Lew Chudd
Chudd was a US radio producer during the '30s, creating the LET'S DANCE show which featured Benny Goodman and Xavier Cugat. He later became the head of the Los Angeles bureau of the NBC network. During the early '40s Chudd worked for the Office of War Information and set up Crown Records to record jazz. After selling Crown, he founded Imperial Records in 1946 to cater for the growing black and Hispanic population of southern California. Chudd maintained a roster of Mexican artists like Los Madrugadores and Herman Padilla until 1953. In the R&B field, Imperial initially recorded west coast jump blues by artists including Charlie Davis, King Porter and Poison Gardner. But after meeting New Orleans bandleader Dave Bartholomew in Houston in 1949, Chudd moved into the newer R&B style. He came to New Orleans in December of the same year and almost immediately he and Bartholomew discovered Fats Domino. Domino's The Fat Man and ‘3 x 7 = 21’ by Jewel King were the label's first hits, in 1950. Leaving Bartholomew to record further R&B artists, Chudd signed performers in the gospel, blues ( Smokey Hogg) and country fields, though of these only Slim Whitman was commercially successful. Consequently, Imperial focussed exclusively on R&B for the next few years. In New Orleans, Bartholomew provided hits by Chris Kenner and Roy Brown in addition to Domino while Los Angeles bandleader Ernie Freeman had a pop hit with Raunchy. By 1957, Chudd was ready to plunge into the white teenage market, signing boyish television star Ricky Nelson who had over a dozen Top 20 hits in the following five years. Imperial also released rock material by Sandy Nelson and Frankie Ford. In 1961, Chudd purchased New Orleans label Minit from Joe Banashak but two years later Imperial itself was bought out by Al Bennett's Liberty/United Artists company, based in Los Angeles. Chudd himself retired from the music business.