LABEL HISTORY

LABEL HISTORY

The Story about Jay Miller and his Reb Rebel label

There's a very odd story here. Records on the Reb Rebel label were recorded by Jay D. Miller (also appearing on the label as the songwriter J. West), the influential Louisiana songwriter, studio operator, and record executive. Miller's biggest success as a songwriter was Kitty Well's breakthrough hit "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels". It was the answer he wrote to Hank Thompson's "Wild Side of Life".

He was also Excello Record's biggest and best source of material. He stamped the label with a signature sound and style that has become Excello's best legacy. In the 1950s and '60s, Jay D. Miller recorded some of the finest downhome blues, R&B, rockabilly and swamp pop from it's stable of artists: Slim Harpo, Arthur Gunter, The Gladiolas, Lonesome Sundown, Al Ferrier, Guitar Gable, Johnny Jano, The Marigolds, Rudy Green, The Blues Rockers, Lazy Lester, Lightnin' Slim, Silas Hogan and many, many more.

The strange part is that all the while he was recording these great black swamp classics, he was also recording sessions for his own Reb Rebel label. There were twenty-two releases spanning 1966-1972 on this odd label. Some were very in-your-face releases, others were simply down-south patriotic pieces.

South To Louisiana The Music Of The Cajun Bayous, written by John Broven, Pelican Publishing Company Gretna 1987

South to Louisiana: The Music of the Cajun Bayous is the first comprehensive look at the history of this distinctive style of music. The result of extensive research, field work, and personal interviews, South to Louisiana details the South Louisiana sound from early Cajun and Cajun-Country through Zydeco and Blues to the current Cajun revival. The above book is highly recommended if you are seriously interested in the History of Jay Miller and his Reb Rebel record label.

Click here to purchase the book.

The History of Jay D. Miller and his Reb Rebel record label:

Crowley, the seat of Acadia Parish, is a neat, typically southern town founded in 1887 and known as the Rice Capital of the U.S.A. Its growth was inspired by the development of the Southern Pacific Railroad linking New Orleans with San Francisco and by the construction of Highway 90 along an Old Spanish Trail. In summer the town often suffers from overwhelming humidity and drifting dust clouds; the winters are cold enough, they say, for Cajuns to make gumbo on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and eat the leftovers during the rest of the week..Although the town itself has little musical tradition, Crowley has been placed firmly on the recording map through the redoubtable efforts of a man called J.D.Miller.

Jay Miller became the first record man in South Louisiana when he started the "Fais Do Do" record label in 1946, recording humble Cajun music with a distinct western bias. Promotional and distributional facilities were inevitably flimsy, and the sales were modest. But as Jay became more involved in the record business he realized there was an outside chance that a major company would lease a potential hit record for national distribution, or, just as beneficial, that a "name" artist would rerecord a local song (a procedure known as "covering" that could mean substantial royalties for the publishing company although the original artist was only rewarded if he was the actual songwriter). Over the years J.D. was to record with the greatest sympathy the full spectrum of South Louisiana music, from Cajun and Hillbilly to Zydeco, Blues and Rock'n'Roll. He gave local artists countless oppurtunities to make records, and his live productions were of the highest quality.

Generous towards friends and suspicious of strangers, the pioneering Jay Miller has the natural swagger of any successful business man. His career as a record man began to take shape when he set up the M & S Electric Company at 218 North Parkerson Avenue in Crowley: "When I came out of the service I went into business, I think it was 1946, I went into electrical contracting. And my wife [Georgia, daughter of popular accordionist Lee Sonnier] and I cashed $ 500 worth of savings bonds, at that time they were known as war bonds. And the building I leased in Crowley was $ 150 a month. By the time I had bought me a little store I didn't have much money left, I had a big building with not much in it.

"Of course I was always interested in music anyhow, so I figured we would set us up in this field with a music department. And at that time I had numerous people who wanted French records. And French records, apart from 'Jole Blon' and a couple of other Harry Choates records, just were not available. You had the older records that had been made by Joe Falcon, they may have been discontinued. So I just said, 'well I'm gonna see maybe if we can make some records, I didn't know what would be the first step to do it."

"As a boy I listened to what we consider as Country now, we used to think of it as cowboy music. That was the days of Gene Autry. The fact is the first guitar my parents gave me cost about eight dollars, it was a great thing for me. Anyway I learned to play what little I know initially from the Gene Autry songbook, I can remember it was twenty-nine cents from Sears Roebuck."

"My family moved to the Lake Charles area around 1933. I was on radio there as a youngster, I remember my parents got me entered for a contest sponsered by an ice-cream company. The prize was a fifteen-minute radio broadcast each Saturday for a year. So I was on KPLC way back then, just me and my guitar. I was just a youngster, I was singing mostly cowboy songs. We moved to Crowley 1937 and I was fascinated by the local bands. In Lake Charles at that time either they didn't have, or I didn't know they had, any of what we call string bands. When I moved here, well, we had Happy Fats and his Rayne-Bo Ramblers, we had the Four Aces. And we had the Hackberry Ramblers, Luderin Darbone. They worked under two names, the Hackberry Ramblers, then they started playing a broadcast for Montgomery Ward and if I'm not mistaken the name of the tires of Montgomery Ward at that time was 'Riverside,' and they changed their name to the Riverside Ramblers. I was really fascinated by these people. I lived three houses from the drummer of Leo Soileau's Four Aces, Tony Gonzales, so I got really involved."

