Takoma Records
Encyclopedia
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| Parent company | Concord Music Group Concord Music Group Concord Music Group is a record company owned by Village Roadshow formed in 2004 by the merger of Concord Records and Fantasy Records. In 2005, the company acquired the classics and jazz label Telarc International. On December 18, 2006, Concord announced the re-launch of the soul label Stax;... |
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| Founded | 1959 | ||
| Founder(s) | John Fahey John Fahey (musician) John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the... , ED Denson ED Denson Eugene "ED" Denson is an American music group manager, producer, record label owner, and - later - lawyer, who has made notable contributions to folk, blues, and early San Francisco rock.-Biography:Denson was born in Washington D.C. in 1940... , Norman Pierce Norman Pierce Norman Pierce was a British actor, born in Southport, Lancashire.-Selected filmography:* Everything Is Thunder * This Green Hell * Saloon Bar * Uncensored * Front Line Kids... |
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| Distributing label | Concord Records Concord Records Concord Records is a U.S. record label now based in Beverly Hills, California. Originally known as Concord Jazz, it was established in 1972 as an off-shoot of the Concord Jazz Festival in Concord, California by festival founder Carl Jefferson, a local automobile dealer and jazz fan who sold his... (In the US United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district... ), Universal Music Group Universal Music Group Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations... |
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| Genre(s) | 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.... |
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| Country | US United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district... |
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| Web address | http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/labels/Takoma/ | ||
Takoma Records was a small but influential 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,...
founded by John Fahey
John Fahey (musician)
John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...
in the late 1950s.. It was named after Fahey's hometown, the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
suburb of Takoma Park, Maryland
Takoma Park, Maryland
Takoma Park is a city in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Washington, D.C., and part of the Washington Metropolitan Area. Founded in 1883 and incorporated in 1890, Takoma Park, informally called "Azalea City," is a Tree City USA and a nuclear-free zone...
.
History
Takoma Records began with a custom pressing of 100 copies of John Fahey/Blind Joe DeathBlind Joe Death
Blind Joe Death is the first album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey. There are three different versions of the album, and the original self-released edition of fewer than 100 copies is extremely rare...
, an album of his own guitar playing released by John Fahey around 1959. He had no distribution and sold the pressing mainly to friends, and at music parties. A copy of this record recently sold on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
for several thousand dollars.
John moved to Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
, and the label was really launched when John rediscovered the country bluesman, 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...
. With Eugene "ED" Denson
ED Denson
Eugene "ED" Denson is an American music group manager, producer, record label owner, and - later - lawyer, who has made notable contributions to folk, blues, and early San Francisco rock.-Biography:Denson was born in Washington D.C. in 1940...
, John drove to Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
and the pair produced Bukka's first recording in 23 years. Later in 1963 they released it, as well as John's second album of his own music.
Independent labels were a novelty at that period in American musical history, but gradually in the next several years word spread about the music. At the same time independent "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....
" labels like Rounder
Rounder Records
Rounder Records, originally of Cambridge, Massachusetts, but now based in Burlington, Massachusetts, is a record label founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students...
were springing up, and establishing distribution systems. The content of the Takoma label expanded to include other guitarists, such as Robbie Basho, and other types of folk music. Contemporary Guitar, a compilation recorded in 1966 and featuring artists John Fahey
John Fahey (musician)
John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...
, Robbie Basho
Robbie Basho
Robbie Basho was an American composer, guitarist and pianist, and one of the pioneers of the acoustic steel string guitar in America.-Biography:...
, 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...
, Max Ochs
Max Ochs
*Max Ochs is a fingerstyle acoustic guitarist and folklorist who recorded for Takoma Records among other labels. His family moved to Annapolis, Maryland in 1945, where Ochs spent his adolescence...
, and Harry Taussig, displays Takoma's interest in diverse acoustic-guitar styles, from plantation blues to raga
Raga
A raga is one of the melodic modes used in Indian classical music.It is a series of five or more musical notes upon which a melody is made...
