Everything about John H Hammond totally explained
John Henry Hammond II (
December 15,
1910 –
July 10,
1987) was a
record producer, musician and music critic from the
1930s to the early
1980s. In his service as a
talent scout, Hammond became one of the most influential figures in 20th Century popular music.
Although he didn't "discover" as many artists as is generally claimed, Hammond was instrumental in sparking or furthering numerous musical careers, including those of
Benny Goodman,
Charlie Christian,
Billie Holiday,
Count Basie,
Teddy Wilson,
Big Joe Turner,
Pete Seeger,
Babatunde Olatunji,
Aretha Franklin,
George Benson,
Bob Dylan,
Freddie Green,
Leonard Cohen,
Bruce Springsteen,
Asha Puthli and
Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Early years and family
Hammond was the only son of James Henry Hammond, son of General John Henry Hammond and Sophia Vernon Wolfe. James was a brother of
Ogden Hammond, ambassador to
Spain, and uncle to politician
Millicent Fenwick. Hammond's mother was the former Miss Emily Vanderbilt Sloane, one of three daughters of William Douglas Sloane and
Emily Thorn Vanderbilt. James Hammond and Emily Sloane were wed on April 5, 1899. They also had a daughter, Alice Frances Hammond, who married musician
Benny Goodman.
Born in
New York City to great wealth as the great-grandson of
William Henry Vanderbilt, Hammond showed interest in music at an early age. At age four he began studying the piano, only to switch to the violin at age eight. He was steered toward classical music by his mother, but was more interested in the music sung and played by the servants, many of whom were black. In his teens he began listening to black musicians in Harlem, who adopted him as a novel mascot, and in 1927 heard
Bessie Smith sing at the Alhambra Theater, a performance which influenced the rest of his life.
In 1928 Hammond entered
Yale University as a member of the class of 1933, where he studied the violin and, later,
viola. He made frequent trips into New York and wrote regularly for trade magazines. In 1931 he dropped out of school for a career in the music industry, first becoming the U.S. correspondent for
Melody Maker. His sister Alice Hammond Duckworth married his friend
Benny Goodman as her second husband.
Career
In 1931 he funded the recording of pianist
Garland Wilson, marking the beginning of a long string of artistic successes as record producer. He moved to
Greenwich Village, where he claimed to have engaged in bohemian life and worked for an integrated music world. He set up one of the first regular live
jazz programs, and wrote regularly about the racial divide. As he wrote in his memoirs,
"I heard no color line in the music....To bring recognition to the negro’s supremacy in jazz was the most effective and constructive form of social protest I could think of". It should be noted that Hammond was given to exaggeration when speaking of his own achievements, but he'd much to be acclaimed for.
He played a role in organizing Benny Goodman's band, and in persuading him to hire black musicians such as
Charlie Christian,
Teddy Wilson and
Lionel Hampton. In 1933 he heard the 17 year old
Billie Holiday perform in Harlem and arranged for her recording debut, on a Benny Goodman session. Four years later, he heard the
Count Basie orchestra broadcasting from Kansas City and brought it to New York, where it began to receive national attention.
In 1938, he organized the first "
From Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall, presenting a broad program of
blues,
jazz and
gospel artists, including
Ida Cox,
Big Joe Turner,
Albert Ammons,
Meade "Lux" Lewis,
Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the
Count Basie orchestra,
Sidney Bechet, Sonny Terry, James P. Johnson, and
Big Bill Broonzy (who took the place of the murdered
Robert Johnson).
After serving in the military during World War II, Hammond felt unmoved by the
bebop jazz scene of the mid-1940s. Rejoining
Columbia Records in the late 1950s, he signed Pete Seeger and Babatunde Olatunji to the label, and also discovered Aretha Franklin, then an eighteen year-old gospel singer. In 1961, he heard folk singer Bob Dylan playing harmonica on a session for
Carolyn Hester and signed him to Columbia and kept him on the label despite the protests of executives, who referred to Dylan as "Hammond’s folly." He produced Dylan's early recordings, "
Blowin' in the Wind" and "
A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall".
John Hammond also oversaw the highly influential posthumous reissues of
Robert Johnson’s recorded work (produced by Frank Driggs), convincing Columbia Records to issue the album "King of the Delta Blues Singers" in 1961.
(External Link
) Artists Hammond signed to the label included
Leonard Cohen and
Bruce Springsteen.
Hammond retired from Columbia in 1975, but continued to scout for talent. In 1976 he discovered Raun MacKinnon and was executive producer of her album recorded that year. Her album has just recently been released on CD Baby and iTunes. In 1983, he brought guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan to Columbia and was credited as executive producer on his debut album.
Legacy
Hammond received a
Grammy Trustees Award for being credited with co-producing a Bessie Smith reissue in
1971, and in 1986 was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
He died in 1987 after a series of strokes. He was the father of
John P. Hammond (better known as John Hammond Jr.), a noted blues musician and singer, and Jason Hammond.
Further Information
Get more info on 'John H Hammond'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://john_h__hammond.totallyexplained.com">John H. Hammond Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
