According to Bruce Fressier of the Desert Sun, Irvin Green, the Palm Springs-based co-founder of Mercury Records, age 90, died of natural causes at 5 a.m. Saturday at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs.
Green was remembered by friends as a recording pioneer who helped break popular music's color barrier, co-founding Mercury in 1944 - turning it into the first independent record company to become a major label.
Green said growing up among all types of people in the poor west side of Chicago gave him his egalitarian views. "I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said in an interview with The Desert Sun in January, "and that stayed with me forever."
While the four majors - RCA, Columbia, Decca and Capitol - promoted their mainstream music through network radio, Mercury distributed jazz, R&B and country western tunes not licensed for network radio through a jukebox network, allowing him to gain national distribution for music that previously had only regional success.
Mercury pioneered a "black sound" by promoting such black artists as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the Platters. It recorded Louis Armstrong's first No. 1 hit in 1964 with "Hello, Dolly!"
It also scored hits by white pop singers such as Vic Damone and the Four Seasons and more folksy artists like Frankie Laine, Patti Page, and Flatt and Scruggs.
Mercury became the first major label to hire a black top executive when Green made Quincy Jones a vice president in charge of artists and repertoire. "Irvin has a broad taste," Jones said in an interview with The Desert Sun in February before Green's 90th birthday. "It was across the board and I think that's what we shared - that diversified taste."
Green attended St. John's University in New York for two years before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and went into sheet metal with a partner. They built hydraulic presses and made records.
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappell music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said.
IRVIN GREEN ARTISTS
Artists who recorded for Mercury Records under Irvin Green and their representative hits:
Frankie Laine, "That's My Desire," "Rawhide"
Patti Page, "Tennessee Waltz," "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window"
Sarah Vaughan, "My Funny Valentine," "Embraceable You"
Dinah Washington, "Harbor Lights," "What A Difference A Day Makes"
Charlie Parker, "Charlie Parker With Strings" CD
Dizzy Gillespie (Phillips Records), "No More Blues," "Desafinado"
Vic Damone, "You're Breaking My Heart," "Again"
Louis Armstrong, "Hello, Dolly!"
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"
The Platters: "Only You," 'The Great Pretender"
Brook Benton, "It's Just A Matter of Time," "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" with Dinah Washington
The Big Bopper, "Shantilly Lace"
Lesley Gore, "It's My Party," "You Don't Own Me"
The Smothers Brothers, "Aesop's Fables," "Mom Always Liked You Best"
The Four Seasons (on Phillips) "Dawn (Go Away)," "Rag Doll"
According to Bruce Fressier of the Desert Sun, Irvin Green, the Palm Springs-based co-founder of Mercury Records, age 90, died of natural causes at 5 a.m. Saturday at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs.
Green was remembered by friends as a recording pioneer who helped break popular music's color barrier, co-founding Mercury in 1944 - turning it into the first independent record company to become a major label.
Green said growing up among all types of people in the poor west side of Chicago gave him his egalitarian views. "I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said in an interview with The Desert Sun in January, "and that stayed with me forever."
While the four majors - RCA, Columbia, Decca and Capitol - promoted their mainstream music through network radio, Mercury distributed jazz, R&B and country western tunes not licensed for network radio through a jukebox network, allowing him to gain national distribution for music that previously had only regional success.
Mercury pioneered a "black sound" by promoting such black artists as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the Platters. It recorded Louis Armstrong's first No. 1 hit in 1964 with "Hello, Dolly!"
It also scored hits by white pop singers such as Vic Damone and the Four Seasons and more folksy artists like Frankie Laine, Patti Page, and Flatt and Scruggs.
Mercury became the first major label to hire a black top executive when Green made Quincy Jones a vice president in charge of artists and repertoire. "Irvin has a broad taste," Jones said in an interview with The Desert Sun in February before Green's 90th birthday. "It was across the board and I think that's what we shared - that diversified taste."
Green attended St. John's University in New York for two years before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and went into sheet metal with a partner. They built hydraulic presses and made records.
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappell music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said.
