Black History Month: Houston's First Record Label Owner Don Robey

Houston’s 5th Ward Legendary Music Entrepreneur Don Robey Promoted the World’s Best Musicians

By Clarence Walker Jr.

Americans celebrate Black History Month every year in February. When this historical event rolls around, we often remember national icons like the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Fredrick Douglass, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, Medgar Evers, Marcus Garvey, etc.

The lives of these prominent people are a testament to their indomitable spirits, tenaciousness, and unstoppable resilience, enabling them to overcome the most difficult adversities, contributing to the richness of black culture and the nation.

Thousands of other prominent Blacks left their footprints carved in stone in the annals of Houston history in countless ways, history overlooked for too long; men and women involved in sports, politics, law, civil rights, the arts, entertainment, and entrepreneurship. And there are the everyday unsung heroes we hardly hear about, the people with no name or prestige whose work and struggles for equality in this nation echo from the past into the present.

Among the most ambitious, business-savvy entrepreneurs of all time, who made a tremendous worldwide impact upon the culture of black entertainment, meet this year’s Black History Month’ unsung legend’ Houston’s 5th Ward Don Deadric Robey.

A Vision

A gifted visionary with unparalleled success, Don Robey was an overachiever. He became the first black man in the United States to own his independent record labels called Peacock & Duke Records. Down through the years, controversy swirled, over which man became the first black to earn the distinction of starting an independent record label. For decades, many thought Motown Founder Berry Gordy was the first black to start a record label. But Robey started his company in 1949, 10 years before Gordy arrived on the scene with Motown Records in January 1959.
“Not to take any shine off of Motown, but, referring to Robey, Lizette Cobb said recently in the Houstoniamag.com, ‘Peacock and Duke Records did what Motown did. But they (Robey) did it first, and they did it in the South.”

Robey blazed a trail for future black independent record label owners, most notably James Prince.
Prince, also of Houston, is known nationwide as Jay or J Prince. Prince made history over 40 years later, after Robey’s historical success, by becoming the second African American in the South to own an independent music label. But Prince became the first in the south to create and own a rap record label called Rap-a-Lot Records.

“What Don Robey did by being the first black man in America to own his record label opened the doors for me to make it happen in Houston when I started my label.” Prince founded Rap-a-Lot in 1986. When he was a young kid, he would go hunting near Robey’s home in the Wallisville Road area. “I saw the big house Robey owned. I didn’t know he owned the house, but just seeing the house was an inspiration,” Prince told Houston Patch reporter.

Robey’s niece told Prince that he reminded her of her uncle and how he got started in the music business. Prince won a Don Robey Award several years ago.

Matthew Harris, AKA Pig, an older man who operated many businesses in the 5th Ward and has lived there for decades, remembers Robey when he was much younger. Harris remembers Robey as “shrewd and that he was a millionaire who didn’t act like he was rich.”

“Robey was a hustler. He ran gambling; he brought all the famous singers into town like Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown, and Aretha Franklin.” Harris further said Robey’s record labels and the owner of Club Matinee had an essential impact on the music and entertainment business.
Harris admitted Robey was no person to play around with.

“He looked like a big old white man,” Harris said during an interview at his ‘Piggly Wiggly Dry Bar and Pool Parlor’ on Lyons Avenue in Denver Harbor.

“It was just something in the air; you didn’t mess with Don Robey ever,” says former musician and producer Steve Terrell. If true, according to an Oxford American article, Robey boasted of his prowess to handle challenging situations, “I’m a white man and a black man. So, I can outsmart you and kick your ass.”

“He’s an icon here in Houston,” James Ford told the Houston Chronicle in a story published April 2011. Ford started the idea of having a State Historical Marker dedicated in the name of Robey’s famous Peacock Records Company.

Robey’s Background History

On November 1, 1903, he was born in Houston to a white mother and black father. He worked on cotton farms with his mother and later worked as a dock laborer in Galveston. Unable to concentrate on school, Robey dropped out, claiming he’d rather become a gambler. Instead, Robey was a ‘genius inventor’ of music entertainment. His lifelong passion for music later inspired him to test his talents by doing promotional work for ballroom clubs throughout Houston’s segregated black neighborhoods.

Before making this work for him, Robey lived in Los Angeles, California, for a few years during the late 1930s. While in California, Robey connected himself with powerhouse businessmen, and he got the grand opportunity to operate a nightclub called the Harlem Grill.
After gaining valuable experience in the club business, Robey finally returned to Houston and opened Houston’s Peacock Dinner Club in 1945. Gambling served as an attraction in the club as well. Robey’s name made loud noise in the entertainment business when he brought in popular R&B and Jazz singers to perform before sold-out crowds at the club. The featured stars on Robey’s roster were Lionel Hampton, Ruth Brown, Louis Jordan, and T-Bone Walker.

