Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup - That's All Right (Mama)

$

204

This is it!  The first R&B 45 rpm record ever made!  Entitled, “That’s All Right” and backed with “Crudup’s After Hours”, it was released in 1949 by Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup, who wrote both tunes.  He is labelled a ‘blues singer with guitar.’  It was released by RCA Victor Records (#50-0000) and it kicked off their Rhythm & Blues (R&B) issues on the new 45 rpm speed, which RCA invented.  RCA in those days used colored vinyl to distinguish the various genres, and came up with a new, beautiful cherry-red/orange hue, and a gray-black label. This is the same “That’s All Right (Mama)” was later Elvis Presley’s first-ever release on the Sun label in 1954.  The label credits Ramsom Knowling on string bass and Judge Riley on drums.  RCA would later release 12 other 45 rpm releases by Crudup, AND TODAY EACH OF THEM BOOKS FOR AT LEAST $100.00.  But this one’s the first, and the rarest. The condition is VG to VG+.  Goldmine’s Price Guide To 45 rpm Records, 6th edition acknowledges this to be “the first R&B 45 rpm record!”  Ironically, “That’s All Right” was issued as the ‘B’ side!  Holy flip, Batman!  This must go out insured for the winning bid.  For those interested, I have pulled the following information about Crudup from Wikipedia:

Born in Forest, Mississippi and living and working in throughout the South and Midwest as a migrant worker for a time, he and his family returned to Mississippi in 1926. He sang gospel, then began his career as a blues singer around Clarksdale, Mississippi. He visited Chicago as member of the Harmonizing Four in 1939 and stayed there to work as a solo musician, but barely made a living as a street singer. Record producer, Lester Melrose allegedly found him while he was living in a packing crate, introduced him to Tampa Red and signed him to a recording contract with RCA Victor's Bluebird label.

He recorded with RCA in the late 1940s and with Ace Records, Checker Records and Trumpet Records in the early 1950s and toured throughout the country, specifically black establishments in the South, with Sonny Boy Williamson II and Elmore James (around 1948).[1] He also recorded under the names Elmer James and Percy Lee Crudup. He was popular in the South with records such as "Mean Old 'Frisco Blues", "Who's Been Foolin' You" and "That's All Right".[2]

Crudup stopped recording in the 1950s, however, after further battles over royalties.[2] His last Chicago session was in 1951, his 1952-54 recording sessions for Victor were held at radio station WGST in Atlanta, Georgia.[1] He returned to recording with Fire Records and Delmark Records and touring in 1965, sometimes labeled "The Father of Rock and Roll", a title which he accepted with some bemusement.[2] Ungratified due to the loss of royalties, he would refer to his admirer Presley as 'Elvin Preston'.[2] Throughout this time Crudup worked as a laborer to augment the small wages he received as a singer and non-existent royalties. Crudup returned to Mississippi after a dispute with Melrose over royalties, then went into bootlegging, and later moved to Virginia where he had lived and worked as a musician and laborer. In the early 1970s, two local Virginia activists, Celia Santiago and Margaret Carter, both assisted him in attempting to gain royalties he felt he were due, to little gain.

From the mid 1960s, Crudup returned to bootlegging and working as an agricultural laborer, chiefly in Virginia, where he lived with his family including three sons and several of his own siblings. On the Eastern Shore of Virginia, while he lived in relative poverty as a field laborer, he occasionally sang and supplied moonshine to a number of drinking establishments, including one called the Dew Drop Inn, in Northampton County for some time prior to his eventual death, due to complications from heart disease and diabetes. On a 19701 trip to the UK he recorded Roebuck Man with local musicians.[2] His last engagements were with Bonnie Raitt.[2]

There was some confusion as to his actual date of death because of his use of several names, including those of his siblings. He died in the Nassawadox hospital in Northampton County, Virginia in 1974.