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Guide to the J.J. Malone Audiovisual Collection
MS 210  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Access
  • Access Restrictions
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Acquisition Information
  • Processing Information
  • Biography / Administrative History
  • Scope and Content of Collection
  • Arrangement
  • Indexing Terms
  • Related Material

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: J.J. Malone Audiovisual Collection
    Dates: 1972-2001
    Collection number: MS 210
    Creator: Malone, J.J.
    Collection Size: 1 linear foot (2 boxes)
    Repository: African American Museum & Library at Oakland (Oakland, Calif.)
    Oakland, CA 94612
    Abstract: Bay area blues musician, record company executive, and night club owner John Jacob (J.J.) Malone (1935 – 2004) was born on August 20, 1935 in Peets Corner, Alabama. The J.J. Malone audiovisual collection consists of recordings documenting his life and musical career. The recordings are arranged in to six series: Live recordings, studio recordings, promos, KALX interview, home movies, and assorted.
    Languages: Languages represented in the collection: English

    Access

    No access restrictions. Collection is open to the public.

    Access Restrictions

    Materials are for use in-library only, non-circulating.

    Publication Rights

    Permission to publish must be obtained from the African American Museum & Library at Oakland.

    Preferred Citation

    J.J. Malone Audiovisual Collection, MS 210, African American Museum & Library at Oakland, Oakland Public Library. Oakland, California.

    Acquisition Information

    Donated to the African American Museum & Library at Oakland by J. Brontez Purnell on May 05, 2017.

    Processing Information

    Processed by Sean Dickerson.

    Biography / Administrative History

    Blues musician, record company executive, and night club owner John Jacob (J.J.) Malone (1935 – 2004) was born on August 20, 1935 in Peets Corner, Alabama. When he was a child, Malone bought an old, beat-up acoustic guitar from a second cousin which he taught himself to play while recovering from an appendix operation. His father, Charlie Malone, was an accomplished bottleneck guitarist and although a staunch Christian, showed J.J. a few blues chords on the instrument. Malone began singing at local churches, and started dancing and performing rhythm and blues at chitlin’ parties, fish fries, family gatherings, and teen parties. His style was greatly influenced by Lightnin 'Hopkins, Louis Jordan, Washboard Sam, Memphis Minnie, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Muddy Waters.
    At seventeen Malone moved with his brother to Indiana where at first he worked mules and chopped cotton. He then started working for the Veterans’ Canteen Services as a busboy. Soon he was working two jobs when his older brother got him a job at a local hospital. In 1958 he enlisted into the United States Air Force and was stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base. In Spokane, Washington Malone formed his first band, the Rockers (later the Tops in Blues). The trio got a gig at a burger joint on the East side of Spokane called Virgil’s playing with handmade, makeshift equipment such as radio store amps built into suitcases and paste-board cabinets.
    After leaving the armed services, Malone relocated to Fresno, California to find better paying work, and formed the band The Rhythm Rockers with C.A. Carr, Charles Banks, Calvin Peele, and former rockabilly Troyce Key. In 1962 Malone recorded his first single, “Does She Love Me” for Chance Records. After C.A. Carr left the group to join James Brown’s band, Malone relocated to Oakland, California and in 1967 acquired full-time employment as a mechanic at the Alameda Naval Air Station.
    Signing with Fantasy Records in 1969, Malone began recording in the late 1960s-1970s for producer Ray Shanklin, owner of the Galaxy label. For Galaxy, Malone recorded a series of 45s in a style somewhere between soul and rhythm and blues, with “Danger Zone,” “One Step Away,” and notably “It’s a Shame,” with which he scored a hit in 1972. Shanklin, who was impressed by Malone’s talents as a composer and arranger, gave him responsibilities in the expanding record company as advisor to Little Johnny Taylor, Big Mama Thornton, and Sonny Rhodes. Malone during this time wrote, without signing, tracks for Creedence Clearwater Revival and was credited by Sonny Rhodes as heavily responsible for the band’s signature sound.
    Throughout the 1970s, Malone would record for Don Lindenau’s Blues Connoisseur label in Pleasant Hill and with Sonny Rhodes on Cherrie Records. In 1978, Troyce Key, J.J. Malone and the Rhythm Rockers recorded an albums’ worth of blues material at San Francisco’s Blossom Studio for Red Ligntnin’ Records in Norfolk, England, which would eventually be released as I've Gotta a New Car (1980) and Younger than Yesterday (1982). In 1979, Key and Malone purchased Eli’s Mile High Club upon the death of the club’s founder Eli Thornton. The Rhythm Rockers were elected house band, and the group changed names to the J.J. Malone Blues Band with Troyce Key.
    Known as the "West Coast Home of the Blues," Eli’s Mile High Club attracted notable blues and R&B performers throughout the 1970s-1980s and was awarded the Bay Area Blues Society’s Blues Night Club of the Year award in 1991. In 1986, Key founded Eli Mile High Records, a blues record label which released Malone’s Bottom Line Blues (1989). During this period Malone returned to performing as a solo artist, while working a mechanic’s job in Alameda, and cut three albums for Schoolboy Cleve’s Cherrie label and two for Fedora, continuing to record until 2001. Malone spent his last years in Hawaii playing blues in Luther Tucker’s ex-harp players’ band, and died in February 2004.

    Scope and Content of Collection

    The J.J. Malone audiovisual collection consists of recordings documenting the life and musical career of blues musician, record company executive, and night club owner John Jacob (J.J.) Malone. The recordings are arranged in to six series: Live recordings, studio recordings, promos, KALX interview, home movies, and assorted.

    Arrangement

    Series I. Live recordings Series II. Studio recordings Series III. Promos Series IV. KALX interview Series V. Home movies Series VI. Assorted

    Indexing Terms

    The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
    Blues (Music)--California--San Francisco Bay Area.
    Eli’s Mile High Club (Oakland, Calif.).
    Fantasy Records.
    Key, Troyce.
    Malone, J.J.
    Rhodes, Sonny.
    Sound recordings.

    Related Material

    Banks (Charles) Papers, African American Museum & Library at Oakland
    Key (Troyce) Papers, African American Museum & Library at Oakland