurring of racial boundaries in the material his artists recorded; since he usually owned the publishing rights, he could earn far more royalties on a song by having an arranger like
Glover, who understood both sides of the coin, rework it for separate recordings aimed at black and white listeners. In 1947, Nathan merged Queen directly into King, signaling a new level of racial integration that extended into his hiring policies, and made
Glover a trailblazer, not simply an anomaly. Meanwhile,
Glover's success with the jump blues/early R&B market solidified his standing as Nathan's right-hand man. He signed artists like his old employer
Millinder and
Tiny Bradshaw, and went on to work with proto-rock & rollers like
Wynonie Harris and
Bill Doggett, among many others.
Glover also produced and/or wrote for early R&B stars like
Hank Ballard & the Midnighters ("Teardrops on Your Letter"),
Little Willie John (convincing him to record the original version of the standard "Fever"),
James Brown, and the doo wop group the Swallows; meanwhile, his composition "Drown in My Own Tears," originally recorded by singer
Lula Reed and pianist
Sonny Thompson, was covered by
Ray Charles, and ranked among the singer's early soul classics.
Nathan eventually tapped
Glover to head up King's New York office, while Nathan himself remained in the label's home base of Cincinnati. Around 1958,
Glover split with King and went to work for
Morris Levy's Roulette label, which at the time featured mostly jazz and rock artists but was lacking in the R&B department.
Glover worked to correct that imbalance while working with the likes of
Sarah Vaughan,
Dinah Washington, and
Sonny Stitt, among others. He also produced rocker
Ronnie Hawkins, befriending his backup band the Hawks and encouraging them in their independent ambitions; he later released one of their early singles as the Canadian Squires, prior to their becoming
the Band.
Glover hit big in 1962 by co-writing
Joey Dee & the Starliters' number one smash "Peppermint Twist," and two years later, the surf/garage group
the Rivieras covered
Glover's R&B song "California Sun" for a Top Five hit (it was later recorded by
the Ramones as well).
Glover worked extensively with bluesman
Louisiana Red during the early '60s, and also set up his own label for a brief period, recording sides by
Larry Dale and
Titus Turner.
Glover later wound up returning to King, and after Syd Nathan's death in 1968, he served as the nominal head of the label when it was taken over by Starday. In 1975,
Band drummer
Levon Helm invited
Glover to come to Woodstock, and the two co-founded a label called RCO Productions, which released a couple of
Helm's solo projects.
Glover also made himself an active presence on the local scene; in 1975, he produced
Muddy Waters' Chess swan song
The Woodstock Album, which won a Grammy, and the following year he helmed
Paul Butterfield's
Put It in Your Ear.
Glover passed away of a heart attack at age 69 on April 7, 1991. ~ Steve Huey