Bronze - Biography

Biography - Bronze

USA

One of the earliest “post-war” independent labels. Parsing the history of the label from reminiscences of owner Leroy Hurte as transcribed in a series of tapes in 1995 the following summary of events seems most likely. Mr. Hurte was very proud of his being “first” with his Bronze records, and tended to try to push the dates of events earlier than they actually occurred so careful attention was required to work the dates out. This might well be because the first documented releases on Exclusive, also a Los Angeles independent and also owned by a Black musician, are from earlier in 1944 than the first documented releases on Bronze.

In 1939, John Levy started up a company called Bronze Recording Co., with the intention of recording black talent and putting out records. He did record and possibly release some party records by Gladys Bentley. For some reason he needed to leave L.A., and Leroy Hurte, a former member of the 4 Blackbirds, bought him out and registered the business but did nothing with it. In 1943 after returning from work with the War Office, Hurte worked for Allied Records, the largest pressing plant in L.A. He learned how to press records there. At the time he was involved with Charlie “Flash” Reynolds and the Flash Record Store, which also had a recording studio of sorts attached to the store.

Perhaps around this time, Hurte began recording various gospel artists and either released very small quantities of records pressed at Allied or perhaps just assigned numbers to the recordings. The first verified release is BR-117, recorded by Cecil Gant along with at least 5 other tracks in June 1944. Even discounting the supposedly earlier gospel releases, “I Wonder” was still the first indie release to make any noise. It led to numerous other entrepreneurs trying their hand at the record biz. The Bihari brothers cited Bronze and Cecil Gant as their inspiration to start Modern. “I Wonder” became immensely popular right away in L.A. Enter a better-financed white-owned indie, Gilt-Edge, who re-recorded Gant on the same tune. Hurte sued Gilt-Edge, but lost and found Allied no longer willing to press records for him, so he purchased his own press. He was limited to pressing about 1000 per week, nowhere near enough to satisfy demand. He also put out a second single by Gant. The dates of release of the gospel releases aren't clear. The labels are very different from the labels on BR-117, -120, and -121, the three known secular releases. Although one site lists 20 singles so far only 13 have been proven to exist.

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