Jay played his first dance with the popular Breaux Brothers at a dance hall at Cow Island, near Kaplan, which was so remote that there was no electricity for the loudspeakers. His strongest memory is of the Breaux Brothers arguing among themselves throughout the dance and fighting like dogs at the end. He considers Amidie Breaux one of the great Cajun musicians, although Breaux did have a tendency, when drunk, to pull accordions apart in exuberant acts of showmanship.

J.D. continues: "Another youngster, Hank Redlich, lived about three blocks away, today he's my brother-in-law, but he was a guitar player. We'd get together and the first thing we know we had brought ourselves in a harmonica player, we had us a three-piece band. That's how I really got started. We called ourselves the Musical Aces, very closely related to the Four Aces."

"Then I joined a band called the Daylight Creepers, isn't that a name! The name was brought about originally because they had an old Model-T Ford and every time we'd go to a dance we'd get back home at the daylight. We didn't make much money, but we had a lot of fun. Later on I played with the Four Aces, and Harry Choates and I played together. I made records in 1937 with the Four Aces, we didn't have Leo Soileau, he had quit at that time. A fellow by the name of Boyce Jones was playing fiddle then. That was for Bluebird, if I recall correctly, that's when they recorded us on a wax disc. It was made in New Orleans and Eli Oberstein produced the session. We were all nervous because they told us each one of these wax discs cost twenty-five dollars if you messed them up. I just knew we were going to have us a big old bill for messing up a bunch of those, but we made it! I played electric mandolin, it was an all-string band, our manager was Wal Shreve. Recording was such a big thing, it was a thing of grandeaur to us!"

"Of course the Four Aces got to where we had eight pieces, we changed the name to the Original Aces. At the time Cliff Bruner and the Texas Wanderers were stationed and working out of Lake Charles, playing KPLC every day, half-hour program on KPLC every day at eleven o'clock. When they left and went back to Beaumont we moved from Crowley to Lake Charles and took their place on the air for quite some time. Cliff Bruner I would say was probably the greatest influence...We were greatly influenced because we got to know them personally. Bob Wills didn't come here very often, I met Bob several years after I had gotten into the country field of music. But Cliff, I met him back in 1937, they were a great band. During the war Ernest Tubb and "Walking The Floor Over You" meant a lot to me."

In 1946 Jay supervised the first recording session for his Fais Do Do label: "I got checking around and found out that Cosimo Matassa had a studio in New Orleans, so I called him, made arrangements, and picked up Happy Fats and Doc Guidry. There were about seven of us in a convertible, we went over there and then we cut the first records. It couldn't have cost much because we didn't have much money. But at that time it was all 78's, 45's were not out then. There weren't many pressing plants, so Cosimo sent these masters for me to the West Coast and it took ages for them to come. But finally they started coming in. The first record was 'Allons Danse Colinda', we called it 'Colinda' and 'Chere Chere.' And I believe it was Fais Do Do 1000, that was by Happy, Doc and the Boys. On the same session we cut 'Don't Hang Around,' that was a thing I wrote, and 'My Sweetheart's My Buddy's Wife.' And a boy by the name of Louis Noel recorded that, he also did 'La Cravat.' Then I decided to set up my own studio here in Crowly; it was the second in the state after Cosimo's"

The first Fais Do Do release, "Colinda" by Happy Fats, Doc and the Boys, sold moderately, but Happy Fats remembers the record (derived from the Calinda Voodoo Dance brought to Louisiana by Negro slaves from the West Indies) with affection: "We took the name from a song called 'Danse Colinda,' we got it from a book in a library at Southwestern University, Lafayette. Actually it was a Haitian song, so we just took the name, the tune is not the same, or the lyric. Doc Guidry and I just sat down and we wrote a French song, a two or three-chord song that is pretty easy to write. Our recording never did make much of an impression, but I've been collecting royalties on it ever since Jimmie Davis recorded it in 1949."

Overall, Happy, Doc and the Boys had a fascinating selection of releases on Fais Do Do, with titles like "Fais Do Do Breakdown," "New Jolie Blond," "La Valse De Hadacol," and "Crowley Two-Step." The 78's are now very rare (in the late 60'ies Jay Miller offered his entire stock to a local fair for use as sideshow targets). During the forties Happy Fats also recorded for RCA Victor Records and De Luxe Records.

Miller's biggest Cajun success in this period was "The War Widow Waltz" by father-in-law Lee Sonnier and his Acadien Stars on Jay's second label, Feature. "'The War Widow Waltz' had a women singing on it, Laura Broussard," Jay recalls, "I don't know what she had but I've seen women crying listening to it on a jukebox, so it must have been pretty strong. And I'd give anything if I'd have the master. The masters we had, the stampers were lost when a pressing plant burned in Los Angelos." Besides Laura Broussard's vocal, the record's highlights were Sonnier's classically perfect accordion playing and the "cowboy" steel-guitar accompaniment.