. At the same time the label ventured into the avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
with The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing. Acoustic guitar
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
music, especially that of John Fahey, remained the mainstay of the label.
Around 1967, Denson moved to full-time management of the rock band Country Joe and the Fish
Country Joe and the Fish
Country Joe and the Fish was a rock band most widely known for musical protests against the Vietnam War, from 1966 to 1971, and also regarded as a seminal influence to psychedelic rock.-History:...
and John became the sole owner of Takoma. He moved the label and himself to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, where he was studying for his Masters degree at UCLA under D.K. Wilgus. Leo Kottke
Leo Kottke
Leo Kottke is an acoustic guitarist. He is widely known for his innovative fingerpicking style, which draws on influences from blues, jazz, and folk music, and his syncopated, polyphonic melodies...
's 6 and 12-String Guitar became a surprise hit and the profits funded an expansion of the label which now had a staff.
In 1970 Jon Monday
Jon Monday
Jon Monday is an American producer and distributor of CDs and DVDs across an eclectic range of material such as Swami Prabhavananda, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Huston Smith, Chalmers Johnson, and Charles Bukowski...
joined the label, first as Promotion Manager, and working his way up to General Manager. The label grew as progressive radio stations played new releases by Fahey and other Takoma artists. In 1973 Charlie Mitchell became Takoma's president. Takoma was one of the founding companies of NAIRD - the National Association of Independent Record Distributors.
Fahey had started a new genre of guitar music, known later as American Primitivism
American Primitivism
American Primitivism, also known as American Primitive Guitar, is the music genre started by John Fahey in the late 1950s. Fahey composed and recorded avant-garde/neo-classical compositions using traditional country blues fingerpicking techniques, which had previously been used primarily to...
, which comprised traditional fingerpicking steel string guitar techniques applied to neo-classical compositions. The Takoma label showcased such music; its roster included Leo Kottke, Peter Lang
Peter Lang (guitarist)
Peter Lang is an accomplished acoustic guitarist, from the same genre, American Primitivism, as the better-known guitarists Leo Kottke and John Fahey. All three artists shared the Takoma Records label, and a joint-titled album released in 1974 features a selection of songs from...
, Mike Aldridge, Robbie Basho
Robbie Basho
Robbie Basho was an American composer, guitarist and pianist, and one of the pioneers of the acoustic steel string guitar in America.-Biography:...
, Max Ochs
Max Ochs
*Max Ochs is a fingerstyle acoustic guitarist and folklorist who recorded for Takoma Records among other labels. His family moved to Annapolis, Maryland in 1945, where Ochs spent his adolescence...
, and already famous Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
bluesman Bukka White. George Winston
George Winston
George Winston is an American pianist who was born in Michigan, and grew up mainly in Miles City, Montana as well as Mississippi and Florida. He attended Stetson University in Deland, Florida and lives in Santa Cruz, California.-Background:...
released his first album on Takoma and Mike Bloomfield
Mike Bloomfield
Michael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...
released several solo albums on the label. American composer and electronic music pioneer Joseph Byrd
Joseph Byrd
Joseph Byrd was the leader of The United States of America, a notable rock band from the 1960s, as well as the psychedelic group Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies, of cult fame through their release The American Metaphysical Circus...
released three records in 1975-76 on Takoma, which were co-produced by Jon Monday
Jon Monday
Jon Monday is an American producer and distributor of CDs and DVDs across an eclectic range of material such as Swami Prabhavananda, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Huston Smith, Chalmers Johnson, and Charles Bukowski...
.
Sale
In 1979, Fahey sold Takoma to Chrysalis RecordsChrysalis Records
Chrysalis Records was a British record label that was created in 1969. The name was both a reference to the pupal stage of a butterfly and a combination of its founders names, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis...
