What you need to know before you use Plegridy

At various stages in the history of the recording industry, independent labels have flourished. Conversely, there have been periods of consolidation during which the majors acquired the most successful independents and controlled market share.

Columbia, Edison, and Victor dominated the recording industry through the end of the nineteenth century and World War I.  They used vertically integrated business models, manufacturing playback machines and records as well as acquiring musical content. As the patents on recording technology expired in the mid-teens of the twentieth century, a growth period for independents began. Labels such as Black Swan, Aeolian, Vocalion, Brunswick, Gennett, and OKeh Records sprang up, often specializing in niche areas of music that the big three were not recording.

Some of these labels set trends that others, including the majors, followed. Peter Alexander posits that it was imitation by established firms of these innovations that triggered the decline in independents. Most of these smaller labels went out of busi-ness, merged, or were bought by the onset of the Great Depression.⁸

As previously mentioned in chapter 4, the June 1942 Petrillo ban on recording proved to be a renewed opportunity for independent labels since all production shut down for the three majors: CBS-Columbia, Decca-U.S., and RCA-Victor. Decca acceded to the AFM demands first but it was another year before CBS and RCA agreed to a deal. Many independents quickly agreed to the AFM’s terms and Peter Tschmuck, quoting Klaus Kuhnke et al., reports more than one hundred indepen-dent labels in Los Angeles at that time. However, few were able to compete in the pop market once the majors resumed production, Capitol Records being the nota-ble exception.⁹

Alfred Lion started Blue Note Records in 1939 and established a strong brand that most associate with contemporary jazz. The same year, Moses Asch launched his first label, Asch Records, which failed due to shellac rationing during World War II. Asch’s second label, Disc, failed for business reasons. Not to be deterred, his third company, Folkways Records & Service Corp., was founded in 1948 and enjoyed a forty-eight-year run of success. He had identified a long-tail business model, and a niche in traditional world music and Americana that did not place him in direct competition with the majors or larger independents. His training was in electronics and he operated a small recording studio out of the Folkways offices in Manhattan where all the business activities took place. He was able to build such a valuable collection of recordings that the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC, acquired the label shortly after Asch’s death and continues the business.

Magnetic tape allowed a low cost of entry for small labels and their indepen-dent, entrepreneurial producers, both of which proliferated primarily in under-served niches. Ahmet Ertegun founded Atlantic Records with Herb Abramson and a $10,000 loan in 1947. In 1953 Jerry Wexler (1917–2008) joined the team.

As mentioned, Wexler is said to have coined the term “rhythm and blues” in 1949, for Billboard’s black music chart to replace “race records.” ¹⁰ Wexler initially used his business, promotional, and marketing skills and contacts, Ahmet Ertegun was a blues fan and his brother Nesuhi ran their jazz section. However, the label built its reputation primarily on its work with R&B artists such as Ray Charles, Joe Turner, and Ruth Brown, to the extent that, on their 1950s paper sleeves they printed “Atlantic leads the field in rhythm and blues.”¹¹ Wexler, of course, eventu-ally became a music producer of considerable renown through his 1960s work with definitive soul artists such as Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Sam and Dave.

Elements of what would become rock and roll had been emerging in vari-ous recordings during this post-World War II period. In 1953, eighteen-year-old Elvis Presley began recording demos at The Memphis Recording Service, home of Sun Records. Assistant Marian Kessler, who supervised the session, was intrigued by Elvis and brought him to owner Sam Phillips’ attention. Phillips, in 1951, had recorded and placed with Chess Records “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston—a track many point to as the beginning of rock and roll. In early 1954, Phillips took Presley into the studio and after a few false starts recorded, “That’s All Right” on his Ampex 521 tape machine.¹² Less than eighteen months and four singles later RCA bought Presley’s contract from Phillips (for $40,000), which secured Presley’s position as the “King of rock and roll” and financially stabilized Phillips’ business operation.¹³

During 1950, eleven labels associated with ten different corporations occupied the weekly top-ten singles chart. A decade later, in 1960, the rise of independent record companies put forty-five labels from thirty-nine companies into the same chart.¹⁴ Looked at another way, by 1956, independent labels had eroded the previ-ous 75 percent market share of the, now four, major labels’ (Columbia, RCA-Victor, Decca, and Capitol), to about 48  percent. The majors fell further, to 25  percent of the market, by 1962. The early sixties was a high point, a time of opportunity

60 The History of Music Production

for small label owners and independent producers, due in part to the expansive effect of relatively low-priced and versatile magnetic tape technology. Most of these independent labels were owned by or had in-house producers: for example, Jerry Wexler, Arif Mardin, Tom Dowd of Atlantic; Moses Asch (Folkways); Sam Phillips (Sun); Leonard and Phil Chess, Ralph Bass, and Willie Dixon (Chess);

Berry Gordy, Marvin Gaye, Holland, Dozier, and Holland, etc. (Motown); Ozzie Cadena (Savoy); Alfred Lion (Blue Note); and so on.

These individuals were aficionados of music styles neglected by large corpora-tions and through their creativity, entrepreneurship, and hardheadedness became global tastemakers. They generated significant bodies of work that were commer-cially successful and internationally influential. By capturing regional musics that might have gone unrecorded, they served otherwise disenfranchised audiences and artists. Some, arguably, played a part in helping break down racial barriers at a critical time for American civil rights. By identifying grassroots movements and niche-market business models, they documented a great deal of American (and other) vernacular music that is now considered culturally significant.

As happened in the twenties, the majors reasserted their dominance by com-peting for similar artists and embarking on a series of buyouts, assimilating these successful entrepreneurial labels, producers, and their distribution networks.¹⁵ By the end of the seventies, six major labels once again controlled the recording indus-try: CBS, Warner, PolyGram, RCA, EMI, and MCA. This state remained until the mid-nineties when Universal (previously MCA) merged with Polygram, shrinking the six to five. Sony (previously CBS) then merged with BMG leaving only four majors. With the 2012 sale of EMI to Universal, the industry has, once again, reverted to three dominant corporations.

The low barrier to entry offered by magnetic tape, local radio, and independent distribution networks in the fifties stimulated this growth in independent labels.

Since before the new millennium, DAWs and the internet have offered an even eas-ier point of entry for producers, artists, and entrepreneurs. Almost a century after the first eruption of independent labels, another is in progress. Nielson SoundScan reported in January 2014 that independents have a 34.6 percent market share¹⁶ mak-ing the indie sector bigger than any smak-ingle major label. Moreover, these numbers do not account for the hundreds of thousands of releases each year by individual artists and micro labels that do not register with SoundScan or have membership in A2IM (American Association of Independent Music). Many of these artists, pro-ducers, production companies, and labels are recording and distributing music inex-pensively outside of conventional recording and distribution channels. A criticism often leveled at these labels and artists is that they do not sell more than a handful of albums or tracks. Regardless of sales, recordings are being made that would not have been in the past. If Sam Phillips had not set up The Memphis Recording Service, the world may never have known Elvis Presley. For as many iconic artists as Phillips recorded, there were many more who did not achieve greatness; this is the nature of the music industry. Opportunity offers no guarantee of success. What is

important is that the barrier to entry is as low as it has ever been. Producers with an ear for talent and sufficient entrepreneurial spark have the potential to become the next Chess, Atlantic, Motown, Folkways, Blue Note, Island, or DefJam.