Miller's other early Cajun artists included Amidie Breaux, Jimmie Choates, Chuck Guillery, and Austin Pete (Pitre). But his star act was Happy, Doc and the Boys.

In 1947 Jay Miller showed his awareness of musical development by forming the Feature Record label primarily for hillbilly recordings, and by phasing out the original Fais Do Do Cajun series. As hillbilly had always been his favorite music it was not a difficult decision to make. An early country signing, Bill Hutto of Orange, Texas, soon scored with "Some Of These Days," a typical honky-tonk weeper with backing by Doc Guidry and his Sons of the South. Miller began recording the promising hillbilly singer Al Terry and was later responsible for introducing two future Cajun-Country super-stars, Jimmy C. Newman and Doug Kershaw. Although the Feature Record catalog was growing steadily, Miller was still operating at grass-roots level, as he explains: "At that time the biggest problem was distribution. I'd get into my car and just load up with records and visit all the jukebox operators and music stores. When we'd get some new releases I'd wait for two or three of them, I'd load up the car and get cracking!"

"The recording process was quite primitive, first they came out with wire recorders and the quality was just no good, of course I didn't know what I'd do after I put it on wire. Anyway I got to reading up on recording quite a lot, then they came out with the tape recorder. I bought a Magnecord GT6, that was when we started making our own recordings, making our own master tapes. We first cut those records at my house, then we fitted up a small studio at my place of business. And it just grew from a one-microphone, one-speaker, one tiny recording deal, it's quite complicated now, we didn't have all this multirecording, multitrack."

In 1951 J.D. had some success with Papa Cairo's rerecording of "Big Texas," followed just over a year later by an Al Terry hillbilly hit "God Was So Good (Cause He Let Me Keep You)." The song had been written as a poem by Jay's wife following their son Jack's recovery from a serious car accident. Miller found the scribbled lines some time later. "I questioned her about it, it was in her handwriting. I realized why she had written it, so I got her to sing it for me. I got Al Terry to record it, a great song. That was his first big-selling record, it was on the strength of that record that I twisted Fred Rose's arm and got him a contract with Hickory Records." In late 1953 Al Terry's contract was taken up as an unusual Christmas present to Jay Miller by Nashville music publisher Fred Rose, who was in the process of setting up the Hickory Record label. Al extended the season of goodwill by having a country hit with the memorably tuneful "Good Deal Lucille," produced by Miller in Nashville.

Lou Millet, another Feature Records artist, had built up a strong reputation in the Baton Rouge area, playing dances and making radio broadcasts with his Melody Ramblers prior to waxing the popular "That's Me Without You" for Jay Miller in 1951. Influenced by Hank Williams, Lou sang in the classic honky-tonk style for both Feature Records and Dot Records before progressing to country boogies for Ace Records and out-and-out Rockabilly for Republic Records. He continued recording in the Country-Music field until the late sixties without ever matching his original Feature Records hit. "'That's Me Without You' by Louis Millet," says Jay Miller, "well that turned out to be a big song. That was a No.1 song by Webb Pierce, Sonny James did it, and Warren Storm cut it recently. My intention was to release the records and hope the songs and records would be picked up by the major companies."

Miller's strategy behind his shoestring Feature Records operation paid off handsomely after he wrote an answer to Hank Thompson's huge "Wild Side Of Life" hit called "It wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" and recorded the song with Al Montgomery, a young girl from Washington, Louisiana. "A friend of mine came in from Nashville, heard our Feature recording and took it back with him. And the second night after he got back Kitty Wells recorded it, 'course that got to be No.1 for eighteen weeks. So that knocked us out, I was tickled to death, we were just a country outfit," reflects J.D. with pride.

As a song, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" is of interest because of its early presentation of woman's point of view. Its mood of hurt despair was plaintively conveyed by Kitty Wells as she sat at a bar, listening to "the jukebox playing the tune about 'the wild side of life'," a tune that reminded her how she had been a "trustful wife."

The record was bought by women in droves. Although Kitty Wells, the modest queen of Country Music, never adopted the women's liberation cause, her success made the way easier for other female singers in the country-music field. (Cajun music continued to offer few opportunities for women, whose place was considered to be in the home; as artists, Cleoma Breaux, Marie Falcon, and Dottie Vincent were notable exceptions.)

"It Wasn't God Who Made Honkie Tonk Angels" improved Jay Miller's status with the Nashville country music hierachy. The hit song led to a songwriting contract with influental music publishers Acuff-Rose and a friendship with co-owner Fred Rose. Like Al Terry, Jimmy Newman was an early beneficiary of this harmonious relationship.

In 1953 and 1954, Jay Miller's Feature Records catalog was dominated by country music, particularly the classic Honky-Tonk sounds of Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell. The label's aspiring Nashville stars and other South Louisisna singers like Wiley Barkdull, Joey Gills, and Dottie Vincent were joined by a slew of Texas artists including Mack Hamilton and Smokey Stover, even disc jockey "Tater" Pete Hunter-all attracted by the accessibility of Miller's studio just off Highway 90. During this period Cajun music was just holding its own on Feature Records with occasional releases from Pee Wee Broussard and his Melody Boys, Lionel Cormier, Abe Manuel, Cleveland Mire, Aldus Roger and the Lafayette Playboys, and Louis Spell; Terry Clement recorded an early version of "Diggy Liggy Lo."

