Country Turtle Records was an independent American 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,...

 set up in the 1970s in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 by Don Kent. The label specialized in early American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 old time

Old-time music

Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music, with roots in the folk music of many countries, including England, Scotland, Ireland and countries in Africa. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dance, buck dance, and clogging. The genre also...

 and Country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

.

Like its sister label Mamlish Records

Mamlish Records

Mamlish Records was a record label set up in the early 1970s by Don Kent. It specialized in early American blues music.Along with Nick Perls' Yazoo Records, it was the label most active in the field of re-issuing mainly samplers, but also single artists' albums of pre and postwar blues records,...

 in the 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...

 field, the label was active re-issuing samplers and single artists' albums of prewar recordings

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

, first released as Shellac

Shellac

Shellac is a resin secreted by the female lac bug, on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes , which are dissolved in ethyl alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish...

 78 rpm records

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

. Country Turtle was the first label to release the Dixon Brothers

Dorsey Dixon

Dorsey Murdock Dixon was an American old-time and country music songwriter and musician. He was also a millworker who spent much of his life working in textile mills in North and South Carolina...

' prewar material on vinyl. The sampler Gambler's Lament consisted of prewar recordings of artists as varied as Bascom Lamar Lunsford

Bascom Lamar Lunsford

Bascom Lamar Lunsford was a lawyer, folklorist, and performer of traditional music from western North Carolina. He was often known by the nickname "Minstrel of the Appalachians."- Early life :...

, Posey Rorer

Posey Rorer

Posey Rorer was an old-time fiddler who was best known for being a member of the American string band Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers.-Biography:...

 and the North Carolina Ramblers

Charlie Poole

Charlie Poole was an American old time banjo player and country musician and the leader of the North Carolina Ramblers, an American old-time string band that recorded many popular songs between 1925 to 1930.-Biography:...

, Blind Andy

Andrew Jenkins

The Rev. Andrew W. Jenkins was a leading composer of American country, folk and gospel songs. He is credited with more than 800 compositions, about a third of which were nonsacred...

, and Rabbit Brown

Rabbit Brown

Richard "Rabbit" Brown was an American blues guitarist and composer. His music was characterized by a mixture of blues, pop songs, and original topical ballads. He recorded six record sides for Victor Records on May 11, 1927....

.)

Discographical data

• Country Turtle 6000 - The Dixon Brothers Beyond Black Smoke (notes by Pat Conte)
• Country Turtle 6001 - Various Artists Gambler's Lament (notes by Pat Conte, Frank Mare & Barbara Beamon)
• Country Turtle 6002 - The Dixon Brothers Rambling and Gambling (notes by Pat Conte)