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" Songwriter creates label in the home of the blues. "
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By Ross Gohlke
If young white punks and their trash rock inhabit one extreme of the spectrum blues, middle-age southern blacks sit at the other end. Contemporary “soul blues” can be heard over the airwaves on radio stations like Memphis’ WDIA. A typical example of such radio stations, WDIA takes a break from its regular pop format on Saturdays to play the blues. Generally it’s a smoother, slicker brand of blues than the 12-bar variety, dominated by master vocalists rather than guitar heroes; entertainers such as Latimore, Johnny Taylor, Bobby Rush - and Memphis’ own Ollie Nightingale. It is the realm of labels like Malaco, Ichiban - and as of recently, Memphis’ own Ecko Records. The story of Ecko’s emergence on the blues scene is as modest as it is amazing. While in the music department at Memphis State in the late 1980s, John Ward began sending song demos to Malaco Records. One of the first songs they used - "Second Hand Heart" - appeared on Bobby Bland’s Grammy-nominated album After All. Eventually Malaco hired Ward as a staff songwriter. He began bringing Nightingale in to sing vocals for demos he was sending to the Jackson, Miss., label. After five years of songwriting Ward was ready to try his hand at something more, and Nightingale provided the perfect opportunity to hatch an idea Ward had been toying with - producing his own records. Before long Ward was shopping an entire album around. “I approached Malaco about distributing it, but they turned me down. Then I went across town to Ace, and they turned me down, too. I had this album all ready to be released, so I just decided to do it myself,” Ward recalls. With some initial distribution help from Memphis-based Select-O-Hits, Ward began his assault on the soul blues market. He explains his formula for success: “I started with a list of radio stations, trying to get Ollie some airplay. It worked out pretty well, because the market for this music already existed and there isn’t a whole lot of competition. Also, we found out that a lot of people remembered Ollie” from his early days at Stax with Ollie and the Nightingales. That first album, I’ll Drink Your Bathwater, Baby, did quite well. In addition to reintroducing Nightingale to a music-listening public, the title track won a CAMY Award for Blues Song Of The Year, 1996. And Living Blues magazine awarded the album Best Cover Art for the same year. Since then Ward has produced and Ecko has released another Nightingale album (Tell Me What You Want Me To Do), not to mention records by Charles Wilson (a nephew of Little Milton previously on Ichiban Records), Bill Coday (still remembered for his single “Get Your Life Straight” from 25 years ago), Chuck Roberson and most recently Lee “Shot” Williams. Ward is unassuming about his label’s accomplishments, but the volume of work in the amount of time speaks for itself. And he shows no signs of slowing down. Soon Ecko will add St. Louis songstress Barbara Carr to its artist roster with an album slated for release in February. Ward certainly sees a bright future for his humble start-up. “Johnnie Taylor’s Good Love has sold 300,000 units. That’s nothing to sneeze at. This market has a lot of potential,” he says modestly. Ward is involved in virtually all aspects of Ekco Records, but he knows it’s better to leave the crooning to the pros. “I Got a Sure Thing,” Nightingale’s biggest hit for Stax, reappears on his latest Ecko release. In the background you can hear Ward playing the guitar. And Ward will remain in the background, but his label has the potential to move right to the forefront.
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