“Sunnyland,” by Elmore James, is a blues track that has been part of my DNA since I first heard it in around 1970. What I didn’t know, until quite recently, is that this song –that I’ve known and loved for 45 years –wasn’t the original “Sunnyland” recorded by Elmore James, but a later cut, recorded in New Orleans in 1961. This version, which is far more distorted and raw sounding than the original, remained unreleased until the end of that decade. It first appeared on a compilation released in 1969 in the UK by Blue Horizon entitled To Know a Man.... Read More

    I had the privilege of writing an essay on Hoodoo Man Blues for the National Recording Registry of the U.S. Library of Congress. (You can find the text of the essay here, along with a link to the National Registry where it is officially published). Bob Koester, the founder of Delmark Records (which released Hoodoo Man Blues) and producer of the album, was gracious enough to provide a first-hand account in that essay. (His views lent a far more authentic and interesting voice than any third-hand account I could write fifty years after the fact). Koester is a virtual encyclopedia of... Read More

I originally reached out to Jeff Gold, the owner of Recordmecca, to talk about label histories; Jeff began his career as the first employee at the legendary Rhino Records store in Los Angeles, was at A&M from 1981 through 1990 and later, at Warner Brothers for nine years. He’s also had more than a few moments of fame: he’s the guy who found t­hose early Bob Dylan acetates from the late ‘60s- a discovery that not only proved to be of enormous value as artifacts, but provided an inside look at Dylan’s creative process during one of the artist’s many “transitional” periods-... Read More

Although it did not have the historical legacy of Columbia or RCA, by the late 60’s and early 70’s, Warner was a significant force in popular music. Its roster of talent was impressive and many of the recordings sound great. This “golden era” seemed to coalesce around several key figures and events: Mo Ostin, once Frank Sinatra’s executive and numbers guy at Reprise (Ostin majored in economics at UCLA), was put into place after Warner acquired Reprise Records in the early 60’s; Ostin, who developed the reputation of being very artist “friendly,” brought Lenny Waronker on... Read More

People seldom buy albums according to the record label on which the music was released. In retrospect, certain “labels” have come to be associated with great music from a specific era, for stellar sound quality (and occasionally, for both the music and sonics) and achieve a certain “collector’s” status as a result.   There were, to my knowledge, only a few labels that enjoyed this kind of reputation during their heyday- and Island Records- during the era of the so-called “pink label” is one such label. It was a significant independent label (perhaps the most significant... Read More