Little Labels - Big Sound: Small Record Companies and the Rise of American Music - Softcover

Rick Kennedy; Randy McNutt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0253214343 ISBN 13: 9780253214348

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 1999

Synopsis

Little Labels Big Sound From the 1920s through the 1960s, scores of small, independent record companies nurtured distinctly American music: jazz, blues, gospel, country, rhythm and blues, and the 1950s offspring of R&B, rock n' roll. This title profiles ten such companies.

About this title

Review

. . . close-up portraits of risk-taking label owners who often gambled their careers and livelihoods to release music they believed in. Source: Billboard

From the Publisher

Rave Reviews for LITTLE LABELS--BIG SOUND
". . . Kennedy . . . and McNutt . . . tell how 10 independent labels shaped the course of American popular music. Predictably, Sam Phillips's Sun Labels, perhaps the most celebrated 'little label' in music history, merits a chapter. More interesting, though, are profiles of less familiar independents such as Don Robey's gospel-oriented Peacock Records and John Vincent's pioneering rhythm-and-blues label, Ace. The authors skillfully lay out the complex racial politics of their story, showing, for example, how a shared interest in profits and fresh sounds could bring together personalities as diverse as 'Soul Brother number One,' James Brown, and Syd Nathan, the feisty Jewish entrepreneur whose Cincinnati-based King Records made Brown a million-seller. The book includes scores of fascinating label-artist dramas, some well known . . . others long forgotten. . . . An invaluable guide to the businesspeople, musicians, and hangers-on who transformed regional musical styles into a national soundtrack, this book belongs on the same shelf as Peter Guralnick's 'SWEET SOUL MUSIC' and Alan Lomax's "THE LAND WHERE BLUES BEGAN.' --Publishers Weekly, 4/26/99

"Kennedy and McNutt celebrate the predecessors of today's vaunted indie record companies in this rich survey. . . . In profiling the feisty underdogs who produced so much music that 'is still very much with us,' Kennedy and McNutt also explore the commercial and social forces affecting the industry." --Booklist, 3/15/99

"Journalists Kennedy and McNutt have produced an extensively researched look at a time when primitive recording equipment was the standard and hunger for a quick buck was the rule. A guide to reissue anthologies for each of the labels covered is an added treat." --Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0253214343
• ISBN 13: 9780253214348
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224