IRVIN GREEN ARTISTS
Artists who recorded for Mercury Records under Irvin Green and their representative hits:
Frankie Laine, "That's My Desire," "Rawhide"
Patti Page, "Tennessee Waltz," "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window"
Sarah Vaughan, "My Funny Valentine," "Embraceable You"
Dinah Washington, "Harbor Lights," "What A Difference A Day Makes"
Charlie Parker, "Charlie Parker With Strings" CD
Dizzy Gillespie (Phillips Records), "No More Blues," "Desafinado"
Vic Damone, "You're Breaking My Heart," "Again"
Louis Armstrong, "Hello, Dolly!"
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"
The Platters: "Only You," 'The Great Pretender"
Brook Benton, "It's Just A Matter of Time," "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" with Dinah Washington
The Big Bopper, "Shantilly Lace"
Lesley Gore, "It's My Party," "You Don't Own Me"
The Smothers Brothers, "Aesop's Fables," "Mom Always Liked You Best"
The Four Seasons (on Phillips) "Dawn (Go Away)," "Rag Doll"
Co-founder of Mercury Records dies at 90
PALM SPRINGS, Calif., July 3 (UPI) -- Irvin Green, who co-founded Mercury Records and helped launch black recording artists through a jukebox network, has died in Palm Springs, Calif.
He was 90.
Green helped start Mercury in 1944, making it into a major record label by formulating a novel distribution strategy, the Palm Springs Desert Sun said. While the major record companies used network radio, Green promoted jazz, R&B and country western songs through a jukebox network.
He was able to get music played nationally that had previously been known only locally, the Desert Sun reported.
Green built and promoted a "black sound" by backing such greats as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the Platters. Mercury helped Louis Armstong get his first No. 1 hit with "Hello Dolly."
Green died of natural causes Saturday morning at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs.
He is survived by his wife, Pamela.
Monday, July 3, 2006
Mercury Records Founder Irving Green Dies
Irving Green, who founded Mercury Records in 1944 and helped form the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1952, died Saturday, July 1, in Palm Springs, CA. He was 90.
During his long and illustrious career in both the recording and television industries, Green worked with such legendary artists as Nat King Cole, Vic Damone, Tony Martin, The Platters, Alfred Newman, Patti Page, Leslie Gore and Merv Griffin. The Grammy Hall of Fame contains 14 songs from the Mercury Library.
In 1956, Green also began the successful and lucrative practice of licensing songs to television shows, when a song by one of his Mercury artists, Frankie Laine, became the theme song for the long-running Western series Rawhide! In 1964 Green broke new ground when he hired Quincy Jones as VP/Head of R&B, making Jones the first African-American executive ever hired by a white-owned record label.
Earlier this year, Green was honored by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and inducted into the NARAS Gold Circle, marking 50 years of service to the television industry.
Green is survived by his wife, Pamela, his two daughters, Kelly Ross and Roberta Hunt, three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
— Kevin Carter, R&R CHR/Pop Editor
Irvin Green helped break color barriers
Michelle Yee, The Desert SunIrvin Green, founder of Mercury Records, poses at his home in Palm Springs on Jan. 24.
IRVIN GREEN ARTISTS
Artists who recorded for Mercury Records under Irvin Green and their representative hits:
Frankie Laine, "That's My Desire," "Rawhide"
Patti Page, "Tennessee Waltz," "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window"
Sarah Vaughan, "My Funny Valentine," "Embraceable You"
Dinah Washington, "Harbor Lights," "What A Difference A Day Makes"
Charlie Parker, "Charlie Parker With Strings" CD
Dizzy Gillespie (Phillips Records), "No More Blues," "Desafinado"
Vic Damone, "You're Breaking My Heart," "Again"
Louis Armstrong, "Hello, Dolly!"
