Devoted Indies Serve Public as Curators of Musical PastChris Morris - Billboard June 2, 2001
Perpetuating a process that began in the LPera, a formidable number of independent labels are serving as the informalcurators of various strains of mainly pre-World War II American music bypreserving those obscure sounds on lovingly remastered CD's.
The great majority of these modern reissuelabels are operated by record collectors who draw on their own troves of 78rpm discs to bring classic blues, jazz, and country, as well as variousethnic musics, to a wider audience.
"We all sort of know that we're in the processof preserving this music for coming generations - whether they appreciate itor want it [or not]," says George Morrow, whose San Mateo, CA-based label,The Old Masters (TOM), has restored to print a wealth of arcane Roaring20's and Depression-era jazz and dance-band music.
As they did in the 50's - when one piraticaljazz reissue imprint boldly took the name Jolly Roger Records - many of theindie labels today operate in nebulous legal terrain, since much of thematerial they deal in - which is usually reproduced from old 78's and not fromoriginal masters - is purportedly the property of major labels.
Yet most labels, citing the near-total neglectof this music by the majors, say that they are perfectly within their rightsin reproducing their old 78's and that their activities are unlikely to betested in court.
To Allen Larman, roots-music buyer at the RhinoRecords retail store in Los Angeles, these small labels are performing aninvaluable service, not only for consumers but for industry listeners andmusicians.
"They're providing music that people otherwisewouldn't get a chance to hear," Larman insists. "Without them, therewould be a void. These labels are having a direct impact on music today. There'sa cultural significance with what they're doing - people are beingenlightened. This music isn't being played on the radio, and you can't download[20's bluesman] Charlie Jordan off the Internet."
In the 1998 book Chasin' That Devil Music,musicologist/researcher Gayle Dean Wardlow notes that reissue activity began inearnest "once collectors finished piecing together an artist's work on78's [and] made their treasures available" on LP's and, later, CD's.
Wardlow notes that the most significant earlyindie reissue imprints were Origin Jazz Library (OJL), founded in 1960 byBill Givens and Pete Whelan, and Yazoo Records, formed in 1967 by Nick Perlsand Bernard Klatzko. Both labels are still in business today.
PATHFINDING LABELS ENDURE
Cary Ginell, who today operates OJL in LA withpartner Michael Kieffer, says that Givens and Whelan were inspired by thereissue efforts of RBF Records, a subsidiary of Moses Asch's Folkways Recordsthat issued 20's country blues and gospel. "This music was getting lost - itwasn't getting reissued, and the records were so rare, so Bill decided toput out a series of them."
The OJL label - run exclusively by Givens afterWhelan exited to found the magazine 78 Quarterly in 1967 - made its namewith such compilations as Really! The Country Blues and the first LPdevoted to bluesman Charley Patton. In the early 80's, Givens wanted toreactivate his dormant imprint with a Western swing series, and he turned toGinell, a fellow habitue of Jazz Man Records, a now defunct West LA storethat catered to record collectors.
After Givens died in 1999, Ginell and Kieffertook the OJL name; they'll soon launch the "Western Swing Chronicles" CDseries, focusing on such artists as Milton Brown, Leon Chappelear, Roy Newman, OcieStockard, and guitarist Bob Dunn. "Western swing may be the mostunder-represented or over-neglected major musical genre of the 20th century, as faras reissues and historical analysis go," says Ginell, author of a 1994biography of bandleader Brown. "After Bob Wills, most people are hard-pressedto name anybody else who played the music."
OJL also distributes Sunbeam Records, a jazzreissue label founded in 1970 by Alan Roberts. Kieffer has been involved inSunbeam's remastering of a comprehensive 13-CD series devoted to trumpeterBix Beiderbecke. "Here we have one of the key players in the 1920s,"Kieffer says, "one of the most important figures in early jazz, and yet everyattempt prior to this series to put out either a representative package byhim or something complete has been flawed."
After the death of Yazoo owner Perls in 1986,much of his large collection of 78's was purchased by Richard Nevins and DonKent, who today operate the imprint for Shanachie Records in New York.
Nevins, who describes himself as a "maniacalcollector," says Yazoo has shifted its focus in recent years from strictlyblues to compilations of what he calls "early American rural music" by bothblack and white artists of the 20's and 30's. The label is also issuing new,upgraded packages devoted to such acts as Blind Lemon Jefferson, BlindBlake, the Memphis Jug Band, and Cannon's Jug Stompers.
"A lot of the old [Yazoo titles] were prettyshaky in a lot of ways," Nevins says. "They weren't really well-conceived, andthey had pretty mediocre sound quality. Then they only had 12 or 14 tracks,and people don't exactly want to buy a CD with 12 or 14 tracks. All the ones inthe past eight or nine years have had around 23 tracks."
TOM, another 60's label, was acquired six yearsago by former computer executive/engineer Morrow. It has released setsby artists as well known as singer Mildred Bailey and saxophonist FrankTrumbauer and as obscure as singer/guitarist Charlie Palloy and banjoistHarry Reser.
For his releases, Morrow draws almostexclusively on his collection of 70,000 78's, which includes titles from such long-lostlabels as the 30's budget imprint Crown. "They put out a total ofsomething like 550 records, of which something like 450 were dance bands, the restbeing strictly vocals," he says. "Of the 550, I have 375. I probably havea bigger Crown collection than anybody else in the world."
Morrow has also done important audiorestoration work - most recently on Lamento Borincano, an astonishing two-CD set ofPuerto Rican recordings issued by Berkeley, CA-based Arhoolie Records.
