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Mike Curb is a GRAMMY award-winning record producer, a Billboard record producer of the year and a BMI multi award-winning songwriter. Curb is currently celebrating the 60th anniversary of his own independent record company that he founded, and which has launched the careers of numerous stars. Curb Records is the largest independent record company in the United States that is not being distributed by one of the three major labels. Curb also owns Word Records which is the oldest gospel record company in the United States. Curb received a star on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame and a star on the Music City Walk of Fame in Nashville. Mike Curb was honored as an Icon of the Music Industry by the GRAMMY Museum and Curb artists have received 33 GRAMMY Awards.
Mike Curb is descended from a First Tennessee Family. His great grandfather (sixth generation), Joseph Whitwell Curb was living in Centerville, Tennessee, northeast of Memphis in 1796 when Tennessee statehood was originally conferred. It’s ironic that after all these years Mike would have such a love for Memphis, and he is proud to be an honorary member of the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame honored Mike by naming their induction award as the Mike Curb Award.
Over the years Curb has partnered with the Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame under the leadership of John Doyle. Curb is proud to have partnered in the acquisition of the new Rock ‘n’ Soul / Curb / Beale Street building that will permanently house the Memphis Music Hall of Fame and the historic Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum. The building will also house the Linda and Mike Curb Performance Center on Beale Street. The existing Curb Gallery for Sun Records and Youth Culture will continue in addition to the Soul Music Gallery honoring Al Bell and Eddie Ray. Curb worked with Eddie Ray in the early formation of the music industry program at Memphis State (now Memphis University).
Curb is proud to be partnered for many years in the Mike Curb Institute for Music at Rhodes College. The Curb Foundation purchased and restored Elvis Presley’s first home in Memphis on Audubon Drive where Elvis lived when he recorded so many of his landmark hits such as “Don’t Be Cruel,” “Hound Dog,” “Love Me Tender,” etc.
Mike Curb’s history in Memphis goes back over 50 years when he partnered with Al Bell on the soundtrack album of Shaft, a major hit and for which Isaac Hayes won an Academy Award. At that time, Curb was serving as record producer for Sammy Davis, Jr. and had just produced Sammy’s massive #1 hit “Candy Man” which was a duet between Sammy Davis, Jr. and The Mike Curb Congregation. In order to promote Curb’s partnership with Shaft, and the Academy Award nomination, Curb put together a vocal version with Isaac Hayes that featured Sammy Davis, Jr. singing “John Shaft.” Ironically, 50 years after the successful Shaft partnership Curb received the Isaac Hayes Hot Buttered Soul Award in Memphis in 2022.
Curb also served as executive producer or compilation producer on albums that Curb also distributes on Sun Records including Johnny Cash, The Complete Jerry Lee Lewis On Sun, Carl Perkins, Howlin’ Wolf, Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison, and others. In addition, Curb partnered with Gene Lucchesi in the formation of Sounds of Memphis Records which included several hit records by The Ovations such as “Havin’ A Party” and “Hooked On A Feeling.” Curb distributed “The Slide” which was the final Billboard chart record by The Barkays, in association with the Sam Phillips family. Curb also signed the Memphis-based groundbreaking Christian rock band DeGarmo & Key to their first recording contract. Andrae Crouch’s Mercy album and his Gift Of Christmas album and Al Green‘s Love Is Reality album are important parts of Curb and Word music, and Curb recording artist Lyle Lovett received a GRAMMY with Al Green for the recording “Funny How Time Slips Away.” Curb also co-produced “I Have A Dream” by Solomon Burke and The Mike Curb Congregation as a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Mike also serves as President of the Mike Curb Foundation which advances the charitable spirit of America’s entertainment industry. Today, while maintaining its focus on education, cultural policy, museums and historic sites, the Foundation is advancing new partnerships, addressing discrimination in all forms and the needs of underserved populations including the homeless.
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