Before Berry Gordy There Was Joe Von Battle Producing Records in Detroit

Joe Von Battle in his Hastings Street record shop

Joe Von Battle was born in 1915 in Macon, Georgia and moved during the Great Migration with his family to Detroit, Michigan. In his teens, he worked doing odd jobs in Detroit’s famous Eastern Market until he found work with Detroit Edison digging trenches and burying electrical lines. During much of World War II, Joe worked double shifts. One shift at the Hudson Motor Car Company and the other shift at the Chrysler Plant across the street. When the war ended, Joe was permanently laid off like many African American workers, displaced by White veterans returning from the war.

Joe Battle vowed to be his own boss and never work for anyone again. He added Von for a middle name as a young man, emulating European film actor Erich Von Stroheim, who he admired. When Battle opened his record business, he realized the middle name Von was helpful on his business cards, obscuring his African American ancestry. In 1945, a narrow grocery storefront was vacated at 3530 Hastings Street in Detroit’s Black Bottom neighborhood on the lower Eastside, Joe Von Battle stepped in and opened Joe’s Record shop.

Joe outside his store

In 1948, Joe Von Battle purchased a reel-to-reel tape recorder and made a makeshift recording studio in the back of his shop. There he recorded artists like John Lee Hooker; Washboard Willie; pianist Detroit Count, who recorded “Hastings Street Opera;” Tamp Red who recorded “Detroit Blues;” Louisiana Red, Memphis Slim, Kenny Burrell, and many other country blues musicians.

Joe Von Battle recorded the final songs and sounds of the people who migrated north for a better life. His shop specialized in records that appealed to African Americans from the rural South who left to work in the automobile or steel industries for a better life. Country blues traveled with them. Joe is believed by music historians to be the first African American record producer in the post war period recording on the JVB, Von, and Battle Records labels.

His record shop played host to Detroit’s itinerate blues musicians. Typically, the music was performed live by a singer with his guitar and maybe a washboard and a harmonica player for accompaniment. Country blues was raw and rooted in the struggle for survival in a world of inherited misery. It sung about poverty, loss, suffering, desertion, death, booze, and loneliness. Country blues had its feet firmly grounded to the earth and rural life.

 

 

Joe recorded another style of music with a hopeful spiritual message born out of the same misery—gospel music. Joe was most proud of almost one-hundred sermons he recorded of legendary pastor C.L. (Clarence La Vaughn) Franklin at the original New Bethel Baptist Church on Hastings Street down from his record shop. On Sundays, Joe would broadcast Reverend Franklin’s sermons on speakers set up outside the shop. His storefront always attracted a crowd.

Probably the most precious recordings he ever recorded were eight hymns sung by Reverend Franklin’s fourteen-year-old daughter Aretha before she signed with Columbia Records in 1960 secularizing her music. When Aretha Franklin signed with Atlantic Records in 1966, she was paired with producer Jerry Wexler who helped her become the Queen of Soul.

Aretha Franklin performing

In 1956, the Federal government announced the construction of the National Interstate Highway System spelling doom for Hastings Street, the heart of Detroit’s African American business community and further down Hasting’s Street Paradise Valley, Detroit’s legendary blues and jazz entertainment district. The construction of I-375 was a useless 1.062-mile spur that ran parallel to I-75. When the Black business community was uprooted, the financial health of many successful African American entrepreneurs was cut short.

The transition prompted a Black diaspora to the 12^th Street area on Detroit’s Westside, creating overcrowding and increased racial tension in the city. The Black community was boxed in by real estate covenants and red lining, restricting their free movement around the city and the greater Detroit area. There was a distinct colorline that Blacks begrudgingly conformed to. Within its confines, the African American community struggled to make the best of a bad situation.

