Jack Kapp
| Jack Kapp | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 15, 1901 Chicago, Illinois |
| Died | March 25, 1949 (aged 47) New York City, New York |
| Nationality | United States |
| Occupation | Record company executive |
| Known for | co-founder of Decca Records |
Jack Kapp (June 15, 1901 Chicago, Illinois – March 25, 1949 New York City) was a record company executive with Brunswick Records who founded the American Decca Records in 1934 along with British Decca founder Edward Lewis and later American Decca head Milton Rackmil. He oversaw Bing Crosby's rise to success as a recording artist in the early 1930s, and, four decades later, Crosby still gave appreciation to Kapp for diversifying his song catalogue into various styles and genres, saying, "I thought he was crazy, but I just did what he told me." Kapp could not read or sing music, but to his talent he stressed the credo, "Where's the melody?"
Born to a Jewish family, the son of a distributor for Columbia Records in 1905 and the founder of the Imperial Talking Machine Shop in Chicago. Kapp worked at the store after high school, and was known for having memorized the catalog numbers of every record in the inventory as well as the addresses and phone numbers of his father's best customers. After marrying his childhood sweetheart Frieda Lutz in 1922, he opened the Kapp Record Store with his younger brother, Dave Kapp. In 1926, Kapp joined Brunswick Records and was put in charge of their "race" label (Brunswick 7000 and Vocalion Records 1000 series), where he scouted, signed or produced artists including, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Pinetop Smith, Leroy Carr, Frankie Jaxon, and Cow Cow Davenport, among others.
Kapp also worked with artists on the Brunswick label; it was over the company's objection that he had Al Jolson record "Sonny Boy"; the song became a huge success for Jolson. The artists signed by Kapp included Crosby, Cab Calloway, the Mills Brothers, the Boswell Sisters, and Mildred Bailey. Kapp sold Brunswick's British franchises to stockbroker Edward R. Lewis, who owned the English Decca Company. Two years later, when a deal to buy Columbia Records fell through, the pair instead started Decca Records. Crosby's deal with Brunswick had an escape clause that allowed him to follow Kapp to the new company. Other artists followed, including the Mills Brothers, Boswell Sisters, Earl Hines, Ted Lewis, Isham Jones and the Dorsey Brothers. Kapp also signed new performers such as Chick Webb, Art Tatum, Jimmie Lunceford, Ethel Waters, and a year after the company's founding, Louis Armstrong. Dave Kapp was instrumental in building the company's extensive hillbilly catalogue, allowing Decca to corner the market on country music for years.
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