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"
The Platters: "Only You," 'The Great Pretender"
Brook Benton, "It's Just A Matter of Time," "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" with Dinah Washington
The Big Bopper, "Shantilly Lace"
Lesley Gore, "It's My Party," "You Don't Own Me"
The Smothers Brothers, "Aesop's Fables," "Mom Always Liked You Best"
The Four Seasons (on Phillips) "Dawn (Go Away)," "Rag Doll"
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Your Voice
Have something to say about it? Join the conversation in Talk of the Day
Bruce Fessier
The Desert Sun
July 2, 2006 July 2, 2006
Irvin Green, the Palm Springs-based co-founder of Mercury Records, was remembered by friends as a recording pioneer who helped break popular music's color barrier.
Green, 90, died of natural causes at 5 a.m. Saturday at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs said his wife, Pamela, who was by his side.
Green co-founded Mercury in 1944 and turned it into the first independent record company to become a major label by using alternative distribution sources.
While the four majors - RCA, Columbia, Decca and Capitol - promoted their mainstream music through network radio, Mercury distributed jazz, R&B and country western tunes not licensed for network radio through a jukebox network, allowing him to gain national distribution for music that previously had only regional success.
Mercury pioneered a "black sound" by promoting such black artists as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the Platters. It recorded Louis Armstrong's first No. 1 hit in 1964 with "Hello, Dolly!"
It also scored hits by white pop singers such as Vic Damone and the Four Seasons and more folksy artists like Frankie Laine, Patti Page, and Flatt and Scruggs.
Mercury became the first major label to hire a black top executive when Green made Quincy Jones a vice president in charge of artists and repertoire. "Irvin has a broad taste," Jones said in an interview with The Desert Sun in February before Green's 90th birthday. "It was across the board and I think that's what we shared - that diversified taste."
Green became one of the first inductees in the Gold Circle of the Pacific Southwest chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in April with other local residents such as Merv Griffin and Paul Burke.
Attracting success
Green was honored for his 1948 aid to Ed Sullivan in booking Mercury artists who were the first blacks to appear on a popular regional telecast.
http://teetimes.thedesertsun.com/beattheheat.asp?CID=BHBA01TDSHe also arranged for Laine to sing on Nat "King" Cole's TV show in 1957, marking the first duet by a white and black man on national TV.
Rancho Mirage resident Jack Rael, who managed Patti Page when she became the first singer to overdub her voice on a national hit on "Tennessee Waltz" for Mercury, said Mercury's Chicago base helped Green attract artists who weren't accepted by major labels on the coasts.
"I went to Mercury because that was the only successful record company where I could drive my small car," said Rael, who was a Milwaukee-based musician before discovering Page in Tulsa, Ok.
Green said growing up among all types of people in the poor west side of Chicago gave him his egalitarian views.
"I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said in an interview with The Desert Sun in January, "and that stayed with me forever."
Green attended St. John's University in New York for two years before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and went into sheet metal with a partner. They built hydraulic presses and made records.
When the U.S. entered World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt restricted shellac for use by the military, so Green's firm invented plastic records. They turned out to be sturdier than shellac and business boomed.
Green gave his first releases to jukebox operators and that got his recordings played in cities before they got on the radio.
With A&R man Mitch Miller finding hit songs for the likes of Laine and Page, Mercury soon opened an office in New York.
A true visionary
"Needless to say, he created what started out as a small independent label and blossomed into one of the major labels in the industry," said Len Levy, a Rancho Mirage resident who headed Epic Records from 1961 until just before Green merged Mercury with Polygram in 1969.
"As the head of that label, he had a major impact as pop music is concerned. He was involved in so many different facets, it's really hard to pinpoint or marginalize the things he did."
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappell music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said.
Green bought a 1936 multi-level home in Palm Springs in the early 1970s and began a new career as a builder. He teamed with Bill Levitt, who invented tract homes in Levittown, Penn., to build 18,000 homes in Iran with a new irrigation design.
The project collapsed when the Shah of Iran was deposed and Green had to flee Iran hiding in the back of a car. But he built a development company in Palm Springs, started Landau Development and finished 52 homes in Rancho Mirage last year alone.
He was still making weekly site inspections at his Landau homes in Cathedral City last spring.
Jones called him a visionary.
"It didn't matter what it was," Jones said. "He understood it."