Recording was not Jay Miller's only musical interest. At one time he owned the El Toro club on Highway 90, where many of his Country and Cajun artists appeared; had a radio show, "Stairway To The Stars," broadcast by KSIG Crowley; and was involved in "Louisiana Jamboree," a program networked by four radio stations from the Chief Theater in Crowley. But in 1955, with the Country and Cajun markets suddenly in ruins due to the unexpected arrivel of Rock'n'Roll, Jay Miller decided to wind down his Feature Records operations. If he wished to survive as a record man he had to compromise with the new music; this he did. But, as alert as ever, he realized that there was still a considerable demand for Blues records amoung the southern Negro audience. Yet another chapter in his life story was about to be written.

As Slim Harpo and Lazy Lester began traveling along Highway 90 to Miller's Crowley studio, it soon became clear that Baton Rouge had been harboring many other talented performers. Lightnin' Slim, who started out as a Lightnin' Hopkins imitator, opened up the Baton Rouge Blues scene after hitting with his first record, "Bad Luck" (Feature Records) in 1954. The popularity of Lightnin' Slim's song persuaded Jay Miller to step up his Blues recordings, especially since his Cajun and Country markets were starting to disintegrate in the face of competition from Rock'n'Roll. Until then Miller had halfheartedly used a Feature Records Blues series for occasional releases by Clarence Garlow and Richard King.

J.D. was well placed to record the bluesmen of Baton Rouge, he had no local rivals and his studio was only a short car ride away. Over the next ten years Miller was to help project the fresh Louisiana Blues sound throughout the South -and even further afield- by flattering his artists with superior material and consistenly good productions. Lightnin' Slim was his best bluesman, but Slim Harpo, Lonesome Sundown, and Lazy Lester were not far behind.

I will add more Information about Jay Miller's Blues recordings later !!!

In the late fifties Jay Miller was recording prolifically and with success. Miller had a national hit 1958 with Warren Storm's "Prisoner's Song" (Nasco Records) followed by Slim Harpo's "Rainin' In My Heart" and "Baby Scratch my Back" (both Excello Records) in the sixties.

Jay Miller's Crowley studio, the home of the swamp-pop sound, remained the hive of activity until the mid-sixties. Besides Swamp-pop Miller was recording Blues for Excello, Rock'n'Roll and R & B for his Rocko and Zynn labels, Cajun music (even Comedy) for Kajun and Cajun Classics, and political material for Reb Rebel. He was also arranging leasing deals with such national companies as Top Rank, Dot, and Decca. Miller's best selling swamp artist was session drummer Warren Storm, who scored first time out with "Prisoner's Song" released on the Nasco Label. Storm's attractive Fats Domino-influenced adaption of Guy Massey's old country hit was one of the early swamp-pop successes, climbing to No. 81 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the late summer of 1958. The charming, easy-paced flip "Mama Mama Mama (Look What Your Little Boy�s Done)" was almost too good to be on the same single; it was a hit in its own right. On both sides a highlight was insistent, reggaelike rhythm.

"Warren's 'Prisoner Song' was very big," says Johnnie Allan. "Fact is nobody had heard of Warren Storm, and when I first heard him people referred to him as the 'Little Guy from Abbeville,' they couldn't remember his name. He had a band in those days called the Wee-Wows. Then all of a sudden overnight 'Prisoner Song' comes in, it was cut for J.D. Miller in Crowley. I wouldn't say it was as strong as 'Mathilda' by Cookie and the Cup-Cakes, but it was played quite a bit on radio stations throughout Acadiana. He did good with that song, it kept a very simple beat, it was very simple."

Warren was introduced to Jay Miller by Clifford Le Maire, a former Hot Rod and Khoury's artist who owened the Rainbow Inn club in Kaplan. At the audition Storm sang songs by Fats Domino, Hank Williams, and Elvis Presley: "So Jay said, 'Well, that sounds good', and he had 'Prisoner's Song' in mind back then, so he said, 'Why don't we set up a recording session?' This was in May 1958. He had written some new words, and I knew the melody, so I started singing it to get familiar with it. So then he said, 'We are going to need a flip side,' so he sat down and wrote 'Mama Mama Mama' in thirty minutes. We sat up a session one night in May 1958 and it took us just about all night long to record it.

Then Warren had minor hits with "Troubles Troubles (Troubles On My Mind)," "So Long So Good (Good Bye Good Bye)," and "Birmingham Jail." After the Nasco contract expired he had modest local success with "I Thank You So Much" on Miller's Rocko label before signing with Top Rank in 1960. An expensive session was arranged in Nashville with top musicians Floyd Cramer, Boots Randolph, and Hank Garland, but these country stars were unable to grasp the unique feel of South Louisiana swamp-pop; "Bohawk Georgia Grind" / "No No" was a dismal single. Warren's subsequent releases on Zynn and Dot had a nice, relaxed R & B approach, but did not achieve chart status.

