Little Labels - Big Sound

Rick Kennedy, a media relations manager, worked for a decade as a journalist. Kennedy plays jazz piano and is the author of Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy: Gennett Studios and the Birth of Recorded Jazz (Indiana University Press).Randy McNutt is a longtime reporter with the Cincinnati Enquirer and the author of We Wanna Boogie: An Illustrated History of the American Rockabilly Movement and a book on Ohio ghost towns.

"Kennedy and McNutt profile ten of the most influential independent record labels from the 1920s through the 1960s. While the major labels over this period garnered the lion's share of the market, the small labels produced some of the most significant music recorded at the time. Moreover, independent labels catapulted many artists to fame—e.g., Elvis Presley on Sun, Charlie Parker on Dial. Because the little labels typically served smaller geographic areas and concentrated on a single genre (jazz, blues, etc.), they provide better historical documents for researchers looking for eddies below the popular mainstream. Collectors have long recognized the importance of recordings issued by independent labels, as demonstrated by the high prices these records fetch. Now more researchers are paying attention to these artifacts, as the study of discography expands in scope. Although Kennedy and McNutt provide plenty of worthwhile information about artists, Little Labels concentrates on the fortunes of the owners/producers. Some of these stories have been told elsewhere (for example, in Kennedy's Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy, CH, Oct'94, which looks at the Gennett studio). The authors relied heavily on personal correspondence and interviews with surviving label owners; their secondary documentation is sparser or lacking. A worthwhile book for large music collections."—J. Farrington, Eastman School of Music , Choice, December 1999". . . close-up portraits of risk-taking label owners who often gambled their careers and livelihoods to release music they believed in."—Billboard

• PrefaceIntroduction: Little Labels and the American Beat, 1920-19701. Gennett Records2. Paramount Records3. Dial Records4. King Records5. Duke-Peacock Records6. Sun Records7. Riverside Records8. Ace Records9. Monument Records10. Delmark RecordsLittle Labels on Reissue AnthologiesNotesBibliographyIndex