Arhoolie Records is a small record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

 run by Chris Strachwitz

Chris Strachwitz

Chris Strachwitz is a German-born American record label executive and record producer. He is the founder and president of Arhoolie Records, which he established in 1960 and which became one of the leading labels recording and issuing blues, Cajun, norteño and other forms of roots music from the...

. The label was founded by Strachwitz in 1960

1960 in music

-Events:*January 14 – Elvis Presley is promoted to Sergeant in the U.S. Army*February 6 – Songwriter Jesse Belvin dies in an automobile accident in Los Angeles...

 as a way for him to record and publish previously obscure "down home blues" artists such as Lightnin' Hopkins

Lightnin' Hopkins

Sam John Hopkins better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas...

, Snooks Eaglin

Snooks Eaglin

Snooks Eaglin, born Fird Eaglin, Jr. , was a New Orleans-based guitarist and singer. He was also referred to as Blind Snooks Eaglin in his early years....

 and Bill Gaither. Arhoolie still publishes blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 and folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, Tejano

Tejano

Tejano or Texano is a term used to identify a Texan of Mexican heritage.Historically, the Spanish term Tejano has been used to identify different groups of people...

 music including Lydia Mendoza

Lydia Mendoza

Lydia Mendoza was an American guitarist and singer of Tejano music. She is known as La Alondra de la Frontera ....

 and regional Mexican music, cajun

Cajun

Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles...

, zydeco

Zydeco

Zydeco is a form of uniquely American roots or folk music. It evolved in southwest Louisiana in the early 19th century from forms of "la la" Creole music...

, and bluegrass

Bluegrass music

Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

... the best of "roots" music.

Other artists who recorded for the Arhoolie label include: Dave Alexander

Dave Alexander (blues musician)

Dave Alexander aka Omar Sharriff, Omar Hakim Khayam is an American Texas blues singer, and pianist.-Biography:...

, Nathan Beauregard

Nathan Beauregard

Nathan Beauregard, real name Nathan Bogard, was an African American blues singer and guitarist....

, Juke Boy Bonner

Juke Boy Bonner

Weldon H. Philip Bonner, better known as Juke Boy Bonner was an American blues singer, harmonica player, and guitarist. He was influenced by Lightnin' Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, and Slim Harpo...

, Clifton Chenier

Clifton Chenier

Clifton Chenier , a Creole French-speaking native of Opelousas, Louisiana, was an eminent performer and recording artist of Zydeco, which arose from Cajun and Creole music, with R&B, jazz, and blues influences. He played the accordion and won a Grammy Award in 1983...

, Elizabeth Cotten

Elizabeth Cotten

Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten was an American blues and folk musician, singer, and songwriter.A self-taught left-handed guitarist, Cotten developed her own original style. Her approach involved using a right-handed guitar , not re-strung for left-handed playing, essentially, holding a right-handed...

, Jesse Fuller

Jesse Fuller

Jesse Fuller was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues".-Early life:...

, Earl Hooker

Earl Hooker

Earl Hooker was an American Chicago blues guitarist, perhaps best known for his slide guitar playing. Considered a "musician's musician", Hooker performed with blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior Wells, and John Lee Hooker as well as fronting his own bands...

, John Jackson

John Jackson (blues musician)

John Jackson was an American Piedmont blues musician; his music did not become primary until his accidental "discovery" by folklorist Chuck Perdue in the 1960s...

, Mance Lipscomb

Mance Lipscomb

Mance Lipscomb was an American blues singer, guitarist and songster. Born Beau De Glen Lipscomb near Navasota, Texas, United States, he as a youth took the name of 'Mance' from a friend of his oldest brother Charlie .-Biography:Lipscomb was born April 9, 1895 to an ex-slave father from Alabama and...

, Robert Shaw

Robert Shaw (blues musician)

Robert Shaw was an American blues and boogie-woogie pianist, best known for his 1963 album, The Ma Grinder.-Biography:Shaw was born in Stafford, Texas, the son of farm owners Jesse and Hettie Shaw...

, Mississippi Fred McDowell

Mississippi Fred McDowell

Fred McDowell known by his stage name; Mississippi Fred McDowell, was an American Hill country blues singer and guitar player.-Career:...

, Whistlin' Alex Moore

Whistlin' Alex Moore

Whistlin' Alex Moore was an American blues pianist, singer and whistler. He is best remembered for his recordings of "Across The Atlantic Ocean" and "Black Eyed Peas and Hog Jowls."-Early life:...

, Charlie Musselwhite

Charlie Musselwhite

Charlie Musselwhite is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the non-black bluesmen who came to prominence in the early 1960s, along with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield. Though he has often been identified as a "white bluesman", he claims Native American heritage...

, Doctor Ross

Doctor Ross

Doctor Ross , aka Doctor Ross, the harmonica boss, was an American blues singer, guitarist, harmonica player and drummer — a one-man band— who was born Charles Isaiah Ross, in Tunica, Mississippi....

, Bukka White

Bukka White

Booker T. Washington White , better known as Bukka White, was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. "Bukka" was not a nickname, but a phonetic misspelling of White's given name Booker, by his second record label .-Biography:Born between Aberdeen and Houston, Mississippi, White was the...

, Big Joe Williams

Big Joe Williams

Joseph Lee Williams , billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar...

, Silas Hogan

Silas Hogan

Silas Hogan was an American blues musician. Hogan most notably recorded "Airport Blues" and "Lonesome La La", was the front man of the Rhythm Ramblers, and became an inductee in the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame....

, Mercy Dee Walton, Black Ace

Black Ace

Black Ace was the most frequently used stage name of the American Texas blues musician, Babe Kyro Lemon Turner , who was also known as B.K...

, The Campbell Brothers

The Campbell Brothers

The Campbell Brothers are an American Sacred Steel gospel group from Rush, New York composed of three brothers and one son.The ensemble features prominent pedal steel guitar and began as the house band for a House of God Keith Dominion congregation. The pedal steel player, Chuck, uses his own...

, BeauSoleil

Beausoleil

BeauSoleil is an American musical group specializing in Cajun music. Based in Lafayette, Louisiana, the group members are brothers Michael Doucet and David Doucet , Jimmy Breaux , Billy Ware , Tommy Alesi , and Mitchell Reed .-Band history:Founded in 1975, BeauSoleil BeauSoleil (French, beautiful...

, Jerry Hahn

Jerry Hahn

Jerry Hahn is an American jazz guitarist.Hahn studied at Wichita State University, then moved to San Francisco in 1962, where he played with John Handy . He toured with The 5th Dimension in 1968 and worked with Gary Burton in 1968-69...

, the Savoy Family Band, the Pine Leaf Boys

Pine Leaf Boys

The Pine Leaf Boys is a Cajun and Creole band from South Louisiana. Members include Wilson Savoy , Courtney Granger , Drew Simon , Jon Bertrand , and Thomas David .-Career:...

, The Klezmorim

The Klezmorim

The Klezmorim was a klezmer band formed in 1975. They are widely credited with spearheading the worldwide revival of klezmer music in the 1970s and 1980s....

, and Rose Maddox

Rose Maddox

Roselea Maddox , better known as Rose Maddox, was an American country singer-songwriter and fiddle player.Born in Boaz, Alabama, Maddox was the singer in the Maddox Brothers and Rose....

.

External links

• Official site
• The Arhoolie Records Story
• Illustrated Arhoolie Records discography (emphasis on vinyl)