Services will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at Temple Isaiah in Palm Springs followed by a public reception at his daughter Kelli Ross' Palm Springs home.
Besides Kelli and his wife, Pamela, Green is survived by his daughter Roberta Hunt from Wisconsin, three grandchildren and six great-granchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be sent to Pets on Parade at 927 Village Square South, Palm Springs, 92-262. Pets on Parade is a July 16 benefit for Animal Samaritans and The Pegasus Riding Academy for the Handicapped.
Showing posts with label MERCURY RECORDS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MERCURY RECORDS. Show all posts
Monday, March 1, 2010
All about "The Green's" part one
Irvin Green of Palm Springs is still doing what he loves as he turns 90 years old today.
"I like to put something together and build it," he says at his modest office near the Palm Springs Police Department. "It's an interesting activity."
He's talking about the real estate development business. He built 52 beautiful homes in Rancho Mirage last year. He built 18,000 homes in Iran with the founder of Levittown, Pa., before fleeing the country when the Shah of Iran was deposed.
He still goes on weekly site inspections with his project foreman to his Landau homes in Cathedral City.
But history may say Green's greatest construction project was the recording industry, which he molded like multi-colored clay after World War II.
Green started Mercury Records in 1944. It was the fifth major label in the United States after RCA Victor, Columbia, Decca and Capitol. Most significantly, it was the first that didn't depend upon network radio play to promote its recordings. That meant it could have national hits with music the networks couldn't play: "Race records," as the industry pejoratively called the blues and black jazz, and "hillbilly music," as it deprecatingly called country and western songs.
"I think we were very instrumental in breaking down some of the color line," Green said in another interview in the 1936, multi-level, Mideast-flavored home he's owned since the '70s. "We had no color line. Artists like Dinah Washington or the Platters or Clyde McPhatter, we had no color restrictions of any kind."
The Pacific Southwest region of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will honor Green for his multiracial promotion of musicians April 23 in a ceremony at the La Quinta Resort, it was announced Friday at a birthday party for Green at the Palm Springs Tennis Club.
Board member Robin Montgomery said he will be inducted into its Gold Circle, recognizing 50 years of service to television.
http://gcirm.thedesertsun.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/entertainment.thedesertsun.com/clubs/story.html/378714838/300x250_1/OasDefault/GCI_USAT_Doyles_060601_300x250/image004.gif/34373864623032613434383739343430FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=" http://gcirm.thedesertsun.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/entertainment.thedesertsun.com/clubs/story.html/378714838/300x250_1/OasDefault/GCI_USAT_Doyles_060601_300x250/image004.gif/34373864623032613434383739343430Green didn't serve 50 years in the TV industry, but Montgomery said he convinced his friend, Ed Sullivan, to present jazz and blues on his early "Toast of the Town" variety series, and arranged for his recording star Frankie Laine to become the first white performer to sing with an African American host of a national TV show, Nat King Cole, in 1957.
"In Irv's case, an exception was made as he has never been lauded for the emancipation of African-American musicians onto television," she said.
'Love at first sight'
Recording legend Quincy Jones said Green broke racial barriers with him, too. They met while Jones was arranging songs for Mercury recording artist Dinah Washington.
"It was like love at first sight at a Dinah Washington session," he said in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home. "That was in the '50s. Later on, I became an artist on the label and in the South of France, we hooked up and started to hang out. It just grew and grew and grew. We started to travel together.
"What he did was show me there's a music business. When I first met Irvin, I said, 'We're going to stay in Europe and we're going to make it because the music is good.' I used to get in trouble with the business side, and he said, 'It's called a music business. I'm going to see to it that you understand all sides.'"
"He said, 'I'll make you to the point where you never fear the corporations again in your life.' And not many people tell young black musicians that. In New York at that time, it was exploitation all the way. Irvin was like my big brother."
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappel music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said. "He had magazine publishing, too, with Liberty. It's ironic because I ended up being the founder of Vibe magazine. There are just a few people who will teach you what that's about."
But Green said a secret to his success at Mercury was not publishing his artists' music.