An extremely fast and positive drummer, Warren Storm was working constantly as a session man for Jay Miller, accompanying Lightnin' Slim, Slim Harpo, Lonesome Sundown, Lazy Lester, Carol Fran, and many others. "It was really fun to record with them," he says, "because everybody would drink a few beers and get to work, and after we would record four or five songs we would drink a few more! We really had a ball doing all the sessions. Jay Miller's studio was very active because the blues records were in demand and they were selling, he had to furnish Excello with a certain amount of masters. I didn't find it difficult as a white person because we were into the music, we felt the music, we worked so long in the studio we got real tight, real good. In fact Lightnin' Slim didn't want to use any other drummer except me, I did some personal appearances with him, too. I really enjoyed doing all these sessions!"

Recalling the Miller sessions, star accompanist Katie Webster says: "When you go into J.D. Miller's studio you have to cut 'perfect' records. Folks used to tell him that perfect records don't sell, you have to have a flaw in them somewhere, but in the studio you don't cut a flaw, a record has to be perfect. You cannot make not one mistake, he seems to have microphones in his ears...he hears the least mistake, you cannot get away with nothing in that studio...He will back it up and play it and show you exactly where you have fouled it up. Yes, he was a good producer..."

It is easy to imagine J.D. working the controls, feeding the echo, adding and varying reverb, even changing reel speeds as he sought to achieve the right sound. But he was also indebted to his talented studio musicians. With Warren Storm, the red hot rhythm inevitably generated by Al Foreman on guitar and Bobby McBride on bass guitar; the occasional stand-ins were Rufus Thibodeaux on bass guitar and Austin Broussard on drums. Before Katie Webster's time the Crowley piano stool was occupied by Merton Thibodeaux, who had played upright bass on Miller's early country sessions. His bluesy piano style is heard to good effect on "The Snake" on one of the Flyright compilation LP's, a sensational late-fifties dance record which for some reasons remained unissued at the time. Partiall, Merton still performed in Happy Fats's Band with his father, "Uncle" Ambrose, the traditional Cajun fiddler. Other excellent Miller pianists were Benny Fruge (early country), Sonny Martin, U.J. Meaux (who also shared organ duties with Katie Webster), Tal Miller, and Roy Perkins.

In the horn section Lionel Prevost (Torrence) reigned supreme, while other saxophonists included Leroy Castille, Louis "Boobay" Guidry, and Harry Simoneaux, who doubled on tenor and baritone. Peter Gosch was another baritone man and Ned Theall blew trumpet. Steel guitar duties were usually handled by Pee Wee Whitewing. Being a session person for Jay Miller was not easy. Bobby McBride can recall playing electric bass all day and into the night before staggering home, his fingers bloody and sore...

Although he signed artists of the caliber of Warren Storm and Katie Webster, Jay Miller promoted and distributed his Zynn and Rocko labels only locally. Since he was spending much of his time in the studio, it was not surprising that he could not pay more attention to the marketing side of the business. Local sales were not what mattered to Miller; his master plan was still to provide his artists with a window on the world in the hope of landing a national leasing deal, or getting a song he had published covered by a major artist.

The Rocko label, which started life as Rocket in 1958, was aimed initially at the lucrative rock'n'roll market, blasting off with the prime record-hop sounds of "Jump And Shout" by Guitar Jeff and the Creoles, "Talk To Your Daughter" by Skip Morris with Doug Charles and the Boogie Kings, and "Nervous And Shakin' All Over" by Tommy Starnge. Another early Rocko single, Joe Carl's "Don't Leave Me Again," was a routine swamp-pop ballad that justified Miller's strategy when it became a regional hit in 1959 after being leased to Top Rank Records. Joe Carl was backed by the Dukes of Rhythm featuring tenorman Harry Simoneaux, who recalls: "Joe's first record, 'Don't Leave Me Now' was written by me and was originally released on Miller's label and later picked up by Top Rank records for national release. The solo on this side was performed by me on tenor sax and Raoul Prado, also on tenor sax. After I left Vin Bruce's outfit, Joe Barry and I formed the Dukes of Rhythm and we lasted for a few years. But Joe proved to be undependable and would frequently fail to show up for jobs. Because of this we split. Then the band got together with Joe Carl and we retained our original name, Joe Carl was an outstanding performer, knew how to keep things alive, kept up constant rapport with the audience, and had a fine-quality pop-style voice. His real name is Nolan Duplantis and he comes from Houma."

Following the Top Rank excursion Joe Carl returned to Jay Miller, showing he could rock with the best on "Rockin' Fever" (Rocko Records) and "You're Too Hot Too Handle" (Zynn Records), a name inspired by a chapter title in a sleazy paperback novel. But with no hit records to sustain his personal appearances, he dropped out of music to work as an internal auditor at the Avondale Shipyard near New Orleans.

