Cat Album Discography
Cat was a TK R&B subsidiary started in 1969 (it had no connection to the Atlantic
subsidiary of the 1950s). It was owned by Henry Stone and Steve Alaimo and run by Willie Clarke. One
of the first acts signed was James Knight & the (Fabulous) Butlers, who had both the first single and the
first album on the label. James Knight (nee Billy James Lewis) formed the band in Miami to back
his lead vocals, guitar, and songwriting. Others in the band included: Ernest "Snuff" Stewart (keyboards),
Napoleon "Cool" Williams (bass), Roscoe Rice (drums), and a horn section made up of Dwight "Hound"
Jones (sax), Foster Newberry (trumpet), and Robert "Flea" Johnson (trombone). Their first single was
"Save Me"/"El Chicken" [Cat 1970]. They would have three additional singles on the label in addition to
the 1971 album Black Knight [Cat 711]. The singles were "Baby Please Pretty Please"/"Space
Guitar" [Cat 1972], "Funky Cat"/"Nothin'" [Cat 1976], and "Get Funky, Parts 1 & 2" [Cat 1978].
The label's second and fourth singles were by the Ocean Liners, who had been working for Henry Stone for some time as Betty Wright's backing band on tours. A very solid vocal/instrumental band, they later became the Sunshine Band of "KC and the Sunshine Band" fame. Their singles were "It's Alright"/"Feel It" [Cat 1971] and "Spill the Wine" (vocal/instrumental) [Cat 1973].
Willie Hale, vocalist, guitarist, songwriter, producer, and whatever else, was one of the mainstays of the
Cat label. Hale picked up his nickname "Little Beaver" as a child, a reference to his large front teeth. Like
the Ocean Liners, Hale had been working for Henry Stone for some time as a studio musician and
songwriter/producer after being signed to the label by Willie Clarke in 1969 at the age 24. He was used
for the most part as a studio musician at first, including being the guitarist on Betty Wright's "Clean Up
Woman." When he started recording on his own, it was hard to stop him. Of the 48 singles released on
Cat, Willie Hale had 17 of them; out of the 15 known albums, he had five, or about a third of the output
of the entire label for both singles and albums.
Hale's first single, "I'm a Man Just Like You"/"Don't Let It End This Way" [Cat 1974] didn't chart, but his second single, "Joey" [Cat 1977], released in January, 1972, reached #48 on the R&B charts. He placed four more songs on the R&B charts: "Wish I Had a Girl Like You" [Cat 1991, 1/74, #72], his biggest hit "Party Down" [Cat 1993], which reached #2 on the charts in summer, 1974, "Let the Good Times Roll Everybody" [Cat 1995, 3/75, #34] and "Little Girl Blue" [Cat 2003, 6/76, #91]. Fittingly, he also had the last single released on the label, "Party Times"/"Groove On" [Cat 2017], in 1980 (also released as a 12" disco single as TDK 451).
Other artists with singles on the Cat label between 1972 and 1973 included Sam Early & the Rising Sun, the Kinfolks, Jimmy Ross, Purple Mundi, Rudy Robinson & the Hungry Five, Melvin Carter, and Antique.
George and Gwen McCrae had been married and singing together since 1967. Gwen had scored a
chart hit in 1970 with "Lead Me On" [Columbia 45214, #102 pop/#32 R&B], and they continued singing
together when Henry Stone signed them in the early 1970s. The duo was asked if they wanted to record
solo, and when they agreed, George was assigned to the TK label and Gwen to the Cat label. Her first
chart hit for Cat was "For Your Love" [Cat 1989], which reached #17 on the R&B charts in the fall of
1973. She followed that up with "It's Worth the Hurt" [Cat 1992], which reached #66 in the spring of
1974. After a chart miss, Gwen came back with a huge hit, "Rockin' Chair" [Cat 1996], which reached #1
on the R&B charts and #9 on the pop charts. The song also included her husband, George, who had
recently hit #1 with "Rock Your Baby," on background vocals. Gwen continued with four more R&B
charters: "Love Insurance" [Cat 1999, 9/75, #16], "Cradle of Love" [Cat 2000, 3/76, #53], "Winners
Together or Losers Apart" (a duet with George McCrae) [Cat 2002, 4/76, #44], and "Damn Right It's
Good" [Cat 2005, 12/76, #72]. When Cat folded in 1981, Gwen signed with Atlantic.
From 1973 to mid-1976, there weren't many releases that weren't by either Little Beaver or Gwen McCrae. Cat 1998 was a single by William Howard in mid-1975, but that was about all. In 1976, a new group called the Raw Soul Express was signed, but although they released three singles and an album, they had no chart success. A black/white male duo known as Chocolate Clay recorded an album, but no singles were released. Likewise with a group called Trama, who featured vocalist Donna Allen, a onetime Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleader who would have four top-20 R&B hits in the 1980s. Other artists with singles, but no success, were Alibama and Candy Yams. The label wound down about 1980.