"I said, 'I want to stay in the recording business. Let them have their own publishing,'" said Green. "A lot of times the artist got screwed anyway, but not by me. That's what brought some artists to us, I think. They knew we weren't in any side business. That travels in the industry quite quick. I did not publish any of the music we recorded. I just felt, let them own their own and I would show them how to copyright."
Humble beginnings
Green attributes his egalitarian attitude to growing up in the poor west side of Chicago with all types of people.
"I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said, "and that stayed with me forever."
Gangsters ran Chicago as Green was growing up in Prohibition, but they didn't intrude on Green's business.
"When they were kids, I was a kid, so they let me completely alone because I was their buddy," Green said. "Anybody who would say something about me - 'Oh, no. That's our friend, leave him alone.' I had no problems."
Green attended two years at St. John's University before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and then went into sheet metal with a partner. They made hydraulic presses and pressed records.
"In those days, 10-inch records sold for at least 79 cents," he said. "We were pressing them for others and we decided to press them for ourselves."
When the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt restricted the use of shellac for military reasons. So Green's firm invented plastic records.
"It actually was an unbreakable 10-inch record, whereas shellac was breakable," Green said. "That's what started us in the music business. We knew how to make the record and there was a tremendous shortage of records at the time."
The Chicago-based head of the American Federation of Musicians, Jimmy Petrillo, called a musicians strike in 1942 that halted all recordings except for a cappella vocals through 1944. But, after the strike and the war, Green found a distribution network that didn't depend upon network radio for marketing.
"What I did, I used all the jukebox guys, like Wurlitzer distributors, because we made records and they were the first people to use them," Green said. "I made my distributor the distributor that had a jukebox route. So, if they had a 200-box route, you know the first 200 records went on their boxes. The competition, Victor, Decca and Columbia, they didn't have that privilege."
The big band era died quickly when eight swing bands folded in the first weeks of 1946, but Mercury prospered by signing talent from regional bands that didn't quite fit the swing mold.
Chicago native Frankie Laine sounded black but also sounded convincing on western material. He charted with "We'll Be Together" for Mercury in 1945 and became huge with "That's My Desire" in 1947.
Patti Page was singing for a radio station in Tulsa, Okla., when her manager, Rancho Mirage resident Jack Rael, took her to Chicago and got her signed to Mercury. She also could sing swing or country, as she proved with the mega-hit "Tennessee Waltz." She and Mercury gained fame for being the first to overdub vocals on a popular record.
Mercury's roster soon included bluegrass stars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, pop singers Vic Damone and Merv Griffin, classical artists and jazz players such as Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Horn, Nina Simone, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Gerry Mulligan, many of whom he took on tour as a partner on Norman Granz' Jazz at the Philharmonic series. He signed Louis Armstrong just before he had his first No. 1 hit with "Hello, Dolly!" in 1964.
"Irvin has a broad taste," said Jones. "That's why he had all those (vocalist) girls. He had everybody, man. It was across the board and I think that's what we shared, that diversified taste."
Green let Jones lead a dream big band on a tour of Europe in the early 1960s that turned into a nightmare. Jones ran out of money in Finland. Green sent funds to help everyone get home.
After that, Green made him the first black vice president of a major record company. Jones initially just worked with the jazz artists, but, soon answered a challenge to actually make some money for the label.
"They said, 'Why don't you make a hit record?' I said, 'It's not a big deal.' Because jazz musicians, there was a syndrome there," Jones said. "And the first record I had out was (Lesley Gore's) 'It's My Party.' I was trying to get her to change her name and I had to go to Tokyo for three weeks. I said, 'We'll fix it when I get back.' So, as soon as I got back it was No. 1. We did it, man. We had 19 hits in four years. Unbelievable."
Green started his next careers after Mercury merged with Polygram in 1969. Looking back, he admits some mistakes. He passed on Elvis Presley when Col. Tom Parker offered him to Mercury for $35,000, including publishing rights.