Joe Von Battle moved his record shop to 12^th Street in 1960, but by that time there was a new sound dominating the radio and television airways of Detroit threatening his business. “There is a different generation now,” Joe told the Detroit Free Press. “All they want to buy is that Motown stuff with that beat they want to dance to. Today, young disc jockeys won’t play the blues. They say it’s degrading,”

Berry Gordy brought a polished professionalism and aggressive promotion to his Gordy/Tamla/Motown record labels. The new urban sound was sleek, suave, and sophisticated appealing to a broader, younger, crossover audience. The content of the music changed from the tough realism of country blues to lyrical, hard-driving rhythms and strong choral arrangements with a pop music flare which listeners could dance to.

The modern male and female groups wore fancy, matching outfits and danced synchronized choreography to the music. The Motown sound was tailormade for television and radio, taking the new music from Detroit’s Westside to the rest of the country and the globe.

Not only did the music change, the record industry changed also. In the 1960s when the chain department stores established record departments, they began selling rhythm and blues singles and albums. Rhythm and blues had entered the mainstream. Independent, specialty record shops could not compete. Black record stores struggled to survive.

Then on July 23, 1967, to add insult to injury, 12^th Street erupted with racial strife and conflagration. The first night Joe protected his store with a shotgun but the second day he was ordered by police to evacuate the premises and allow the authorities to restore order which took a week.

In the meantime, Joe’s business was looted, torched, and hosed down by the fire department. When Joe and his family were allowed to return to the record shop, the smell of charred wood and melted vinyl hung heavy in the air. Twenty years of tape-recorded blues history, Joe’s life work, went up in smoke or was washed into the street.

Looters oustside of Joe's shop in July 1967

           

Joe’s daughter Marsha laments that “Some of the most significant voices in recorded history were on those melted records and fire-soaked reel-to-reel tapes. Thousands of songs, sounds, and voices of the era, most never pressed into vinyl, were gone forever. I believe Daddy died that day. My father’s alcoholism gravely worsened after his life’s work and provision for his family was destroyed by looters and rioters.” Joe suffered for years with Addison’s disease and died a broken man in 1973 at the young age of fifty-seven.

Marsha Battle Philpot, aka Marsha Music, wrote a biography about her father to document his music legacy. Marsha brought Joe Von Battle's story back to life in 2008 in her Marsha Music: The Detroitist blog. She writes about Detroit's African American history and culture on her blog.

Marsha Battle Philpot also has published a beautifully written book of poetry and prose titled The Detroitist: An Anthology About Detroit dealing with the era of Detroit's White flight in the 1950s and 1960s and its impact on those left behind.

Marsha Music's Blog

Detroit Boxer Joe Louis' Place in American History

Joseph Louis Barrow was best known as the "Brown Bomber." He boxed from 1934 until 1951 and reigned as heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949. Joe was born in Chambers County, Alabama--the seventh of eight children. Both of his parents were children of former slaves.

Louis' family moved to Detroit after a brush with the Ku Klux Klan when Joe was twelve. The Louis family was part of the Great Migration after World War I. His family settled on 2700 Catherine Street in the now defunct neighborhood of Black Bottom. When old enough, Joe and his older brother worked at the Rouge Plant for the Ford Motor Company.

During the Great Depression, Joe spent time at a local youth recreation center at 637 Brewster Street in Detroit and made his boxing debut early in 1932 at the age of seventeen. In 1933, Louis won the Detroit-area Golden Gloves Novice Division. In 1934, he won the Chicago Golden Gloves championship and later that year became the United States Amateur Champion in a national AAU tournament in St. Louis, Missouri. By the summer of 1934, Joe had gone pro with a management team.

In 1936, Louis got a title shot versus world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling in Yankee Stadium. The German trained hard while Louis seemed more interested in his golf game--his new hobby. Schmeling knocked Louis out in the 12th round handing Joe his first professional loss. Schmeling became a national hero in Nazi Germany as an example of Aryan superiority.

Max Schmeling and Joe Louis rematch.

No path to a rematch was open to Louis until June 22, 1938. Louis and Schmeling met for a second time at Yankee Stadium before a crowd of 70,043. The fight was broadcast worldwide in English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. It should be noted that Max Schmeling was not a Nazi, but the Nazi party propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels hyped the match proclaiming a Black man could not defeat Herr Schmeling.

