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The Whole Story Of The 'King Of The Queen City'

Fresh Air

Published October 15, 2009 at 11:18 AM EDT

While most record companies of the 1940s and 1950s made money in one genre, Cincinnati-based King Records spread the love to R & B, rockabilly, bluegrass, western swing and country. Jon Hartley Fox tells the story in his new book King of the Queen City.

Combining archival research with contemporary interviews, Fox describes the company by focusing on the people who made up the culture, including executives Sydney Nathan, Henry Glover and Ralph Bass, as well as artists like Red Foxx, Johnny "Guitar" Watson and James Brown.

A Dayton resident now based in California, Fox previously wrote and produced a series of 60-minute documentaries about King Records for NPR in the 1980s.