Lifenotes: Music Industry Entrepreneur Shelby Singleton
Shelby Singleton (L) and Jerry Kennedy (R) in 2000.
Music Row entrepreneur Shelby Singleton died today, October 7, 2009, at age 77. The record executive, producer, and publisher is perhaps best known for purchasing the Sun Records catalog in 1969.
The Texas native was a Mercury regional sales rep when the label brought him to town as part of its Nashville team. He ended up heading the label’s Nashville and New York A&R departments a year later, working with all genres and even bringing r&b folks like Clyde McPhatter to Music City to record. During Singleton’s Mercury tenure, he worked with artists George Jones and Roger Miller, and hired a then unknown guitarist named Jerry Kennedy, who would eventually be his successor, running the Nashville office.
According to the Encyclopedia of Country Music, Singleton was a “tremendously successful and colorful country A&R man… and one of the Nashville industry’s true characters.” He wore many hats throughout his career. As a producer, Singleton recorded three No. 1 hits in one day at the Quonset Hut: “Walk On By” by Leroy Van Dyke, “Ahab the Arab” by Ray Stevens, and “Wooden Heart” by Joe Dowell.
In 1966 Singleton left Mercury and formed the Shelby Sigleton Corporation with headquarters on Belmont Boulevard. He also opened Plantation Records and released the major hit “Harper Valley P.T.A.” by Jeannie C. Riley, which he produced. After the success of “Harper Valley,” Singleton purchased the Sun masters in 1969 and re-released much of its product by Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis, during the 1970s. In 1997 he merged Sun with the Brave Entertainment Corporation.
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Shelby was one of the great seat of the pants, “gut-feeling” music men who made our industry. He found great artists, he developed great artists, he produced great artists and he marketed great artists. He had the foresight in 1969 to know titans like Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and other Sun Records had decades of sales shelf life left. During his 40 years helming the Sun Entertainment Corporation he built upon what Sam Phillips started and made Sun a global label and it’s logo one of the world’s most iconic. Boy do we need mavericks like him now!
There will never be a man like Shelby in this business. The mark of a great man is the shadow he left behind, and he surely left a big one. We can all be grateful for his vision and guts. He never lost his integrity and innate sense for what was good. And did he know how to make us laugh! How can I forget when I was a kid what “Ahab the Arab” did for us!
– and what a great friend he was to his friends and those of us who were lucky enough to know him.
He will surely be missed. My deepest condolences to his family.
Shelby Singleton always thought outside the box. With his SSS spinoff labels he released some great samples of deep-fried soul music. He also released an Eastern US regional hit entitled “Streets of Gold.” We need more like Mr. Singleton.
RIP
G Godwin