After recording Rock'n'Roll and Swamp-Pop for Rocko, Jay Miller began using the label for a harder form of R & B from Sonny Martin, Joe Mayfield, Charles Sheffield, Tabby Thomas, and Leroy Washington, who all graduated to Excello, the ultimate target for J.D.'s black artists. Zynn had a more popular ambience. Pianist Rocket (Rodney) Morgan was the label's most frequently recorded artist, and his releases alternated between the stomping Rock'n'Roll of "Tag Along" and "You're Humbuggin' Me," the Swamp-Pop of "This Life I Live," and the sprightly Blues of Jimmy Reed's "I Know It's A Sin." He gained some local recognition before becoming a preacher.

Henry Clement, Zynn's leading vocal-group specialist, started out as Little Clem fronting the Drewdrops (he was also known as little Henry). Excelling at slow-burning R & B ballads like "Please Please Darling" and "What Have I Done Wrong," both with surreal doo-wop support, Clement just as adept on the finger-snapping "I'm So In Love With You" and "Jenny Jenny Jenny." Also a talented musician, he played harmonica on an early Lightnin' Slim Session. His biggest success was the romping R & B chant "Trojan Walla" (Spot Records), ironically not a group number. The general scarcity of vocal groups in the area was probably due to the lack of vocal harmonies in French music and to the weak gospel tradition in South Louisiana, the singer sang and that was it. Nevertheless, Jay Miller was expert at capturing the greasy street-corner sound whenever it was required.. The Zynn single "Plea Of Love" by the Gaynotes from Baton Rouge was a supreme example of this skill.

Other notable Zynn releases included Clifton Chenier's "Rockin' Accordian," Lionel Torrence's "Rooty Tooty" (and a "Rockin' Jole' Blonde"), and Jerry Starr and the Clippers' "Side Steppin'" with Al Foreman on guitar, all solid examples of the fast-fading art of the Rock'n'Roll instrumental. The most successful record was Jerry Morris's Swamp-Pop ballad "(Make Me) A Winner In Love," while the catalog was rounded off by singles from bluesman Jimmy Anderson, Jimmy Dotson, Mr. Calhoun, Tabby Thomas, and Leroy Washington; Cajun-Pop artists Rick Fontaine and Terry Clement and the Tuene-Tones; and a nonrocking Al Ferrier.

During the busy early sixties, Jay Miller started recording Cajun music again; he was probably impressed by Floyd Soileau's involvement in the Cajun market with Swallow Records. J.D. reserved the Kajun Records label for Nathan Abshire and the Pine Grove Boys, and placed other acts on Cajun Classics Records and a revived Fais Do Do Records. One of the most commercial Cajun releases was an enthusiastic version of Chuck Berry's "Memphis" (Fais Do Do Records) by Robert Bertrand and the Louisiana Ramblers, on which the promising young Joel Sonnier vocalized and played accordion. Earlier, Bertrand and the Lake Charles Playboys had cut the hilarious "Drunkard's Two-Step" (Fais Do Do Records), humorously conjuring up woozy images of inebriated Saturday-night revelers absentmindedly tripping over the dance floor. A former drummer of Iry LeJune's band, Robert also played fiddle and went on to record for Goldband with Joel Sonnier. He died in 1974.

The Cajun Classics label offered a rich profusion of Cajun sounds, from the archaic music of Moise Robin (who had played accordeon with Leo Soileau way back in 1929) to the Cajun-Country of Jimmy Choates. The mainstream Cajun performances predominated; the best were "Roseland Two-Step / "Tolan Waltz" by Floyd LeBlanc and his Cajun Fiddle, "Oson Two-Step" and "Crowley Two-Step" by Aldus Roger and the Lafayette Playboys, and "Les Filles Mexie" by Terry Clement. Except for the Nathan Abshire and Aldus Roger singles, Miller's Cajun sales were generally poor. "Cajun records were strictly local consumption," J.D. explains. "When you pass Port Arthur, Texas, in the west, Opelousas in the north, and Thibodaux in the east, I've never been able to find a market. If you sell a couple of thousand Cajun records right now you're doing well, unless you get an exceptional thing like Jimmy C. Newman's "Lache Pas Las Patate,". The record was released on the La Louisianne Record Label and was written by Clifford Joseph Trahan also known as Pee Wee Trahan or Johnny Rebel. "Lache Pas Las Patate" sold in excess of 200.000 copies in Canada and Jimmy C. Newman and PeeWee Trahan received a golden record for it.

Jay Miller was willing to record almost any kind of material as long as it had commercial potential. He had an acclaimed comedy album by Frenchie Carte (Cajun Classics Records), and enjoyed a huge left-field success with the unsubtle humor of Jeb and Cousin Easy's "The Golf Game" on Par-T records, which sold throughout the greens and fairways of America. Then, in 1966, came Reb Rebel Records, with its explicit insignia of two confederate flags. The first release "Flight NAACP 105" by the Son Of Mississippi and "Dear Mr.President" by Happy Fats, each sold more than 200.00 copies; "Kajun Klu Klux Klan" and "Looking For A Handout" by Johnny Rebel were also big sellers. Clearly Miller had found another underground market.