But he acknowledges some impact in bringing blues and R&B into popular music. Decca had the first great R&B artist in Louis Jordan before Mercury got him, and Atlantic had the best, led by Ray Charles. But Mercury, including the Platters and the Diamonds, probably did the most to blur the line between white and black groups.
"It all became rhythm & blues," Green said. "That beat was first introduced through the black R&B, and that followed into all the pop records. The whites loved it. It wasn't just that sweet ballad of the year before. We all want to tap our foot."
"I like to put something together and build it," he says at his modest office near the Palm Springs Police Department. "It's an interesting activity."
He's talking about the real estate development business. He built 52 beautiful homes in Rancho Mirage last year. He built 18,000 homes in Iran with the founder of Levittown, Pa., before fleeing the country when the Shah of Iran was deposed.
He still goes on weekly site inspections with his project foreman to his Landau homes in Cathedral City.
But history may say Green's greatest construction project was the recording industry, which he molded like multi-colored clay after World War II.
Green started Mercury Records in 1944. It was the fifth major label in the United States after RCA Victor, Columbia, Decca and Capitol. Most significantly, it was the first that didn't depend upon network radio play to promote its recordings. That meant it could have national hits with music the networks couldn't play: "Race records," as the industry pejoratively called the blues and black jazz, and "hillbilly music," as it deprecatingly called country and western songs.
"I think we were very instrumental in breaking down some of the color line," Green said in another interview in the 1936, multi-level, Mideast-flavored home he's owned since the '70s. "We had no color line. Artists like Dinah Washington or the Platters or Clyde McPhatter, we had no color restrictions of any kind."
The Pacific Southwest region of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will honor Green for his multiracial promotion of musicians April 23 in a ceremony at the La Quinta Resort, it was announced Friday at a birthday party for Green at the Palm Springs Tennis Club.
Board member Robin Montgomery said he will be inducted into its Gold Circle, recognizing 50 years of service to television.
http://gcirm.thedesertsun.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/entertainment.thedesertsun.com/clubs/story.html/378714838/300x250_1/OasDefault/GCI_USAT_Doyles_060601_300x250/image004.gif/34373864623032613434383739343430FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=" http://gcirm.thedesertsun.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/entertainment.thedesertsun.com/clubs/story.html/378714838/300x250_1/OasDefault/GCI_USAT_Doyles_060601_300x250/image004.gif/34373864623032613434383739343430Green didn't serve 50 years in the TV industry, but Montgomery said he convinced his friend, Ed Sullivan, to present jazz and blues on his early "Toast of the Town" variety series, and arranged for his recording star Frankie Laine to become the first white performer to sing with an African American host of a national TV show, Nat King Cole, in 1957.
"In Irv's case, an exception was made as he has never been lauded for the emancipation of African-American musicians onto television," she said.
'Love at first sight'
Recording legend Quincy Jones said Green broke racial barriers with him, too. They met while Jones was arranging songs for Mercury recording artist Dinah Washington.
"It was like love at first sight at a Dinah Washington session," he said in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home. "That was in the '50s. Later on, I became an artist on the label and in the South of France, we hooked up and started to hang out. It just grew and grew and grew. We started to travel together.
"What he did was show me there's a music business. When I first met Irvin, I said, 'We're going to stay in Europe and we're going to make it because the music is good.' I used to get in trouble with the business side, and he said, 'It's called a music business. I'm going to see to it that you understand all sides.'"
"He said, 'I'll make you to the point where you never fear the corporations again in your life.' And not many people tell young black musicians that. In New York at that time, it was exploitation all the way. Irvin was like my big brother."
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappel music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said. "He had magazine publishing, too, with Liberty. It's ironic because I ended up being the founder of Vibe magazine. There are just a few people who will teach you what that's about."
But Green said a secret to his success at Mercury was not publishing his artists' music.
"I said, 'I want to stay in the recording business. Let them have their own publishing,'" said Green. "A lot of times the artist got screwed anyway, but not by me. That's what brought some artists to us, I think. They knew we weren't in any side business. That travels in the industry quite quick. I did not publish any of the music we recorded. I just felt, let them own their own and I would show them how to copyright."