Arhoolie owner Chris Strachwitz began his ownblues reissue imprint, Blues Classics, in the 60's but has recently focusedon reissuing Mexican and Tex-Mex recordings (on the Folklyric imprint)and other ethnic musics. Strachwitz explains that the blues reissuemarket had grown overcrowded: "I figured, 'Hell, let me devote my time to thingsthat haven't been mined to death and need to be exposed, especially theMexican stuff.' "
Several new labels have continued in thetradition of the original reissue imprints, upping the ante with exceptionalproduction values. Revenant Records, founded in 1996 by late guitarist andrecord fanatic John Fahey, has drawn great attention with its elegantcollections devoted to prewar gospel music and hillbilly banjoist Dock Boggs. Lastyear, Revenant released the previously unheard fourth volume of HarrySmith's groundbreaking Anthology of American Folk Music. On Oct 23, Revenant - nowoperated by Fahey's Austin, Texas-based partner, Dean Blackwood - willissue "Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues," an opulent seven-disc box devoted toearly Delta blues star Charley Patton.
"Our idea was to have things that were moresubstantial physically," Blackwood says of Revenant's extravagantpackages. "Some of this goes back to John's obsession with objects - 78's - thoughhe was long past the fetishizing of those things. I'm still in thethroes of it myself. I'm a fetishist to a T."
Though Raleigh, NC-based Old Hat Enterpriseshas issued only three CD's of vintage hillbilly and blues fiddle music sincestarting up in 1998, its profile is high. The label's most recentcompilation, "Folks, He Sure Do Pull Some Bow!," won glowing reviews in The New YorkTimes and Newsweek.
Old Hat's owner, Marshall Wyatt, says his nextalbum will be devoted to diverse recordings from the vaults of legendary78 collector Joe Bussard. "I don't know how many thousands of records hehas," Wyatt says of Bussard. "The first time I walked down to that basement room,I gasped."
Like Bussard, Washington, DC-based collector,scholar, and broadcaster Dick Spottswood has loaned his records for countlessLP and CD compilations. And, like the label owners themselves, he views hisrole as an important one. "I get paid once in a blue moon," he says. "Idon't ask people for money. I guess my main mantra is that this music has tobe preserved, and the best form of preservation is dissemination."
In fact, money seems to be a distantconsideration for most of the indie reissue labels. The majority of them reportsales of fewer than 5,000 units for their releases. Speaking for many, Yazoo'sNevins says bluntly that sales are "terrible, all the time. There's no actualreason to put it out, really. It's got nothing to do with commerce. Shanachieis the commercial entity; Yazoo is just a little historical labor-of-lovehobby, period."
PUBLIC DOMAIN?
The release of archival material has beentinged with a kind of outlaw philosophy on the part of the indies since theLP era.
During an April symposium at the Getty Centerin LA, Harry Smith Archives director Rani Singh noted that the 78 collectorand musicologist Smith's famed 1952 Anthology - perhaps the best-knownand most influential compilation of early American recordings of itsday - was "of dubious legality, since there were no licensing orartist fees paid."
Smith's approach has proved infectious. Whilemany indie reissues draw on 78's originally released by such long defunctlabels as Paramount and Gennett (whose holdings and masters long ago passedinto oblivion), most collections contain material issued decades ago by labelswhose masters now reside in the major labels' vaults.
Few will speak publicly about this practice,which could be considered bootlegging in some quarters. But withoutexception, indie label operators see nothing wrong with issuing music from whichthe majors don't believe they can reap any commercial benefits.
Some contest the majors' right to claimownership of the music to begin with. "They tried to stop me once," the head of onelabel says, recalling a confrontation with a major. "One of the firmssent me a huge contract, saying, 'You should be paying royalties to us,since we are the legal owners.' I asked my lawyer about it, and hesaid, 'Well, ask for proof that they actually own this stuff.' They wereoutraged by that; they sent me these little 3 by 5-inch file cards. I said, 'Anybodycan create those. Please send me either the masters or the contracts.' Andthey simply refused. So it's been a Mexican standoff ever since."
Regarding licensing, another indie label ownersays, "You just don't ask, basically. The rule of thumb is, if you startasking - if you call up Sony Music and say, 'Do you own this?' - well,chances are they don't know if they own it, and if they do, suddenly you're dealingwith lawyers, you're dealing with licensing fees you can't possibly afford,etc. Unless a small label such as mine starts really raking in the money,they're not going to care. As long as it's obscure stuff and not selling in bigquantities, I think we're really below the radar."
Another views the matter in highly technicalterms: "It's never been tested in court, but it seems like using the propertythat belongs to us, or any individual, meaning a 78, is perfectly withinour rights. You cannot copyright a sound. You can copyright a physicalmechanical object, and in this case what the record companies havecopyrighted is the masters. That's what they own."
Few believe that questions of ownership willever go before a judge. Revenant's Blackwood, who is an attorney, says,"It would be a pretty hard case for anyone to make, to assert some sort ofownership interest in a lot of these recordings. Nobody has the goods -there's no paper, there's nothing. It's not worth the majors' time. Evenif they were to secure damages, it would be a pittance; it wouldn'teven pay their legal fees. Another thing is, if they get an adversejudgment, it's like public notice to everyone that you can raid Columbia's vaults,as far as stuff before a certain date, because they have no way ofproving ownership."
Collector Spottswood says the majors' totalneglect of their old catalog material validates the indies' efforts to putthe music in the marketplace. He asks, rhetorically, "Somebody who claims toown a particular performance, or recording of a performance, and has not hadit available for 70 or 80 years - how legitimate is their claim againstan indie who makes the performance available again? What right doesthe putative parent/owner have to restrict that process? The major labelsdon't want to get into the courts to find that out. They don't want to open thatPandora's box."
Summing up the indies' point of view about thisold yet timeless music, one label owner says, "It's first of all a serviceto the public. This is our music. It belongs to all of us." |