june 9th extract-lattie moore

Lattie Moore-100,000 Women Can’t Be Wrong-King single

I’ve not got that much pure hillbilly music on the iPod but I suppose that this would surely qualify. It’s a 1957 single on King Records. King was latterly known as the r & b label that issued records by Johnny Guitar Watson, Joe Tex, Jack Dupree and Hank Ballard and the Midniters amongst many others. They had a big hit with James Brown’s “Please Please Please” but, after the next nine James Brown singles failed to chart it all went a bit pear-shaped. James Brown even recorded under another name for a different label after King’s owner, Syd Nathan, refused to let him record “Do the Mashed Potato” on King. Nathan also did not want to release “Live at The Apollo” as he couldn’t see how a live album would be a hit. Missed a bit of a trick there, Syd. (Luckily, it was released and for me, the introduction of James Brown at the very start of the record is possibly one of the most exciting few seconds of music that has ever been recorded.) Syd Nathan wasn’t wholly a mug though. King Records, uniquely for independent labels at the time, ensured all the production of their records was done in-house-recording, mastering, pressing, distribution and shipping. This meant that wily old Syd could get a record on the shelves within 24 hours of it being recorded. It also had the effect for any of the releases that weren’t hits now are rare as hens teeth as some pressings were limited to as little as 50 copies.

However, back to hillbilly music and the start of King Records, back in 1943-who had the motto-"If it's a King, It's a Hillbilly -- If it's a Hillbilly, it's a King." I think that now we’d call it country rather than hillbilly music but I do like the idea of “hillbilly”-even though King Records was based in Cincinnati as opposed to a shack in the mountains. I don’t want to digress too much but King’s first big hit was “I’m Using My Bible as a Road Map” by Reno and Shirley which strikes me as a unique method of navigation.

As for Lattie Moore himself, although a hillbilly/country singer, had a sort of toe in the camp of rockabilly and therefore early rock and roll. His first single, recorded in Indianapolis in 1954 when he was 26, “Hideaway Heart” for a local label, Arrow Records wasn’t successful. It took mad record collectors over 50 years to track down just one copy of it. (Must have sent them crazy.) Lattie wasn’t to be put off though and the next year, having moved back home to Nashville, he spotted  Speed Records label owner, Frank Innocenti coming out of the famous Ernest Tubbs record store. Lattie auditioned for him right there on the street. This led to Lattie recording his first hit, “Juke Joint Johnny” and in time, a move to King Records where he made over two dozen singles, including this great song. A description of the “100,000 Women Can’t Be Wrong” isn’t really necessary. If you know it’s a country/rockabilly tune and combine that with the title you get the general idea. His last release was the album “You Can’t Make Hay Picking Cotton” in 1971. By then he clearly couldn’t make hay releasing records either as it didn’t do too well. Lattie threw the towel in and took up a career in law enforcement. I have an image of a sheriff in his mid- fifties, barrelling down a country road in a dusty, big American Police car, singing one of his own hits, say, “Here I Am, Drunk Again” on his way to bust some local miscreant.