Bass was born in the Bronx to an Italian Catholic father, Ralph Bass, né Basso, and a German-American Jewish mother, Lena, née Brettner, who raised all of their children within a kosher household in the religious faith of Judaism. As a young boy, Ralph displayed a gift for music and his mother enrolled him in lessons, for which he became an accomplished classical violinist. However, raised within a diverse enclave in the Bronx, Ralph was exposed to a number of cultural nuances which influenced his choice of musical genres from classical to Blues and Jazz. From an early age, Bass wanted to not simply perform, but assemble sounds that he enjoyed listening to. After his marriage to his first wife, Alice née Robbins, Bass found opportunities in Los Angeles and relocated with his young family, including his two sons, Michael and Dennis. During Ralph's venture into the record industry he began to travel to the Mississippi Delta and other southern states where he heard some of the best music was being played. It was there he discovered a source of unrecorded musicians and his niche as a record producer and talent scout. Here-to-fore Jim Crow laws kept African American performers marginalized, with many relegated to one-night stands performing only to all-black audiences in a network of theaters and nightclubs known as the Chitlin' Circuit. After his second marriage to Shirley Hall Bass on December 17, 1960 Bass decided to focus his career on bringing African American music and African American performers into the entertainment mainstream.[2]
Career
Bass became an A&R man in the 1940s at Black & White Records, where he produced and recorded, among others, Lena Horne, Roosevelt Sykes, Jack McVea (Bass suggested he record "Open the Door, Richard", which became a hit) and T-Bone Walker (including Walker's landmark "Call It Stormy Monday"). From there he went on to help build two of the most successful independent record labels, Savoy Records, in New Jersey, and King Records, in Cincinnati, Ohio.[3] During this period, Bass toured the South with various blues bands and noted the large size of the audiences, still predominantly black but with an increasing numbers of whites. He sensed that the audience was changing.[4]
Ralph Bass knew the repertoire; he'd heard more gravel-voiced shouters, high-pitched keeners, hopped-up rockers, churchy belters, burlesque barkers, doo-wopcrooners, and sweet, soft moaners—more lovers, leavers, losers, loners, lady-killers, lambasters, lounge lizards, lemme-show-you men, and lawdy-be boys—than any dozen jukeboxes could contain. But he had never heard a voice that possessed the essence of all these styles while moving beyond them toward a sound at once more feral and more self-assured, until he heard "Please, Please, Please".
^Callahan, Mike; Edwards, David (2005). The Chess Story. Both Sides Now Publications. www.bsnpubs.com. Updated November 4, 2005. Retrieved November 8, 2006.