The American press promoted the match as an epic battle between Nazi ideology and American democratic ideals. Louis became the embodiment of anti-Nazi sentiment. After the big media buildup, the fight lasted only two minutes and four seconds. Schmeling went down three times before his trainer threw in the towel ending the match. For the first time in American history, every Black person and White person in the country celebrated the same event at the same time. Not until the end of World War II would that happen again.

Joe Louis became the first African-American national hero. He reigned as heavyweight champion from 1937 until 1949--longer than anyone else. In 1951, Louis was beaten by Rocky Marciano and retired from the ring. The following year, he was responsible for breaking the color line integrating the game of golf. He appeared as a celebrity golfer under a sponsor's exemption at a PGA event in 1952. How many people know that?

Joe Louis and Max Schmeling

Joe Louis died on April 12, 1981 of cardiac arrest at the age of sixty-six in Desert Springs Hospital near Las Vegas after a public appearance at the Larry Holmes-Trevor Berbick heavyweight battle. President Ronald Reagan waived eligibility rules for Joe Louis to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors on April 21st. His funeral was paid for by his friend Max Schmeling, who also acted as a pallbearer.

In his professional boxing career, Joe Louis won virtually every boxing award there is and was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously in 1982. The City of Detroit honored Joe Louis with a monument on October 16, 1989. The sculpture was sponsored by Sports Illustrated magazine and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

 

When drivers look left at Woodward Avenue from eastbound Jefferson Avenue (now a No Left Turn), they are confronted with a colossal fist and forearm suspended from a triangular superstructure--a testament to the regard and respect Detroiters hold for their hometown hero.

Link to the Joe Louis/Max Schmeling 1937 heavyweight fight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LNzWHuygpw

Detroit Time Capsule Anthology

After a decade writing 500 Fornology posts, I'm proud to announce the publication of my fifth book Detroit Time Capsule, which is a collection of seventy-five of my re-edited, best Detroit posts including significant historic moments, biographies of people who left their mark on the city, and memories of media personalities in the early days of Detroit television.

Detroit Time Capsule is a trip down memory lane, which should resonate with nostalgic Baby Boomers and contemporary Detroiters with a taste for learning their town's rich history and heritage.

This anthology makes a great holiday gift for readers who have an interest in easy to digest Detroit history. Most chapters are not tied by a narrative thread and can be read in three to five minutes.

And finally, I want to acknowledge Detroit/Ypsilanti photographer Chris Ahern for his striking photograph of the Monument to Joe Louis, aka The Fist (1986) by Robert Graham.

Detroit Time Capsule Amazon site

Michigan Outdoors with Mort Neff

Mort Nell armed with a 16mm camera.

One of the most beloved programs in early Detroit television was Michigan Outdoors hosted and produced by Mort Neff. The original outdoor show debuted in 1951 specializing in hunting and fishing segments. It ran for twenty-three straight years and 1,196 shows before it was cancelled in 1977. Michigan Outdoors has the distinction of being the longest-running outdoor and sportsman show in American television history.

Mort Neff graduated from the University of Michigan with a double major in journalism and electrical engineering. Upon graduation in 1927, Neff began writing an outdoor sports column for a small newspaper in Detroit. In 1942, the Michigan Conservation Department asked Neff if he would be interested in doing a recorded radio show. At first, he did his recording from a small studio, but Neff drew upon his background in electronics to devise a battery pack to power a wire recorder for remote reporting from the fields and streams of lower Michigan.

In 1946, Neff learned to fly and used his single engine Piper Apache to cover outdoor stories all over Michigan including the Upper Penisula, which at that time was accessible only by slow-moving ferry boats that took hours of waiting in your car before boarding. Neff surprised ice fishermen by landing his plane on frozen lakes and interviewing the anglers with his battery-powered wire recorder.

Mort Neff and his Piper Tri-Pacer on Brighton Lake with ice fisherman.

