On to the real topic of this blog post. After compiling a list of the albums missing from the Spotify digital music collection I thought it would be informational and useful to do a little research some of the recurring labels which produced the albums on the list. From my earlier posts, I have developed a general concept of the Folkways approach and their history, and I'd now like to expand that with a few more labels that were producing folk music during the period I am studying. The two I will highlight today will be Riverside Records and Columbia Records.
According to the current holders of the Riverside label, the Concord Music Group, Riverside Records was launched in New York City in 1953 by jazz enthusiasts named Bill Grauer and Orrin Keepnews. Its original intent was to reissue classic jazz and blues recordings from the 1920s, however it wound up being one of the key labels of modern jazz. Some of its big name artists include: Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Wes Montgomery, Sonny Rollins, Abbey Lincoln, Art Blakey, Mongo Santamaria, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Heath, Johnny Griffin, Charlie Byrd, and the Staple Singers. In 1964, a year following founder Bill Grauer's death, the company folded. In 1972 the Riverside catalog was acquired by Fantasy, Inc (http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/labels/Riverside/). The Concord Music Group does seem to be affiliated with Spotify, according to its website, but an interesting note is that the artists carried over and available from the original Riverside Records seems to be extremely limited. The two artists my search thus far with records under the label, Logan English and Jean Ritchie, are not listed under Riversides artists in the Concord Collection (http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/artists/artists.php?). They are also not listed under Fantasy, Inc.'s artists (http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/artists/label/Fantasy/). I'd be surprised if there weren't more folk artists under the Riverside label whose work has been lost (or has been made inaccessible) during the acquisition. This is exactly the albums I set out to find so to have evidence as to why the albums are missing is really exciting. It's a first indication of a real hole in the collection, a hole created due to the forces of the market.
Columbia Records is a label very different from Riverside Records. As one of the largest recording companies in the country, it is very focused on profits. It jumped into the folk genre in the 1960s when it signed three big folk artists at the time: Bob Dylan, The Byrds, and Simon & Garfunkel. These names aren't quite synonymous with the segment of folk I have been studying as they all are more associated with the folk-rock segment. Finding information about other artists signed by Columbia during this time is quite a challenge, but this timeline at least helps to highlight the most successful acts. The artists I have as releasing albums with Columbia out of my data collection so far are: Stephen Addiss and Bill Crofut, Andrew Rowan Summers, Malvina Reynolds, and Peter La Farge. As none of them are big name acts, it seems as though for the sake of profit maximization, and conservation of resources, Columbia, in fashion with other large companies, cut production and distribution of those albums which weren't successful enough. The likelihood of these albums floating around somewhere are probably higher than a small label, but again we can see the creation of a void in music collection. This time as a result of profit maximization as opposed to the business transfer we saw in the case of Riverside Records.
I like the idea of focusing on a few for-profit labels. Two may not be enough, but the idea is good. Also, I'm a little suspicious of whether you are biased in your thinking by having too much of a present context in your head when considering profitability. Now, the entire media business seems to be after blockbusters. I'm not sure that it was always that way. If a performing artist had a loyal, if not massive, following, so sales would more than cover the up front fixed costs, standard economics says that the record labels would be good to those performers. They'd produce a reliable revenue stream, even if it weren't gigantic. So the conclusions you have about dropping performers, perhaps sensible today, may not be right historically. That issue would be good to piece out more.
ReplyDeleteA related idea is whether you can get any sense on the cost side. Here I don't have an obvious way for you to do this. But I can at least say that promotion and recording are two different components. Folk might be inexpensive in both of those. If the fixed costs are less, then less likely to shut out the performers. But on the digitizing issue, it might cut the other way.