The Johnnie Mae Matthews Story
Getting Started

Johnnie Mae performing at an unidentified nightclub. A group called The Four Frolics had one 45 on the Detroit based Chex label in 1962. "Dreamer" was the first release on her Northern label. 

In the Fifties there weren't any sizeable recording companies in Michigan and Detroit's musicians and singers usually traveled to New York or Chicago to find fame and fortune. Small independents began to mushroom across the States, satisfying the demand for a booming market of black music which the majors were neglecting.

Johnnie Mae was understandably frustrated at the scarcity of opportunities in her adopted city, but was gutsy enough to start her own business. Around 1958 she opened an office-cum-rehearsal room at 2608 Blaine, just a few blocks from her home at 2900 Carter, and named it the Northern Recording Company, telling me, "I started my own company with eighty-five dollars from my husband's paycheck from Ford's. Every week I'd put so-much in the bank. At that time you didn't have to pay but five and ten dollars an hour (to record). I didn't really know anything about the recording business - Danny Dallas would all do our recording."

At the time Danny was a young engineer at the Special Studio, then located at 138 Duffield, although Johnnie Mae would also use recording facilities at Inkster based radio station WCHB for these early Northern sessions. Her lock-up office on Blaine had a piano and was used for practicing and general administration.

Notes thanks to Graham Finch