During the mid-sixties the deep-voiced Happy Fats aired his political feelings in a series of controversial releases for Jay Miller's Rebel Records and had a big underground hit with "Dear Mr.President." "It was a civil rights thing," he says, "when they were pushing us down here. It sold over 250.000 copies and Jay Miller gave me a gold record. We didn't have any problems with that, not at all. There wasn't anything violent about it, it was just a joke. I had a car of black people run me down on the highway one time coming in Lafayette and they said , 'Are you the fellow that made "Dear Mr.President"?' I said I was and they said, 'We'd like to buy some records,' they bought about fifteen records. There was a big van full of black people and they loved it. Actually when all this was happening we always got along with the black people down here, that's the Cajun people. And either side at that time they didn't want integration very much, they wanted to go each their own way."

Opening with the refrain "The United States of America, land of the brave and the free," "Dear Mr. President" was a spoken address by a "Confused American" to President Johnson, its message relished by many conservatives and hated by the liberal-minded:

Dear Mr. President,
Pardon me for taking some of your valuable time but before I start my next year's crop I'd appreciate it if you'd get a few things straight for me. The Supreme Court and some of our legislators have changed so many things that our constitution and our forefathers stood for, I'm all confused. First, I'd like to know if I'll be permitted to plant white and black peas in separate rows of equal length or will I have to mix them together? My white coon dog won't hunt with my black bird dog. Could I get an injunction to make them hunt together? The black dog won't hunt coons and the white dog won't hunt birds. Do you suppose the judge could use legal persuasion on them or will you send troops to make them hunt together?

Happy Fats felt he had a message to deliver as he ploughed headlong into other provocative political titles like "Birthday Thank You Tommy From Viet Nam," "A Victim Of The Big Mess (Called The Great Society)," "The Story Of The Po' Folks And The New Dealers," and "Vote Wallace in 72."

The liner notes of the solitary Rebel album, "For Segregationists Only," spelled out the labels philosophy: "These selections express the feeling, anxiety, confusion and problems during the political transformation of our way of life...Transformations that have changed peace and tranquillity to riots and demonstrations which have produced mass destruction, confusion, bloodshed, and even loss of life; transformations that have changed incentive for self-improvement to much dependency on numerous federal 'Give Away' programs, under the guise of building a 'Great Society'. For those who take a conservative position on integration, this 'Great Society' program, the controversial war in Viet Nam and the numerous so-called 'Civil Rights' organizations, this record is a must!"

Over a six-year period the principal Rebel artists were "The Son Of Mississippi" (Billy Joe Norris), "Johnny Rebel" (Clifford Joseph 'Pee Wee' Trahan) and "Happy Fats" (Le Roy Le Blanc), all country-oriented singers. Their protest was directed mainly at President Lyndon Johnson; they felt his policies were betraying the southern heritage and usurping personal freedom. Jay Miller himself had been involved in Louisiana politics for many years, and had acted as Jimmy Davis's campaign manager for Acadia Parish in the state gubernatorial elections. He was well aware of the controversies surrounding his Reb Rebel label: "Of course we had a lot of fingers pointed at us, and I'm shure by a lot of people that are less friendly to blacks than I am. I've always been friendly with blacks and we never did hide the fact we were recording these records. We had blacks sitting in on the sessions and a lot of blacks agreed with what was said. We're not hypocritical about it. You'll find my address on there, I didn't try and hide it. There were others coming out of Bugalosa and other places, but they wouldn't put their address on the labels like we did, there's no way of tracing them!"

I never had any black people object to our records, I had some white people that were amazed at what we did. I met some white hypocrites that tried to stir up some trouble with it, they wouldn't dare sit down and eat with a black. I just ignored them. I've been eating and drinking with blacks since 1946, since I've been making records.. It was nothing new, but I didn't have anybody telling me I had to do it. That makes a big difference, I choose my friends. And I don't choose them based on their color. The Rebel Records were at the time of the civil rights disputes. The best seller we had was "Flight NAACP 105" there was nothing detrimental about that. I tell you what, you had a black radio station over at Port Arthur and Beaumont playing it. It was kind of an Amos'n'Andy skit by Joe Norris, a very talented person, done spontaneously, that's tough to do. That was the first one I did, my friends thought I was nuts when I decided to put it out. But I thought it was good, after all we're in the record business, none of those records were vulgar, you never found one vulgar record. They were expressing a person's opinion."

When Jay Miller became housing director for Crowley in the late sixties he started handling over his music interests to his sons. At the time the recording industry was veering away from regional music with a vengeance; the traditional Blues, Country, Cajun, and Swamp-Pop markets were in a parlous state. For J.D., the contractual impasse with Excello was the last straw.

Although he is now deceased, Miller's past recording activities still attract occasional criticism at the expense of praise for his many achievements. In defending himself, he reflects on some of the problems inherent in running a small "Country-Outfit", from finding suitable artists, arguing over royalty payments, and ensuring the financial stability of the business to keeping up with the latest musical trends: "I don't know anyway that I'd do it any differently...I've never been in a position where I got an artist that was already made, I'm not like a major or someone that is financially able to say to an artist, 'Well, you sold records over there, I'm gonna give you so much front money, you come and record for me.' I've never been in that position. My position has always been that there's a guy that comes in there in his old torn-up shoes and clothes, and an old torn-up guitar or whatever, and an old rattletrap car, and he starts singing for me and I thought he had potential. Everything was on. They had nobody else to turn to. So it's a different setup altogether."