Humble beginnings
Green attributes his egalitarian attitude to growing up in the poor west side of Chicago with all types of people.
"I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said, "and that stayed with me forever."
Gangsters ran Chicago as Green was growing up in Prohibition, but they didn't intrude on Green's business.
"When they were kids, I was a kid, so they let me completely alone because I was their buddy," Green said. "Anybody who would say something about me - 'Oh, no. That's our friend, leave him alone.' I had no problems."
Green attended two years at St. John's University before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and then went into sheet metal with a partner. They made hydraulic presses and pressed records.
"In those days, 10-inch records sold for at least 79 cents," he said. "We were pressing them for others and we decided to press them for ourselves."
When the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt restricted the use of shellac for military reasons. So Green's firm invented plastic records.
"It actually was an unbreakable 10-inch record, whereas shellac was breakable," Green said. "That's what started us in the music business. We knew how to make the record and there was a tremendous shortage of records at the time."
The Chicago-based head of the American Federation of Musicians, Jimmy Petrillo, called a musicians strike in 1942 that halted all recordings except for a cappella vocals through 1944. But, after the strike and the war, Green found a distribution network that didn't depend upon network radio for marketing.
"What I did, I used all the jukebox guys, like Wurlitzer distributors, because we made records and they were the first people to use them," Green said. "I made my distributor the distributor that had a jukebox route. So, if they had a 200-box route, you know the first 200 records went on their boxes. The competition, Victor, Decca and Columbia, they didn't have that privilege."
The big band era died quickly when eight swing bands folded in the first weeks of 1946, but Mercury prospered by signing talent from regional bands that didn't quite fit the swing mold.
Chicago native Frankie Laine sounded black but also sounded convincing on western material. He charted with "We'll Be Together" for Mercury in 1945 and became huge with "That's My Desire" in 1947.
Patti Page was singing for a radio station in Tulsa, Okla., when her manager, Rancho Mirage resident Jack Rael, took her to Chicago and got her signed to Mercury. She also could sing swing or country, as she proved with the mega-hit "Tennessee Waltz." She and Mercury gained fame for being the first to overdub vocals on a popular record.
Mercury's roster soon included bluegrass stars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, pop singers Vic Damone and Merv Griffin, classical artists and jazz players such as Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Horn, Nina Simone, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Gerry Mulligan, many of whom he took on tour as a partner on Norman Granz' Jazz at the Philharmonic series. He signed Louis Armstrong just before he had his first No. 1 hit with "Hello, Dolly!" in 1964.
"Irvin has a broad taste," said Jones. "That's why he had all those (vocalist) girls. He had everybody, man. It was across the board and I think that's what we shared, that diversified taste."
Green let Jones lead a dream big band on a tour of Europe in the early 1960s that turned into a nightmare. Jones ran out of money in Finland. Green sent funds to help everyone get home.
After that, Green made him the first black vice president of a major record company. Jones initially just worked with the jazz artists, but, soon answered a challenge to actually make some money for the label.
"They said, 'Why don't you make a hit record?' I said, 'It's not a big deal.' Because jazz musicians, there was a syndrome there," Jones said. "And the first record I had out was (Lesley Gore's) 'It's My Party.' I was trying to get her to change her name and I had to go to Tokyo for three weeks. I said, 'We'll fix it when I get back.' So, as soon as I got back it was No. 1. We did it, man. We had 19 hits in four years. Unbelievable."
Green started his next careers after Mercury merged with Polygram in 1969. Looking back, he admits some mistakes. He passed on Elvis Presley when Col. Tom Parker offered him to Mercury for $35,000, including publishing rights.
But he acknowledges some impact in bringing blues and R&B into popular music. Decca had the first great R&B artist in Louis Jordan before Mercury got him, and Atlantic had the best, led by Ray Charles. But Mercury, including the Platters and the Diamonds, probably did the most to blur the line between white and black groups.
"It all became rhythm & blues," Green said. "That beat was first introduced through the black R&B, and that followed into all the pop records. The whites loved it. It wasn't just that sweet ballad of the year before. We all want to tap our foot."
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