 

By 1951, Neff ran an advertising agency specializing in outdoor films for the commercial and industrial market when he was approached to produce a show called Michigan Outdoors. Neff recalled, "Fran Congdon--ad manager for Altes Golden Ale Brewing Company--asked me to produce a TV show. Two weeks before the show debuted, the chosen host had a conflict of interest and was dropped from the program. Fran insisted I do it."

Neff's only experience was behind the camera. Of his early days in television, Neff said, "I was awful. Who had any idea how to do a television show? Nobody!" But despite his lack of experience as on-air talent, the show became an immediate Thursday night hit and one of the most popular programs on Detroit television. 

Mort Neff soon became a local television personality and a much sought-after luncheon and banquet speaker around Detroit. Michigan Outdoors brought out the ham in Neff. He enjoyed his new-found celebrity and soon sold his ad agency. Mort had discovered his life's work.

Neff and his various cohorts over the years filmed segments on sportsmanship, hunting, and fishing, as well as wildlife and habitat conservation. Michigan Outdoors prided itself on giving accurate, up-to-date information on current hunting and fishing conditions in Michigan. The Catch of the Week feature was one of the most popular segments of the show.

If Neff mentioned on his Thursday night show an area where hunting was good or a lake where the fish were biting, 200 to 300 Detroit area sportsmen could be expected for the weekend trek up north, which sometimes caused problems for local residents. Often county roads were not adequate to handle the onrush of city traffic. Getting "Neffed" was not always welcomed by county officials. After some negative publicity, the show developed a policy of not reporting specific hotspots in favor of regional locations.

When Mort worked for the Michigan Conservation Department decades earlier, he learned that the South American country of Chile imported rainbow trout eggs from them in 1918. The eggs were hatched and the fry released into the Chilean mountain river system. Neff always wondered what happened with that forty-year-old project. Now, he was in a position to find out. He organized a two-week expedition with a film crew and a few friends to report on the original project and catch some rainbow trout.

Mort and his cohorts discovered that Chilean rainbow trout grew larger and faster than their Michigan cousins. "On average," Neff said, "a two-pound rainbow would reach six pounds in Chile. When we cleaned our first catch, their bellies were full of crabs the size of half-dollars found only on the river beds of the Andres Mountains. My fishing friend Buck Newton from Traverse City caught a rainbow over 21 pounds. It sounds like a fish story, but we have film and the photos to prove it."

On the strength of his successful Chilean fishing trip, Neff was recruited as an outdoor correspondent for ABC's American Sportsman hosted by Curt Gowdy. ABC producers financed Neff and a film crew for several more South American fishing trips which were featured on the network show giving Neff national exposure.

In 1971, Michigan Outdoors moved from WWJ-TV (channel 4) to WXYZ-TV (channel 7). As the 1970s wore on, American attitudes about hunting changed. Sportsmanship and conservation were always central to Neff's outdoor narrative, but his audience was aging and younger viewers were not tuning in.

In response to this new trend, Neff told reporters, "I think the hysteria over ecology has been overdone. Sportsmen and conservationists were working on the environment long before it became fashionable. I do think it is good that more people are aware and interested in preserving our natural resources and protecting the environment." Michigan Outdoors continued to lose audience market share until it was cancelled on January 7, 1977.

Neff wasn't bitter. He told the Detroit Free Press that "My wife Maureen and I decided twenty-three years was long enough to support the tremendous burden of a weekly television program, and we're ready to move on. I've been lucky. I've had one of the most golden careers ever." The Neffs retired and built a beautiful summer home just north of Harbor Springs.

Mort Neff passed away from a stroke at the age of eighty-six on Wednesday, August 15, 1990 at Northern Michigan Hospital in Petosky. Ten years before he died, Mort selected the tree to make his coffin, had it sawed into planks, and asked his neighbor Bill Glass to build it. Bill kept telling Mort it wasn't time yet. Mort brought the subject up one last time two weeks before his death. Bill Glass began building the pine box on Thursday for Friday's private funeral service at Harbor Springs Presbyterian. Mort was laid to rest in the coffin lined with cedar boughs cut by his family members.

