John Hammond Snr

Rip It Up, Issue 121, 1 August 1987, Page 4

John Hammond Snr

1910 - 1987

John Hammond Snr, who died in his New York apartment last month aged 77, had the best ears in the music business. A talent scout and producer since the 30s, he discovered and nurtured many of the most important musicians of the 20th Century. Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen all owe the beginnings of their careers to Hammond. He was also a battler against racial discrimination, in American society, and in music. It was Hammond who encouraged Benny Goodman to include black musicians in his band, a courageous step in the segregated early 30s. In 1938 Hammond organised the landmark "From Spirituals to Swing’’ concerts at Carnegie Hall that brought jazz — and black talent — to a formal concert stage. The bill was like a history of black American music. Among those that appeared were Sister Rosetta Tharp, James P Johnson, Big Joe Turner, Sidney Bechet, the Count Basie band, Sonny Terry, pianists Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis (rescued from a Chicago carwash; his performance reawakened interest in boogie woogie), and Big Bill Broonzy. Hammond had wanted Robert Johnson to appear at the concerts, considering him the greatest bluesman of the time, but the invitition arrived too late: Johnson had been killed by his girlfriend several months earlier. It’s extraordinary that the ear that detected the potential in Count Basie, Billie Holiday, and Aretha Franklin could also hear the voices of the future in Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Without Hammond, it is likely that CBS Records

would never have become a major label of contemporary music. Aretha Franklin however, didn’t peak until after she had left CBS, where her producers wanted her to be a “black Barbra Streisand.” “The musical misuse and eventual loss of Aretha as a recording artist disturbed me greatly,” said Hammond, “not least because her career since leaving Columbia has fulfilled every confidence I had in her. She had every musicianly quality I thought she had. All she needed was to hold to her roots in the church.”

Dylan was nicknamed by CBS staff “Hammond’s folly.” “I think it was his air of being willing to take on the world that grabbed me,” said Hammond. “It was bold, it was witty, and it was very attractive. And I confess he twanged a responsive chord in the young part of me which shared his ambitions to change the world.” Although Hammond had been born a member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family, he was always driven by a sense of social and political justice. From improving pressing plant conditions, unionising offices, breaking down Army segregation, to helping musicians down

on their luck, there are many examples of Hammond’s sense of human rights and generosity. “Of course,” wrote jazz critic Leonard Feather, “anyone as opinionated as John was bound to make enemies. Because of his racial attitudes, he was called a communist, though he believed staunchly in integration while the American Communist Party at that time wanted a separate 49th state for blacks to be gerrymandered out of deep South territory ... Some white musicians resented his championship of equality. John once told me, with a touch of pride, that the white cornetist Red Nichols had dismissed him as a ‘nigger lover’. ” The rightwing John Birch Society once waged a smear campaign against Hammond. During the time when Pete Seeger was blacklisted, Hammond signed him to Columbia. Among the others to benefit from his help were the Four Tops, Leonard Cohen and George Benson, all of whom he signed, jazzers Lionel Hampton and Charlie Christian, plus blues singers Bessie Smith and Alberta Hunter. But among Hammond’s proudest discoveries was Billie Holiday; he was playing ‘All of Me’ when he died.

Chris Bourke