Winston Holmes

American country blues singer and music promoter and producer in the field of blues and jazz who was active in Kansas City.
Born: August 10, 1879
Died: December 6, 1946

Holmes first worked in vaudeville, as a prize boxer and piano tuner for the Starr Piano Company, then as a singer and manager of a music store in Kansas City, the Winston Holmes Music Company. In 1925 he founded the record label Meritt Records, on which Hattie McDaniel, the band leader George E. Lee, Lottie Kimbrough, Sylvester Kimbrough and others appeared. Other labels used his studio to record in Kansas City. Holmes only pressed 400 copies each and sold the Meritt records for 75 cents in his shop on 18th Street. Meritt Records existed until 1929 and before the 1940s was the only African-American label outside of the big cities. Holmes himself recorded under his own name in Kansas City in 1924 and later for Paramount. In the 1920s he worked with guitarists Charlie Turner ("Death of Holmes' Mule", ...), Miles Pruitt and Lottie Kimbrough ("Wayward Girl Blues", "Lost Lover Blues", ...). In 1923 he brokered a recording contract with Okeh Records for Bennie Moten.