Juana Album Discography
Juana was an independent disco and soul label founded in 1975 in Alabama by Frederick
Knight and Clinton Harris. Frederick Knight ran the label, doing essentially all the production and some
of the songwriting, as well as recording as an artist on the label. Juana's distribution was handled by TK
until 1980, then for a time in 1981, when T.K. was going under, Juana was self-distributed. Later in 1981,
H&L distributed the label, but by 1982 they were back to self-distribution. The label was dormant after
1982 for vinyl, but issued a few gospel CDs since 2000.
Their roster included only a few artists, but three artists had the majority of the singles and all of the albums. First was Frederick Knight himself, well known for "I've Been Lonely For So Long" [Stax 0117], which made #8 R&B and #27 pop in the spring of 1972. Knight produced all of the albums released on the label, and most if not all the singles. Knight was born in 1944 in Bessemer, Alabama. He graduated from Alabama A&M University in the late 1960s with a degree in music, and immediately headed for New York City to find fame and fortune.
After recording a few songs, and seeing one single released ("Have a Little Mercy"/"Sauerkraut" on the
1-2-3 label [1724], a subsidiary of Capitol), he returned to Bessimer to start a publishing and production
company. He recorded a song his wife wrote, "I've Been Lonely for So Long," in late 1971 in
Birmingham, and sent the demo to Stax Records in Memphis. The song was a hit, but his follow up
single, "Trouble" [Stax 0139] only reached #102 on the Bubbling Under charts. Two additional singles
over the next two years on Stax failed, and Stax moved him to their Truth Records subsidiary, where he
released three more singles in 1974 and 1975. The second of these, "I Betcha Didn't Know That" [Truth
3216] made #27 R&B in the spring of 1975. A few months later, he left Stax/Truth and started his own
record company, Juana.
Knight released a dozen singles and three albums on Juana, but was hardly their star performer. In fact, only one of his singles charted, "The Old Songs" [Juana 3700], a remake of a Barry Manilow hit, which reached #74 on the R&B charts in late 1981.
The Controllers, the first group signed to Juana (Clinton Harris had been their manager for some time),
were far more consistently successful on the charts, with seven R&B hits on the Juana label between
1976 and 1982 (out of 13 singles released), and eight more hits between 1984 and 1989 on others
labels. It was the Controllers who had the honor of the first Juana single, "Is That Long Enough for
You"/"Pictures and Memories" [Juana 3401] in 1975. The group was from Fairfield, Alabama (a few
miles from Birmingham), and consisted of brothers Reginald and Larry MacArthur along with Ricky
Lewis and Lenard Brown. They had started in high school as a seven man group called the Soul
Controllers, but after high school three of the members left, resulting in the four-man group, who
shortened their name. Their second Juana single, "The People Want Music" [Juana 3406], was the
label's first chart record, making # 82 on the R&B charts. Their fifth Juana single, "Somebody's Gotta
Win, Somebody's Gotta Lose" [Juana 3414], released in October, 1977, made #8 on the R&B charts and
#102 pop.
Other hits by the Controllers included "Heaven Is Only One Step Away" [Juana 3416, 2/78, #37 R&B], "If Somebody Cares" [Juana 3419, 12/78, #65 R&B], "I Can't Turn the Boogie Loose" [Juana 3424, 9/79, #90 R&B/#42 dance], "We Don't" [Juana 3426, 9/80, #43 R&B], and "My Love Is Real" [Juana 3701, 4/82, #76 R&B].
The
third success for Juana was Anita Ward, whose intoxicating summer-1979 disco anthem "Ring My Bell"
[Juana 3422/T.K. Disco 124, written by who else but Fred Knight] hit the #1 spot across the board, on
the pop, R&B, and dance charts. It was a hit not only in the U.S., but in many countries all over the world
as well. Knight had put out an earlier single on Juana, "Spoiled By Your Love"/"Make Believe Lovers"
[Juana 3417] in early 1978, but it went nowhere. They had recorded an album's-worth of songs, but
needed one more to complete the album. Knight brought out a song he had written for Stacy Lattislaw,
one which had a disco groove but was about two teenyboppers chatting on the phone. He quickly
rewrote the lyrics, but Ward was still unimpressed and reluctant. Knight talked her into recording it, and
over the years she's grown to like the song, after all.
Unfortunately, her followup record, "Don't Drop My Love" [Juana 3425/T.K. Disco 420] took a precipitous drop in the charts, reaching #26 dance, #52 R&B, and #87 pop. After "Don't Drop My Love," Juana tried two more singles, neither of which charted. In 1981, Anita Ward was in a serious car accident near Tupelo, Mississippi. After recovering from the accident, she became a teacher. Prior to signing with the Juana label, Anita had graduated from Rust College in Mississippi with a psychology degree, so this was a natural. She has appeared occasionally over recent years at various events, singing her worldwide hit, among others.
Other artists with singles on Juana included Sam Frazier, C.L. Blast (Clarence Lewis, who had two singles for Juana and eventually placed two songs on the R&B charts for another label in the 1980s), True Image, and Tommy Tate.
From the beginning to 1980, Juana was distributed by T.K. Productions out of Miami. The singles series started with 3401 and ran to 3426. The albums started with the awkward 200,000 series, which ran to 200,006. In late summer 1980, Juana broke ties with T.K. and began distributing their own product. Knight re-started the singles series with his birth year, 1944, with the series running to 1954. He started a new album series with a reissue of the Controllers' Next in Line, which had been Juana 200,005 but was reissued as Juana 10001. Juana 10002 was probably scheduled as a reissue of an Anita Ward album, but was cancelled as far as we can tell. By the time the series got to the third item, the Tommy Tate album, in 1981, the numbering had been modified to JU-1003.
The self-distributed Juana did badly, as nothing among the singles or albums charted (with the exception of a track from the Controllers' Next in Line album, "Let Me Entertain You", which reached #84 on the dance charts in September, 1980, just as the distribution change from T.K. was happening). In 1981, Juana hired H&L to do their distribution, and this arrangement lasted for about a year. The singles series changed to the 3700 series, and the albums changed to the JU-4000 series. After a total of three singles, two albums, and a 12" disco single, Juana and H&L parted ways, with Juana going back to self-distribution in 1982 and later.
