Herman Lubinsky

Career[edit]

Lubinsky was born to a Jewish family^[3] in Branford, Connecticut,^{[4][nb 1]} the son of Fannie (née Rosinsky; 1865–1941) and Louis Lubinsky (also known as Leuvinsky; 1857–1921), both of whom had emigrated from Russia in 1883.^[5]


By 1915, he was working as an electrical contractor in New Haven,^[6] before serving as a radio operator in the US Navy.^[7] In 1922, Lubinsky founded The Radio Shop of Newark, in Newark, New Jersey,^[8] and, in 1923, set up a radio station, WRAZ, which changed its title to WCBX and then, in October 1924, to WNJ.


The station operated from the attic of Lubinsky's home before its studio in Newark opened in 1925. The station became known as "The Voice of Newark" and presented programmes for immigrants to the New York metropolitan area in Polish, Lithuanian and Italian.^[7]


In 1929, Lubinsky set up the Radio Investment Co., but in November 1932 his application to renew the license for WNJ was refused by the Federal Radio Commission because he refused to accept limits on the station's bandwidth.^[9] Lubinsky fought the action in the courts, but the station was taken off the air in March 1933.^[7]


Lubinsky then started the United Radio Company, which sold and repaired radios and phonographs and began selling records. Encouraged by his friend Eli Oberstein, a music business executive, he launched Savoy Records in 1942 from his new Radio Record Shop.^[10] The company released jazz recordings made before the Petrillo Ban came into effect and also recordings made by musicians attempting to circumvent the ban by recording under pseudonyms.^[9] Among the latter was Bonnie Davis, whose recording of "Don't Stop Now" reached number 1 on the R&B chart in 1943.^[11] By 1944, the label had begun to release records by leading jazz musicians, such as Ben Webster and Lester Young,^[12] and over the next few years its roster of musicians expanded to include Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Erroll Garner, Miles Davis, Paul Williams and Brownie McGhee.^[13]


After opening an office in California in 1948, Savoy continued to have success with such musicians as Johnny Otis, Little Esther Phillips, Cannonball Adderley and Big Maybelle, although after the mid-1950s it began to concentrate increasingly on gospel music, including Clara Ward, the Drinkard Singers, Alex Bradford, the Caravans, Dorothy Love Coates and the Original Gospel Harmonettes and James Cleveland. Lubinsky continued as head of the company until shortly before his death in Newark in 1974.^[13]