Syd Nathan
Musician · 1904–1968 · Cincinnati, Ohio
Best known for
Songwriter
Syd Nathan was the Cincinnati record-store owner who founded King Records in 1943 and built it into one of America’s largest independent labels of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s — the only label of its era to cut country, R&B, gospel, and bluegrass under one roof, signing the Delmore Brothers, Reno & Smiley, James Brown, Hank Ballard, and the Stanley Brothers along the way. King was the first racially integrated workplace in Cincinnati.
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- Born Sydney Nathan in 1904 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish family.
- Left school in the ninth grade because of poor eyesight and chronic asthma.
- Worked as a real-estate salesman, jewelry-store owner, and professional-wrestling promoter before going into the record business.
- Took 300 records as payment for a $6 gambling debt in 1938; sold them out of his Cincinnati store within two days and parlayed the proceeds into Syd’s Record Shop.
- Founded King Records in 1943 in Cincinnati; built his own pressing plant at 1540 Brewster Avenue the following year and ran the entire operation — recording, pressing, distribution — from one site.
- King became the sixth-largest record company in the United States by the 1960s and placed more than 250 hits on the country, R&B, pop, and rock charts.
- Insisted on a fully integrated workplace; Black employees made up roughly twenty percent of the King staff and held creative and managerial posts unusual for the era.
- Signed James Brown in 1956 after talent scout Ralph Bass brought him “Please, Please, Please”; reportedly hated the record but released it anyway.
- Died on March 5, 1968, while wintering in Miami, at age 63.
- Inducted posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.