"I always listened to everybody. If I wouldn't have done that I wouldn't have got anybody, because I never heard them anywhere else. They weren't on record. So I made a policy all during my life to listen and I heard some terrible, terrible artists. But on the other hand I picked up some good ones. And I tell them in advance, I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm gonna tell you exactly how I feel.

We had problems by being a little local outfit. Some of the French artists were probably the worst, really. We put out a French release and we'd pay them 2 cents, 2 1/2 cents per record, which was the going rate then. Not a damn one of them would have paid us to put the record out, but we were paying them; we used to have package deals for people, five hundred, a thousand records, we can't record everybody that comes in and pay them royalties. Such deals covered the cost of using the studio facilities and of pressing the records; two beneficiaries were Cajun-Country singer Dunice Theriot (Sportsman) and bluesman Joe Rich(ards) T-Bird. Anyway, they'd go into the New Cajun Lounge and everything they'd hear their record on every damn Cajun phono, delusions of grandeur, you know. They don't stop for one moment and realize just in what a very small area the record is popular. When they get a statement showing they've sold one thousand or two thousand records, and if it's a big one they sold three thousand, they just don't understand that. They heard their record on the radio all over, but they don't get out of this area. They heard it all over the jukeboxes, and all these record stores had it. Goddam he just put the screws to us, lying to us!"

"So you don't have much of a chance one way or the other. I had the same trouble with the other [Blues] artists, too. The fact that they heard their records over at WLAC Nashville, 50.000 watts, more or less made them feel that their thing had to be selling 100.000 records with no problems. They'd get a statement for 12.000 records, I've done did it to them, see. So your producer, he's behind the eight ball all the time, no kidding. The only thing I can possibly see where anybody could have ever said that they didn't get their money from me was because we deducted, and they knew it. We deducted perhaps some of the money for payolas, or money they had gotton for equipment which was part of our deal. I don't feel that I have been misunderstood by my artists, they knew, but by some of these other guys. In the years where I was really active in this you could be certain we were always behind the eight ball."

"How did we prosper? Really it wasn't in the record business. Probably it was through the songs I wrote and I just put it right back into the record business. I had this other No.1 song which I did not write but I owned, called 'Wondering.' That was Webb Pierce's first hit, a number of big artists did it, that was the old Joe Werner song. And of course I had 'It Wasn�t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels' for Kitty Wells, I had a number of lesser hits, but the royaltees began to accrue. I've got 403 songs of mine on record. Of course the big, big majority of them did nothing to speak of, but all of that added up. I still do get a pretty fair income on royalties through my "Jamil" publishing company, I wrote a lot of blues songs as 'Jerry West' because of my given name identifying me as a country writer, which would not be acceptable to the black trade."

"But the trends changed to a point where I lost a lot of interest in it. What people refer to as Country music now, I have a new Billboard there and we could go through the Top Hundred and I would say twenty years ago if anybody would call 80 percent of those Country records they'd be laughed out of the room. They call them Country records, they're not Country records, not by Country standards. You need an arranger, you don�t need sheet music and all this to cut Country music. The word 'Country' more or less denotes the fact that somebody's not supposed to know too much about music. They'd come in and sing what they felt. Today it's not in the same category compared with your Ernest Tubbs and these other guys who really sing country."

"Country was big in the fifties, but then shortly afterwards came Rock'n'Roll, followed by the Beatles next, they bust upset our whole deal. Prior to that you had all your Fats Dominos, which I liked very much....We had a great emphasis on what we term Rock'n'Roll, Fats Domino, Little Richard, and some others. And the Beatles just tore the hell out of Country music over here, same with the Blues. It wiped that phase of business out. So I have slowed down. I figured out anybody who was in the business as long as I was was rather set in their ways. There's no question of it, things change as time goes on I just figured it was time to bring in new blood, new ideas into the business. I was very fortunate to have my youngest son, Mark, who was interested. Of course he was brought up in this, but he's very interested, very very competent musician, he's excellent as an engineer. I don't participate much and I'm tired, really...."

Today J.D. Miller's son, Mark Miller, still manages the family music interests, including the fine $ 300.000 Master-Trak Sound Recorders Studio (first opened in 1967) and the large Modern Music Store. Both premises are located on North Parkerson Avenue in Crowley. To date Mark has produced albums by Al Ferrier, Warren Storm, and Western-Swing veteran Cliff Bruner on the Showtime record label, and by Buckwheat, Fernest Arceneaux, Tabby Thomas, and the Sam Brothers on the Blues Unlimited record label. There have also been several Cajun singles on the Bayou Classics and on a revived Kajun label, featuring the respected Joe Bonsall, Camay Doucet, and Blackie Forestier. Encouragingly, the studio, with twenty-four tracks, Neumann mixers, and several outboard extras is also being patronized by outside producers, including Floyd Soileau with Johnny Allan, Sam Charters with Rockin' Dopsie, and Rounder Records with Joel Sonnier. Once again Crowley has every right to call itself the recording center of Louisiana.

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