Houston historian Roger Wood describes the Peacock Club as “arguably the most sophisticated African American owned and operated nightclubs in the South during the 1940s and 1950s. Robey hired only the most prestigious chefs and offered an extensive fine food and drink menu. Peacock Club was where the high rollers had cash to spend and a desire to do so in the high class.
Robey visualized the flow of money he could make in the entertainment business with the instinct of a sharp-eye eagle.

During racial segregation in the deep South, black singers and jazz musicians weren’t allowed to showcase their talent in white-owned establishments, so they toured the famous ‘chitlin circuit’, which meant the ‘chitlin circuit’ was for Blacks only. So, Robey moved fast as lightning by connecting people in the 5th Ward, Third Ward, and throughout East Texas down to New Orleans, Louisiana.

Robey’s musical events and talent shows were primarily held at his Peacock Club, and the Club Matinee at 3300 Lyons Avenue in the heartbeat of Houston’s 5th Ward led to his future success. A documentary called ‘Memory Builds the Monument’ is about Club Matinee’s history. Houstonians and the famous entertainers knew the Club Matinee as the ‘Cotton Club of the South.’ Entertainers Little Richard, Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, Sam Cooke, and B.B. King performed their musical greatness at Club Matinee, the hottest nightclub in Houston. KCOH 1430 AM radio station broadcasted live from the club daily from 12: PM until 2: PM.

Robey owned, as stated, the Matinee too, including the Taxicab company located across the street. A creole man named Louis Wilton Dickerson acted as the owner of the Matinee, but insiders knew Robey owned the place.

A Star Is Born

One night, when guitarist T-Bone Walker was too ill to finish his gig during a performance at Robey’s Bronze Peacock Dinner Club, previously located off Liberty Road at 2809 Erastus Street, T-Bone abruptly left the stage. Robey needed a fill-in badly. Suddenly, as the story has been told countless times, a skinny young man wearing cowboy boots rushed onto the stage to replace Walker.
His name was Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown.
Brown’s gutsy talent immediately impressed Robey. So, in 1950, when Robey started Buffalo Booking Agency, a talent management company, his first client was the man who saved the show from ending that night at the Peacock Club when T-Bone couldn’t continue, it was none other than the guitarist and singer Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown.

Once Robey cornered the market on booking singers for shows, he first dealt with lesser-known groups like Frank Tanner and his Melody Maker, then he promoted Earl Hines and Jimmie Lunceford. Finally, around the 1940s’, Robey booked the nation’s top black jazz orchestras, including Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. Yes, Robey put Houston in the national spotlight within five years. He carried the Bayou City into the Black Entertainment world, making Houston the major hub for Black stars to travel into the city and get the work they needed to propel them into the spotlight.

When Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s contract with Aladdin Records soured, Robey cashed in on starting his record label named Peacock Records after believing Brown got shafted by Aladdin Records. Robey named Peacock Records after his famous Peacock Club.
An impressive list of singers was contracted under the Peacock label, including Memphis Slim, Marie Adams, Floyd Dixon, Texas Johnny Brown, Albert Collins, and “Big Mama” Thornton, whose 1953 original recording of “Hound Dog”, a song later re-recorded and sung by Elvis Presley. In addition, little Richard was under contract by Robey before the two parted ways. Later, Robey added a gospel division to Peacock Records with the Dixie Hummingbirds, Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, the Sensational Nightingales, and the Mighty Clouds of Joy as the label’s artists.

In August 1952, Robey purchased Duke Records from owners David J. Mattis and Bill Fitzgerald. His acquisition of Duke Records brought some of the nation’s best singers under the control of Robey, artists like Johnny Ace, Junior Parker, Roscoe Gordon, and Bobby “Blue” Bland. Between 1957 and 1970, Bland recorded thirty-six songs reaching the Billboard R&B charts, thus making Bobby Bland Roby’s most consistent and profitable artist.

In addition, a subsidiary soul music label called Backbeat, owned by Robey, included Joe Hinton, O. V. Wright, and Carl Carlton. Eventually, Robey closed his Bronze Peacock Club and replaced it as Peacock and Duke Records headquarters. When Roby found time to enjoy himself away from the entertainment world, he enjoyed fishing, hunting, and riding horses on his cattle ranch.

At the top of his game, Robey’s recording success and music promotions allowed him to own over 100 artists and groups under contract to his labels. The entertainment business credited Robey with discovering, promoting, and influencing blues and many R&B and soul singers.

On May 23, 1973, Robey sold his Duke-Peacock record labels to ABC/Dunhill for a cool $10 million with the agreement he’d remain as a consultant and oversee the release of catalog materials. Robey played an important role in the United Negro College Fund Drive, and he served as a Century Member of YMCA, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the NAACP.
Before Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown died in September 2005, Galen Gart and Roy Ames wrote in their book based on Robey’s Duke & Peacock Records Label, that Brown said, “He pulled off something in America that no one else ever pulled off. We had the only world-renowned black recording company.”

Don Robey died of a heart attack on June 16, 1975. Relatives buried Robey’s remains in Paradise North Cemetery on West Montgomery Road in Acres Home.
Reach Reporter Clarence Walker at newswriter74@yahoo.com