Henry Stone

Record producer. Born: June 3, 1921; Died: August 7, 2014.

HENRY Stone, who has died aged 93, was an influential record producer and a fixture on the R&B and disco scene who was instrumental in the careers of Ray Charles, James Brown and KC & the Sunshine Band.

Stone was co-founder of the famed TK Records and opened a record distribution business and recording studio in the United States in 1948. Within a few years he recorded his first artist, a pianist-singer from the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, who would later become the legendary Ray Charles.

Stone’s hits were on TK Records, which he co-founded with Steve Alaimo in 1972, and similar labels he founded.

They included Get Down Tonight, That’s the Way (I Like It), Shake, Shake, Shake (Shake Your Booty), I’m Your Boogie Man for KC & the Sunshine Band and Ring My Bell for Anita Ward.

He released Otis Williams and the Charms’ No. 1 R&B hit, Heart of Stone, in 1954. He was also instrumental in signing James Brown and the Famous Flames, earning the hit, Please, Please, Please, which topped the R&B charts in 1956.

TK went bankrupt in 1981, but Stone pursued his passion with other production companies, finding an off-beat hit in 1990 with novelty act 2 Live Jews and its album, As Kosher As They Wanna Be, a parody of 2 Live Crew that featured Stone’s actor, songwriterproducer son, Joseph Stone.

“One of the biggest lessons he taught me was how to listen better and how to live in this moment,” his son said. “He had an incredible sense of principle and kindness and understanding.”

Stone’s love for music started as a teenager when he played trumpet while growing up in an orphanage in Pleasantville, New York. During the Second World War, he served in the Army and played trumpet in a racially integrated band and developed an appreciation of what were called race records. Three decades later, the biggest pay-off of his career came with the racially-integrated KC & the Sunshine Band.

The group’s co-founder, Harry Wayne KC Casey, said he started recording bits of music when the studio was free while working parttime at TK Records.

Casey co-wrote Rock Your Baby with Richard Finch in 1974 and it became the songwriters’ first No. 1 pop single for TK, when singer George McRae recorded the hit version.

Casey said Stone was his mentor and ‘believed in me when no one else did’.

He is survived by his wife Inez Pinchot, two sons and five daughters, as well as g randchildren and great-grandchildren.