, owned by Terry Ellis
Terry Ellis (manager)
Terry Ellis is an English record producer and manager best known for his early work with Jethro Tull, and as co-founder of Chrysalis Music in 1969....
and Chris Wright
Chris Wright
-Sports:* Chris Wright , plays for Essex County Cricket Club* Chris Wright , a guard at Georgetown University* Chris Wright , a forward at the University of Dayton...
, which had artists such as Blondie
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
, Pat Benatar
Pat Benatar
Pat Benatar is an American singer and four-time Grammy winner. She had considerable commercial success particularly in the United States...
, and Huey Lewis
Huey Lewis
Huey Lewis is an American musician, songwriter and occasional actor.Lewis sings lead and plays harmonica for his band Huey Lewis and the News, in addition to writing or co-writing many of the band's songs...
. Jon Monday
Jon Monday
Jon Monday is an American producer and distributor of CDs and DVDs across an eclectic range of material such as Swami Prabhavananda, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Huston Smith, Chalmers Johnson, and Charles Bukowski...
continued as General Manager of the label for Chrysalis until 1982 when Chrysalis sold the Takoma catalog. During the Chrysalis years, Takoma released albums by The Fabulous Thunderbirds
The Fabulous Thunderbirds
The Fabulous Thunderbirds are an American, Grammy-nominated Blues rock band, formed in 1974.-Career:After performing for several years in the Austin, Texas blues scene, the band won a recording contract with Takoma/Chrysalis Records, and later on signed with Epic Records.Their first two albums,...
, Maria Muldaur
Maria Muldaur
Maria Muldaur is a folk-blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s...
, Canned Heat
Canned Heat
Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...
, Mike Bloomfield
Mike Bloomfield
Michael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...
, and T-Bone Burnett
T-Bone Burnett
Joseph Henry Burnett , widely known as T-Bone Burnett, is an American musician, songwriter, and soundtrack and record producer.He was a guitarist in Bob Dylan's band on the Rolling Thunder Revue...
. The catalog was purchased in 1995 by Fantasy Records
Fantasy Records
Fantasy Records is a United States-based record label that was founded by Max and Sol Weiss in 1949 in San Francisco, California. They had previously operated a record-pressing plant called Circle Record Company before forming the Fantasy label...
, which in 2004 was taken over by the Concord Music Group
Concord Records
Concord Records is a U.S. record label now based in Beverly Hills, California. Originally known as Concord Jazz, it was established in 1972 as an off-shoot of the Concord Jazz Festival in Concord, California by festival founder Carl Jefferson, a local automobile dealer and jazz fan who sold his...
. Fantasy has a handful of the Takoma recordings on the market as CDs as of this writing in 2007.
The label's best selling release was Kottke's 6 and 12-String Guitar (often called The Armadillo Album because of the cover art). Another influential album on Takoma was the 1974 eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
ous compilation LP
Leo Kottke, John Fahey & Peter Lang
Leo Kottke/Peter Lang/John Fahey is a compilation album by American guitarists Leo Kottke, Peter Lang, and John Fahey, released in 1974.-History:...
featuring Fahey, Kottke and Lang.
ED Denson went on to co-found and manage Kicking Mule Records
Kicking Mule Records
Kicking Mule Records was an independent American record label founded in 1972 by Stefan Grossman and Eugene "ED" Denson. Denson was previously a co-owner of Takoma Records. The company's title comes from the country blues sexual two-timing allegory "there's another mule kicking in your stall"....
, which similarly featured acoustic guitarists. In 1995, he left the music business and became a criminal defense lawyer. By the early 21st century, the news about the label seems limited to death notices. Robbie Basho died in 1986, John Fahey in 2001, and Charlie Nothing
Charlie Nothing
Charles Martin Simon , better known as Charlie Nothing, was an American musician, musical instrument maker and writer. He created the dingulator, guitar sculptures made out of American cars, and performed at several music festivals in the United States and Europe...
died of cancer October 23, 2007.