Winley Records

Paul Winley entered the music business through writing songs for his brother's Washington D.C. doo-wop group, The Clovers. Through them, he met Ahmet Ertegün, who—unusually for a label mogul—himself wrote for The Clovers subsequent to signing them. Winley moved to New York City to work with Ertegün's Atlantic Records, where he wrote for Ruth Brown and Big Joe Turner. He then became one of the songwriters working in and around the Brill Building in the 1950s, along with figures he met and knew there such as Otis Blackwell and Jesse Stone. Winley formed a songwriting partnership with Davey Clowney, better known as Dave "Baby" Cortez, and the two began recording doo-wop groups for the newly founded Winley Records. ==Doo-wop==

Winley Records first recorded "Baby" Cortez, and then Little Anthony as part of The Duponts: "You"/"Must Be Falling in Love" (1955, technically predating the record company itself). Then came The Jesters, students at Cooper Junior High School in Harlem who graduated from singing under an elevated train station near 120th Street to the amateur night contest at the Apollo, where Paul Winley discovered them. The Jesters' B-sides often rivaled the lead cut. Their first three singles were all arranged by Clowney, and all three—"So Strange"/"Love No One But You", "Please Let Me Love You"/"I'm Falling in Love" (both 1957) and "The Plea"/"Oh Baby" (1958)—made the outer reaches of the national pop chart, and generated considerable New York interest. Under a different line-up, The Jesters reached No. 110 on the Billboard chart in 1960 with a version of The Diablos' "The Wind" backed with "Sally Green". Two lesser singles followed: "That's How It Goes"/"Tutti Frutti" (1960) and "Uncle Henry's Basement"/"Come Let Me Show You How" (1961). A brother group to The Jesters, and "equally fine", were The Paragons—"real hoodlums, real zip-gun, street-warring hoodlums", Paul Winley recalled to David Toop in 1984, "but at the time I was young and crazy myself, so it didn't make any difference". For Winley, they recorded "Florence" backed with "Hey Little Schoolgirl" (1957), "Lets Start All Over Again" with "Stick With Me Baby" (1957), the ballad "Two Hearts Are Better than One" with "Give Me Love" (1957), "Twilight" plus "The Vows of Love" (1958), and "So You Will Know"/"Don't Cry Baby" (1958). Then came their backing of Tommy Collins on "Doll Baby"/"Darling I Love You" (1959), as The Paragons alone on the re-cap "So You Will Know"/"Doll Baby" (1960) and recording under the name Mack Starr and the Paragons for their last Winley release, "Just A Memory"/"Kneel and Pray" (1961). Of these, the records "Florence" and "Let's Start All Over Again" are doo-wop classics, and "Twilight" a "New York mini-classic". Jay Warner is of the opinion that the obscure "So You Will Know" is a finer record even than these. The Paragons Meet The Jesters, originally released by Jubilee in 1959, with its street gang cover and vocal duels inspired by doo-wop's street corner singing battles and live show group competitions, was "one of the first rock and roll compilation LPs", and the most commercially successful doo wop compilation ever released. Hal Winley reformed The Clovers for Winley in 1961 and in that year recorded "Wrapped Up in A Dream"/"Let Me Hold You", "Be My Baby"/"They're Rockin' Down The Street" and "I Need You Now"/"Gotta Quit You" on the label. Other releases of this period include those of Charley White (of The Clovers), "Nobody's Fault But Mine" (1958), and Ann Fleming (Ann Winley), "Jive Time Baby" (1960). Relic Records have collected Winley doo-wop on The Best of Winley Records (RELIC 5019) with liner notes by Donn Fileti detailing their lo-fidelity, almost ad hoc independent approach creating a valuable and unique New York sound. Quoting Fileti, David Toop makes the point that these are comments that can equally apply to Winley's hip hop output. Winley Records released an expanded The Paragons Meet The Jesters Deluxe Edition in 2011 as Winley Records 3068–02. This re-release not only contained 31 cuts (with alternate takes and session talk) but appears to have been mixed from the original session tapes. ==Hip hop==

Winley Records resurfaced in the 1970s, with a series of releases which—like the street corner practices of doo-wop foreshadowing those of hip hop—would in their different ways presage the advent of commercially recorded hip hop, even as that movement blossomed in the Bronx and spread to the streets of Harlem. Winley released a series of speeches by Malcolm X, tied into a tradition of black oratory and to be sampled a decade later by Public Enemy and others. The label also recorded Harlem Underground Band (featuring a young George Benson), whose "Smokin' Cheeba Cheeba" (1976), from the album Harlem Underground furnished a "break" for hip hop's burgeoning breakbeat culture. A "break" was a short percussive passage in a record which hip hop DJs would loop (using two copies, one for each turntable) in order for it to be rapped over and/or danced to. By the late 1970s, "b-boy" sections were appearing in some small New York record stores, catering to "b-boys", followers of this yet-to-be-named new subculture, who would buy 45s, 12"s or complete albums, old or new, of funk, rock or indeed any genre, as long as they were satisfied that each contained at least a few seconds worthy of being looped. Paul Winley's daughter Tanya "Sweet Tee" Winley was such a follower; a "rap fanatic," according to her father. Paul began collecting songs containing popular breaks and compiling them on a series of unofficial records called ''Super Disco Brake's, beginning in 1979 and eventually running to six volumes. A collection of Winley hip hop, Death Mix: The Best of Paul Winley Records'', was also released. ==References==