77 Records | |
---|---|
Founded | 1957 |
Founder | Doug Dobell |
Genre | Folk, blues, jazz |
Country of origin | UK |
77 Records was a British record company and label established in 1957 by Doug Dobell, [1] the proprietor of 'Dobell's Jazz Record Shop' at 77 Charing Cross Road, London. The label specialised in folk, blues, and jazz.
Several British jazz musicians, such as Acker Bilk, Bruce Turner, Tubby Hayes, Les Condon, Dick Morrissey, Brian Lemon and Buck Clayton, recorded on the label in the mid-1960s. [2]
British rhythm and blues performers such as Alexis Korner also recorded for 77 Records, as did many American artists. 77 Records distributed the releases of US labels, including recordings by Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Lightnin' Hopkins, Scrapper Blackwell, Reverend Gary Davis, Robert Pete Williams, Big Joe Williams, Sunnyland Slim, Joe Turner, Little Brother Montgomery, Yank Rachell, and Sleepy John Estes. [2]
In 1960, Dobell started a short-lived spin-off label, Folklore, which released albums by Steve Benbow, Dominic Behan, Dick Fariña and Eric Von Schmidt, and Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner, amongst others. [2] A 1963 album by Dick Fariña and Eric Von Schmidt, released on Folklore, featured "Blind Boy Grunt", alias Bob Dylan, on harmonica. [2] The label also reissued recordings licensed from independent American record labels such as Arhoolie. [3]
Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner, known professionally as Alexis Korner, was a British blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a founding father of British blues". A major influence on the sound of the British music scene in the 1960s, he was instrumental in the formation of several notable British bands including The Rolling Stones and Free. Korner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the musical influence category in 2024.
John Brumwell Mayall was an English blues and rock musician, songwriter and producer. In the 1960s, he formed John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band that has counted among its members some of the most famous blues and blues rock musicians. A singer, guitarist, harmonica player, and keyboardist, he had a career that spanned nearly seven decades, remaining an active musician until his death aged 90. Mayall has often been referred to as the "godfather of the British blues", and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the musical influence category in 2024.
John Symon Asher Bruce was a Scottish musician. He gained popularity as the primary lead vocalist and bassist of rock band Cream. After the group disbanded in 1968, he pursued a solo career and also played with several bands.
Raymond "Boz" Burrell was an English musician. Originally a vocalist and guitarist, Burrell is best known for being the vocalist and bassist of King Crimson from 1971 to 1972 and the original bassist of Bad Company, formed in 1973, with whom he stayed until 1982 before re-joining for a reunion of the original line-up during 1998 to 1999. He died of a heart attack in Spain in 2006, aged 60.
Vanguard Recording Society is an American record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York City. It was a primarily classical label at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, but also has a catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal jazz, folk, and blues musicians. The Bach Guild was a subsidiary label.
Milestone Records is an American jazz record company and label founded in 1966 by Orrin Keepnews and Dick Katz in New York City. The company was bought by Fantasy Records in 1972. Since then, it has produced LP reissues as well as new recordings. Sonny Rollins and McCoy Tyner are among the musicians who recorded for the label.
Prestige Records is a jazz record company and label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock in New York City which issued recordings in the mainstream, bop, and cool jazz idioms. The company recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them on subsidiary labels. The company's began releasing jazz records in 78 and 45 RPM formats in 1950. The Prestige label includes the 13000 and 25000 cat# series. Prestige International was a sub-label of Prestige, active from 1960 to 1969, that mostly released folk music. In 1971, the company was sold to Fantasy, which was later absorbed by Concord.
Richard Malden Heckstall-Smith was an English jazz and blues saxophonist. He played with some of the most influential English blues rock and jazz fusion bands of the 1960s and 1970s. He is known for primarily playing tenor, soprano, and baritone saxophones, as well as piano, clarinet and alto saxophone.
Donald Christopher Barber was an English jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. He helped many musicians with their careers and had a UK top twenty trad jazz hit with "Petite Fleur" in 1959. These musicians included the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with Barber triggered the skiffle craze of the mid-1950s and who had his first transatlantic hit, "Rock Island Line", while with Barber's band. He provided an audience for Donegan and, later, Alexis Korner, and sponsored African-American blues musicians to visit Britain, making Barber a significant figure in launching the British rhythm and blues and "beat boom" of the 1960s.
Eric Von Schmidt was an American folk musician and painter. He was associated with the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s and was a key part of the Cambridge folk music scene. As a singer and guitarist, he was considered to be the leading specialist in country blues in Cambridge at the time, the counterpart of Greenwich Village's Dave Van Ronk. Von Schmidt co-authored with Jim Rooney Baby, Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years.
Melvyn Desmond Collins is a British saxophonist, flautist and session musician.
Graham John Clifton Bond was an English rock/blues musician and vocalist, considered a founding father of the English rhythm and blues boom of the 1960s.
George Bruno "Zoot" Money was an English vocalist, keyboardist and bandleader. He was best known for playing the Hammond organ and for his leadership of the Big Roll Band. Inspired by Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles, Money was drawn to rock and roll music and became involved in the music scenes of Bournemouth and Soho during the 1960s. He took his stage name "Zoot" from Zoot Sims after seeing him perform in concert.
Richard Edwin Morrissey was a British jazz musician and composer. He played the tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone and flute.
Colin Hodgkinson is a British rock, jazz and blues bassist, who has been active since the 1960s.
Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, or simply Blues Incorporated, were an English blues band formed in London in 1961, led by Alexis Korner and including at various times Jack Bruce, Charlie Watts, Terry Cox, Ginger Baker, Art Wood, Long John Baldry, Ronnie Jones, Danny Thompson, Graham Bond, Cyril Davies and Dick Heckstall-Smith.
Duffy Power was an English blues and rock and roll singer, who achieved some success in the 1960s and continued to perform and record intermittently later.
Douglas Arthur Dobell was a British record store proprietor and record producer who ran Dobell's Record Shop in Charing Cross Road, London, and 77 Records. He was involved in developing, recording and marketing jazz, blues, folk and world music in the UK, from the 1950s to the 1980s.
"I Will Turn Your Money Green" is an American blues song first recorded in 1928 by the author, Memphis bluesman Furry Lewis. It was a standard for Lewis' performances, and has been recorded by bands in the British rock scene of the 1960s and 1970s, and also by American blues performers.
The London Blues and Barrelhouse Club ran between 1957 and 1961 at the Round House public house at the junction of Wardour Street and Brewer Street in Soho, London. Established by Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner, it hosted many visiting American blues performers and was an important catalyst in developing British blues music, R&B, and ultimately British rock music.