Rounder helped launch Alison Krauss and George Thorogood and the Destroyers, and also preserved a wealth of folk culture.
From PRI's Here and Now 09 March, 2010 04:41:00
Forty years ago, three college friends -- Ken Irwin, Marian Leighton-Levy and Bill Nowlin -- decided to start a record label. More than 3,000 titles and millions of recordings later, Rounder Records has a sterling reputation as a premier, independent music label, and somewhat of a refuge for fiddlers, bluegrass and country musicians, and earnest artists like musicologist Alan Lomax. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, Rounder threw a bash at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry last October. The label released a CD of that concert last week. It features Rounder artists like Alison Krauss, Mary Chapen-Carpenter, Mini Driver and Steve Martin. The three college friends -- who are still friends -- started the label with no experience in the music industry."Nor did we know anything about business," said Marian Leighton-Levy. "Bill was a political science major, I'm a history major, and Ken was a psych major.""There wasn't anybody there to tell us not to, so that's how we started," said Ken Irwin.What they did know was that there was a void of independent labels at the time. More...
From PRI's Here and Now 09 March, 2010 04:41:00
Forty years ago, three college friends -- Ken Irwin, Marian Leighton-Levy and Bill Nowlin -- decided to start a record label. More than 3,000 titles and millions of recordings later, Rounder Records has a sterling reputation as a premier, independent music label, and somewhat of a refuge for fiddlers, bluegrass and country musicians, and earnest artists like musicologist Alan Lomax. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, Rounder threw a bash at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry last October. The label released a CD of that concert last week. It features Rounder artists like Alison Krauss, Mary Chapen-Carpenter, Mini Driver and Steve Martin. The three college friends -- who are still friends -- started the label with no experience in the music industry."Nor did we know anything about business," said Marian Leighton-Levy. "Bill was a political science major, I'm a history major, and Ken was a psych major.""There wasn't anybody there to tell us not to, so that's how we started," said Ken Irwin.What they did know was that there was a void of independent labels at the time. More...
