Bang Records

Bang Records was created by Bert Berns in 1965 together with his partners from Atlantic Records: Ahmet Ertegün, Nesuhi Ertegün and Jerry Wexler.^[1] The first letters of their names (Bert, Ahmet, Nesuhi, Gerald) formed the label's name.

Forming the company

Berns had been staff producer at Atlantic Records for several years when the Atlantic chief executives and Berns set out to create a new independent label. Soon thereafter, Berns took sole control of the company. At Bang, Berns had an immediate string of hit records, including "I Want Candy" by the Strangeloves, "Hang on Sloopy" by the McCoys, "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison, and "Solitary Man" and "Kentucky Woman" by Neil Diamond.

Death of Berns

When Berns died suddenly on December 30, 1967, as a result of a rheumatic heart condition, his wife Ilene Berns took over management. She believed that arguments with Van Morrison had been the cause of her husband's death, and made things difficult for the Irish artist until Warner Brothers managed to untangle him from the Bang contract, though with some awkward conditions, such as giving Bang three original recordings a month for a year. Others in the industry blame arguments, artistic differences, and the ultimate loss of Neil Diamond, who was Bang's biggest artist. Diamond has said his departure from Bang had been over his direction as an artist, and away from his early "teenybopper" type of recordings that Berns favored, which led to Berns' refusal to release the more introspective "Shilo" as a single, even though Diamond felt it was part of his development as an artist. Shortly after what was said to be a "tense" confrontation with Berns, Diamond departed Bang for Uni/MCA Records in 1968. By 1970, a few years after Berns' death, Diamond had racked up a few hits on the Uni subsidiary of MCA. That year, Bang finally released "Shilo" as a single, which promptly hit the Top 40 charts. Berns' young widow signed singer/songwriter Paul Davis, who had a number of hit records in the 1970s and 1980s, including songs such as "Ride 'Em Cowboy", "I Go Crazy", "Sweet Life", and "Do Right". Ilene Berns also signed and developed R&B acts Brick ("Dazz") and Peabo Bryson. Also in 1970, Ilene hired promotion man Eddie Biscoe to help run Bang Records. They eventually married.^[2]

Development of the label

In 1971, Ilene moved Bang's base of operations from New York City to Atlanta, Georgia.^[3] In the early years, Bang did its own distribution. In 1979, Bang was sold to CBS Records,^[4][5] and kept its identity as part of the CBS Associated unit until it was absorbed in 1982 by CBS's Columbia Records unit. Over the years, two subsidiary labels were started: Shout Records and Bullet Records. While Sony Music owns the Bang Records catalog today, the Berns family still owns the music publishing operations. In 1979, Columbia Records turned over control of Neil Diamond's Bang master recordings to the artist himself, at the time one of the label's hottest stars, who has remixed and re-released them several times over the years. Peabo Bryson was the only artist who released an album with Bullet. His recordings with Bullet are now owned by Capitol Records.

Ilene Berns attempted to revive the Bang label as Bang II Records in the late 1990s under Sony Music Entertainment. Only two recordings were released: Monty Holmes' All I Ever Wanted and Sleepy's Theme's The Vinyl Room.

Bang Records artists

• Paul Davis
• Neil Diamond
• The Lost Souls
• The McCoys
• Van Morrison
• Nigel Olsson
• The Strangeloves
• Brick
• David L Cook
• Peabo Bryson
• Derek
• The K-Otics

See also

• List of record labels

References

External links

• The Bang Records Story from BSN Pubs