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| Dec.08 Cover - The Tragar/Note Story |
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| Written by Gretchen LaBudde | |
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Page 2 of 4  “I kind of introduced and pioneered the record business in Atlanta,” Jones supposes. “When I came back in ’67 there wasn’t any record business in town period. There was only a few small labels at that time,” but not because of any lack of talent around town.“Word had gone around that this guy from Los Angeles had opened up a record company, and he’s looking for artists. I had people just running to my doors!” Jones marvels. With very few exceptions, nearly all of the talent hailed from Georgia except for Mississippi’s Tokay Lewis, whom Jones had known back in L.A., and Lonnie Russ, whose recording doesn’t appear on the Numero comp. Despite getting “airplay like crazy” on black stations WAOK and WERD, nothing sold. The stresses of being a one-man operation with too little dough to fund tours beyond the state borders eventually undermined Jones’ determination. Under the cloud of financial ruin and suspicions of cheating his unpaid artists, he and his family split for L.A. to start a new life. After slipping into obscurity, record collector and DJ Brian Poust discovered the label during his hunts through junk shops and flea markets. Around 2001 his inquiries led him to Tragar artist Tee Fletcher, who Poust said was floored by the attention. “I was the first person who cared about Tragar and Jesse Jones,” says Poust. Knowing he held a sizable chunk of esoterica, he hooked up with Rob Sevier from Chicago’s Numero Group label, with whom he co-wrote the comp’s liner notes.  When the serious research kicked into high gear, Poust and Fletcher had assumed Jones had passed away, but Hal Lamar, a longtime Atlanta radio jock now with WCLK, handed Poust a recent recording by Jones himself, a CD called Saxually Romantic. It was Sevier who first approached Jones.“I was shocked [anyone] wanted to put out a compilation!” Jones says. “It really is gratifying because like I say, it has turned a lot of people’s heads around. I was shocked with what they came up with. They didn’t get it from me. They researched and found it.” “Nothing’s been written on this before,” Poust says. When asked why Tragar’s worth reissuing, he explains, “The number of releases is certainly a factor, but it’s also the quality of the stuff, too. A lot of them are extremely good considering the tiny budget.” In 1967 Jones situated his offices in the West End at 799 Hunter St. (now Martin Luther King Jr. Dr.) Flanked by the historically black colleges Morris Brown, Morehouse, Spelman and Clark, he banked on the cultural hub of Black Atlanta to provide talent, but he’d have to stop the flight of musicians to cities like New York or Los Angeles or even regional black music capitols like New Orleans and Memphis for their big break. “Going back to the ’50s, the musicians from Atlanta left,” explains Poust. "They knew there wasn’t anything going on for them except for the nightclub scene. They went elsewhere. There just wasn't much opportunity.” Georgians like Otis Redding went to Stax in Memphis, Little Richard recorded for RCA, James Brown to King in Cincinnati. “For some reason, as big as the African-American population was in Atlanta was even then, no one ever put any money into getting a record label started,” says Poust. That truth often restricted Jones to scratching the bottom of the barrel for funds to promote his releases. “We never had a major hit record because we could never promote it,” Jones says. “I didn’t have the finances to venture out into Texas or Florida. I couldn’t afford it. We’d go out for a Saturday night, for a Friday night, 100 miles out of town to Columbus or Macon or Augusta, then be back in town the next day. “We worked the chitlin circuit on door percentages, very few or no guarantees of money.” Transportation, food, and lodging expenses ate up the gig money. “Not much left over for the artists,” he laments. |
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