HISTORY AND DISCOGRAPHY

A shortlived independent label at at the mid-point of the Twentieth Century which had a few interesting artists and records without much in the way of sales.

There were a number of Ivory Record labels over the years but this one was started in 1949 in New York by Dagmar Van Haur, who’d been a secretary and/or sales manager at Dial Records prior to that. Making this more notable was the fact that Van Haur was one of the few females to own and operate her own label at the time joining Apollo and Aristocrat in the rock field in that regard as the 1940’s came to a close.

Unlike those companies however that quickly landed artists who’d soon become big stars, albeit in other fields (Mahalia Jackson in gospel for Apollo, Muddy Waters in blues for Aristocrat), plus other smaller but still noteworthy rock acts, Ivory Records struggled to get anyone with that type of potential. Their biggest signees were The Do Ray Me Trio who’d had a big hit on Capitol in 1948 but whose style was rapidly fading in prominence by the dawn of the Fifties.

Their rock output centered on the slightly too poppish group The Rhythm Kings and the fairly talented Harold Conner who couldn’t quite get firmly steered in the right direction to connect. Since Dial Records where Van Haur cut her teeth was steeped in jazz, particularly be-bop where it made its name with Charlie Parker, the decision for Ivory to focus a good deal of its energy on rock was admirable, but without the breakthrough artists or the resources available to keep at it longer until they did find a potential star their time was bound to be shortlived and by 1951 they were out of business with no hits to show for it.
 
 

IVORY RECORDS DISCOGRAPHY (Records Reviewed To Date On Spontaneous Lunacy):

THE RHYTHM KINGS: Night After Night (3) (Ivory 751; August, 1949)
HAROLD CONNER: I’ll Get You When The Bridge Is Down (6) (Ivory 753; December, 1949)
HAROLD CONNER: I Done No Wrong (5) (Ivory 753; December, 1949)
THE RHYTHM KINGS: If I Can’t Have The One I Love (2) (Ivory 755; December, 1949)