World Adventure Series hosted by George Pierrot 

Popeye and His Pals Captain Jolly and Poopdeck Paul

"I'm Popeye the Sailor Man
I'm Popeye the Sailor Man
I'm strong to the "finich"
'cause I eats me spinach
I'm Popeye the Sailor Man"

Popeye was the creation of E.C. Segar. The "one-eyed runt" debuted as a minor character in an early comic strip entitled Thimble Theater on December 19, 1919. When Popeye became popular, the comic strip was retitled Popeye. Syndication rights were sold to King Features Syndicate, which debuted the Popeye strip on January 17, 1929, introducing the character to a national audience.

In 1933, the Fleischer Brothers--Max and Dave--adapted the newspaper comic strip character into cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. All but three of their cartoons were six to eight minute, one-reelers filmed in black and white. Their three masterpieces were twenty minute, two-reelers filmed in Technicolor: Popeye Meets Sinbad (sic) in 1936, Popeye Meets Ali Baba (sic) in 1937, and Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp in 1939.

The cartoon Popeye muttered and mangled the English language much to the annoyance of English teachers everywhere. He was odd-looking and unsophisticated, but he had a heart of gold with compassion for the underdog. Popeye was brave, chivalrous, and loyal. His pipe could be used as a steam whistle for his trademark "toot-toot." He displayed his ingenuity using his pipe for a cutting torch, a jet engine, a propeller, and a periscope.

The not so secret source of Popeye's great strength was spinach. The spinach-growing community of Crystal, Texas, erected a statue of Popeye in recognition of his positive effects on the spinach industry as a great source of "strenkth and vitaliky."

Several key characters in the Popeye cartoons were based on real people from Chester, Illinois, who made an impression on animator E.C. Segar when he worked there as a reporter. Popeye was based on Frank "Rocky" Fiegel, who in real life had a prominent chin, sinewy physique, a pipe, and a history of fist-fighting in the local travern.

The inspiration for Olive Oyl was Dora Paskel, an uncommonly tall, lanky lady with a washboard figure who wore her hair in a tight bun close to her neckline. She ran the general store.

The Wimpy character was modeled after a rotund, local opera house owner named Wiebusch, who regularly sent his stagehand to buy hamburgers for him between performances.

The Chester, Illinois Chamber of Commerce built a Popeye character trail through their town in honor of E.C. Segar and his creations. Statues of many of the series characters adorn their city streets.

Paramount Pictures sold their Popeye cartoon television rights and their interests in the Popeye brand to Associated Artists Productions (AAP) in1955. AAP churned out 220 new cartoons in the next two years to round out their cartoon package. These made-for-TV cartoons were streamlined and simplified for smaller TV budgets. In short, they were cheaply made. 

In 1957, CKLW-TV (Channel 9) in Windsor, Ontario purchased the broadcast rights from AAP for 234 Popeye cartoons. The station hired Toby David in 1958 to portray Captain Jolly as the weekday program host. The Captain spoke English with a bad German accent and referred to the kids in his audience as his "Chip Mates." He wore a captain's hat cockeyed on his head, a striped tee-shirt, eyeglasses down his nose, and a signature chin strap beard. The show aired weekdays and weekends from 6:00 pm to 6:30 pm sponsored by Vernor's Ginger Ale.

In character, Captain Jolly was a frequent visitor of hospitalized children at Children's Hospital in Windsor, Ontario, and he did charity work throughout the Detroit area as well. Toby David often volunteered his time for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital--his favorite charity.

The weekend hosting chores were handled by Captain Jolly's first mate Poopdeck Paul portrayed by CKLW-TV weatherman Paul Allan Schultz. Poopdeck Paul wore a dark sweater with sleeves rolled up to reveal fake mariners tattoos on his forearms. He wore a canvas sailor's cap confidently tilted on his head.

Schultz's son Bill recalls, "The name Poopdeck Paul came pretty much out of nowhere. Ten minutes before the weekend show went on the air, the program director asked, 'What are you going to call yourself?' My dad thought for a couple of minutes and came up with the name."

