Results for “black america”

2003

By now we had accumulated a vast catalogue of Stax releases and thoroughly mined the vaults for rare and unissued sides. It was fitting then that there would be a works outing to join in the celebrations for the reopening of the reconstructed original McLemore Avenue building as a museum. Alec, Dean, Tony and Roger experienced a remarkable week of music and events as Stax’s indomitable Deanie Parker put on a series of shows. The culmination was an extravaganza at the grand Orpheum Theater, with performances by Stax artists Isaac Hayes, Booker T & The MGs, Mavis Staples, William Bell, Carla Thomas, Eddie Floyd, the Bar-Kays, Little Milton, Jean Knight, the Soul Children and Mack Rice - though, by common consensus, the show was stolen by Rance Allen. Others paying tribute to the label were Al Green and Solomon Burke. There were other shows featuring the Mad Lads, Big Star and a highly emotional Linda Lyndell.

1993

Harold Battiste’s productions ran the gamut from ‘I Got You Babe’ by Sonny and Cher to Dr John’s “Gris Gris” LP. It was the latter aspect of Battiste’s talents that he brought to the label we licensed his New Orleans-based AFO (All For One) Records. This was deep, deep Crescent City, with early and many previously unreleased sides from Mac Rebennack, Dr John, Prince La La, Nookie Boy and soul chanteuse Tammi Lynn. The series title, “Gumbo Stew”, was as apt as could be. We also issued a jazz piano album by Ellis Marsalis, father of Wynton. 

Movie soundtracks and book tie-ins also began to play a definitive part in the Ace release schedule, starting in 2004 with the Pogues and Joe Strummer featuring on the original soundtrack of Alex Cox’s “Straight to Hell Returns”. Then in 2010 came a double CD to accompany Alan Govenar’s magisterial biography of Lightnin’ Hopkins. As Roger Armstrong suggested: “Read the book, enjoy the record.” Another book tie-in came with “A Rocket In My Pocket: The Soundtrack To The Hipster's Guide To Rockabilly” which accompanied the book by the same name by Max Décharné. Chock-full of classics such as ‘The Train Kept A-Rollin'’ by Johnny Burnette & his Rock'n'Roll Trio and the title track by Jimmy Lloyd, it was a pure delight.

Following years of no-show in the reissue stakes, the rights to the acclaimed Philadelphia labels Cameo and Parkway were finally licensed by Ace from ABKCO in 2010 and a wealth of material that hadn’t been available for decades appeared in the catalogue including albums by the twist king himself, Chubby Checker, the Orlons, Bobby Rydell, Dee Dee Sharp, the Dovells and even proto-screen star Clint Eastwood who crooned his way through some country favourites.

A similar deal with ABKCO also saw SAR material from Sam Cooke’s label gain release including the complete recorded output of his brother L.C. Cooke.

More vintage pop and soul appeared in 2011 when Ace bought the rights to record hustler Lew Bedell’s (slogan: who the hell is Lew Bedell?) Doré records, famous for cutting Phil Spector’s first outing ‘To Know Him is to Love Him’. Twenty-five of the 28 tunes on this first volume of “The Doré Story” appeared on legitimate CD for the first time, all taken from the original masters. 

Tell us about your background in design and how your got started.

My father was in 'the print' and worked as a compositor all his life - I remember visiting him at work from an early age (I still love the smell of letterpress ink in the morning) and watching him setting a page, and being taken round the plant and seeing the presses running.

I never really intended to do anything remotely similar but was reminded, years later, by her, of a conversation I'd had with my nan when I was 12 or 13 and she'd asked me what I wanted to do when I finished school/college and I'd replied 'be a commercial artist' - I'd really little idea of what one was or did at that point.

I swapped my stamp collection with a friend’s older brother for the beginnings of a record collection about the same time, and that was it. I knew I'd have to work in the music industry somehow.

I left college with a degree in Humanities with that aim and spent a year writing music reviews for the Bristol student newspaper, as a first step towards the NME/ZigZag or similar. The editor's principal requirement for the job was that you were prepared to do it all - source the albums/gigs to review, write the review, have it typeset and then lay out the page/s in each issue ready for the print process. In at the deep end.

Back to London to a job in the production department of a small publishing company (music journalism just seemed to drain my enjoyment once it became 'a job') - some writing, but far more marking up type and laying out pages… design, in fact. After a couple of years of dues paying and on-the-job learning I thought - 'I can do this now and maybe I'm a designer and maybe I know a little about type and should work for myself.' My father wasn't sure about the type thing though - commenting on a piece of work I showed him at the time that it was ‘good, but it's photo-setting, not proper type!’

Skipping over a couple of decades of mostly independent work and what I hope is largely good design (with some lamentable stuff along the way of course - I'm thinking of the 80s here) - I've managed to combine my love of music with something like a 'proper job' and find myself here, watching with amusement as my son attempts to manoeuvre away from the inevitable time when he finds himself in a job involving design/typography/print.