Effective period / Period of releases: 1953

Group from Washington, DC
Consisted of (in order of photo); James Brown, Strother Brown, Walter Douglas, Arthur Bell

In 1953 Mrs. Lillian Claiborne was an eight-year veteran of the music publishing and recording field. She had already enjoyed a good run of 78 rpm single releases on DC records from 1947-1950. She had placed her most promising artists on other labels (The Cap-Tans to Gotham, Dot, and Coral, TNT Tribble, The Heartbreakers, and the Young Gospel Singers to RCA Victor, and Frank Motley to Gotham and later to Specialty -all with mixed results.

By 1953 she was ready to get back into the local record business and managed The Chords from Washington, D.C. composed by James Brown, Strother Brown, Walter Douglas & Arthur Bell who recorded on NY's Gem Records the songs "In The Woods" b/w "Daddy Loves Mommy" . As these guys had the "Chords" name before the ones who did "Sh-Boom", the resulting legal actions (which dragged on for months) forced a name change - of the Sh-Boom guys - to the "Chordcats".