That story may be true, but it is also true that Popeye's long-lost father who deserted him on Goon Island was named Poopdeck Pappy. Perhaps the name surfaced in Schultz's subconscious mind.

Captain Jolly used hand puppets for his show which was common for kid's shows of that era. Schultz's weekend show was hipper than Captain Jolly's weekday show. Poopdeck Paul appealed to the older kids in the audience. When the Limbo became a popular dance in 1961, Poopdeck held Limbo contests with his studio audience. When the Beatles' popularity broke across the nation in February 1964, he had kids with mop-top haircuts lip synch Beatles songs live on the air.

When the weather permitted, Poopdeck Paul occasionally did his show on the front lawn outside the CKLW studios. He would conduct go-cart races, miniature golf contests, Hula-Hoop competitions, Frisbee tosses, and relay races with teams made up from his studio audience. Both Popeye co-hosts were popular with kids on both sides of the Detroit River.

CKLW-TV cancelled Popeye and His Pals in December of 1964 after seven seasons, due to programming changes. Toby David took it pretty hard. He continued to work around Detroit doing media work and serving on the board of directors for several non-profit organizations assisting with fund-raising.

In 1971, Mr. David had it with winter in Detroit and retired to Scottsdale, Arizona. For a time, he sold real estate and was a tour guide on the side, but he never lost his desire to entertain. On September 14, 1994 while performing for senior citizens at a Mesa, Arizona senior center, Toby David died from a heart attack at the age of eighty. He was survived by his wife, two sons, and a daughter.

Paul Allan Schultz soured on show business after Popeye and His Pals was cancelled. He became a salesman for many years and had a couple of brushes with the law. For a time he lived in the Netherlands and Thailand. Schultz spent the last six months of his life in Leamington, Ontario, on the Canadian shores of Lake Erie. He died on September 19, 2000 at the age of seventy-five.

As per Schultze's final request, no funeral or burial service was held. His ashes were scattered in an undisclosed Canadian location. Schultz was survived by two daughters and a son. A second son, Bruce, preceeded his father in death. Schultz's daughter Diane told a Windsor Star reporter upon the passing of her father, "He taught us kids never be a spectator; always be a player."

Max Fleischer's Betty Boop Character 

Detroit/Windsor Sock-Hop Jock Robin Seymour 

The Coca-Cola Santa Story

Santa's origin can be traced back to ancient Germanic folklore and the Norse god Odin. The modern character of Santa was embraced by America with the December 23, 1823 publication of Clement Clarke Moore's 56 line poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," better known as "Twas the Night Before Christmas." Here is Moore's description of the jolly fatman:

 

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself

 

Bavarian immigrant Thomas Nast became America's first political cartoonist. He is responsible for creating the American image of Santa Claus on January 3, 1863, for the illustrated magazine Harper's Weekly. In an wooden engraving named "Santa Claus in Camp," the mythic figure is presenting gifts to Union soldiers during the Civil War while wearing a costume patterned with patriotic stars and stripes. Santa manipulates a Jefferson Davis toy [effigy] dancing on the end of a string.

 

In 1881, Nast created the first of many Santa images based on the description in Clement's narrative poem. These illustrations were without the political and military context of his earlier work. With thirty-three Santa illustrations to his credit, Nast immortalized the figure of Santa Claus we are familiar with today.

Muskegon born Michigan artist Haddon Sundblom painted the iconic image we now recognize as the modern Santa Claus, for the Coca-Cola company from 1931 until 1964. His friend was the original model for his Santa paintings. It is believed Sundblom made $1,000 for his first commission, good money during the Depression era.

 

 

Haddon Sundblom at work.

 

Sundblom's Santa images have appeared in Coke's print advertising, store displays, billboards, posters, calendars, and on television commercials. He helped make Santa the most recognizable and successful pitchman in advertising history.

 

Haddon Sundblom, Santa, and Playboy Magazine