 |
| Atlanta Artists | |
|---|---|
| Parent company | PolyGram Universal Music Group |
| Founded | 1983 |
| Defunct | 1991 |
| Status | Defunct |
| Distributor(s) | Mercury Records |
| Genre | Various |
| Country of origin | US |
| Location | US |
Atlanta Artists was a sub-label of Mercury Records founded by Larry Blackmon of the group Cameo.
After Cameo's seventh album, Knights of the Sound Table (1981), Blackmon reduced the group from ten members to a five-member unit. This change was made due to the economics of the music industry at that time. Blackmon relocated the group from New York to Atlanta, Georgia.
With their core of five members, they released the album Alligator Woman , a fusion of funk, new wave and a synthesizer-driven sound (compared to their previous albums which had more horn arrangements).
The album Style followed in 1983 as the first release for Atlanta Artists. This release continued their new musical direction by adding electronic drums to their production. This new sound was a blueprint for their following albums.
The funk group Ca$hflow and solo artist Barbara Mitchell (formerly in the female group High Inergy) signed and released for the label, along with teenage solo artist Jilliann (singer), while Blackmon produced also artists on other labels:
During Cameo's popular concert tours in the UK around the mid-1980s, Ca$hflow traveled along with them as a supporting act.
In 1991, after Cameo's move to Reprise, Atlanta Artists was absorbed into Mercury Records.
Parliament-Funkadelic is an American music collective of rotating musicians headed by George Clinton, primarily consisting of the funk bands Parliament and Funkadelic, both active since the 1960s. Their distinctive funk style drew on psychedelia, outlandish fashion, science-fiction, and surreal humor; it would have an influential effect on subsequent funk, post-punk, hip-hop, and techno artists of the 1980s and 1990s, while their collective mythology would help pioneer Afrofuturism. The collective released albums such as Maggot Brain (1971), Mothership Connection (1975), and One Nation Under a Groove (1978) to critical praise, and scored charting hits with singles such as "Give Up the Funk" (1975) and "Flash Light" (1978). Overall, the collective achieved thirteen top ten hits in the American R&B music charts between 1967 and 1983, including six number one hits.
Funkadelic was an American funk rock band formed in Plainfield, New Jersey in 1968 and active until 1982. As one of the two flagship groups of George Clinton's P-Funk collective, they helped pioneer the funk music culture of the 1970s. Funkadelic initially formed as a backing band for Clinton's vocal group the Parliaments, but eventually pursued a heavier, psychedelic rock-oriented sound in their own recordings. They released acclaimed albums such as Maggot Brain (1971) and One Nation Under a Groove (1978).
Chicago soul is a style of soul music that arose during the 1960s in Chicago. Along with Detroit, the home of Motown, and Memphis, with its hard-edged, gritty performers, Chicago and the Chicago soul style helped spur the album-oriented soul revolution of the early 1970s.
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. Mercury Records released rock, funk, R&B, doo wop, soul music, blues, pop, rock and roll, and jazz records. In the United States, it is operated through Republic Records; in the United Kingdom and Japan, it is distributed by EMI Records.
Tackhead is an industrial hip-hop group that was most active during the 1980s and early 1990s, and briefly reformed in 2004 for a tour. Their music occupies the territory where funk, dub, industrial music and electronica intersect. The core members are Doug Wimbish (bass), Keith Leblanc (percussion) and Skip McDonald (guitar) and producer Adrian Sherwood. Despite being short-lived as a band proper, the legacy and output of these groups of musicians has been prodigious.
Blaque is an American girl group that charted from 1999 to 2004. Outside of the United States, they are known as Blaque Ivory. Their self-titled debut album Blaque sold more than 1 million copies and was certified Platinum. The group's debut included the platinum-selling lead single "808", a second single, "I Do", and the international pop hit "Bring It All to Me". In 1999, Billboard named Blaque the 4th Best New Artist of the year, with "Bring It All to Me" landing at number 30 on the 2000 Year End Chart. In 2002 and 2003, the group released three less successful singles, "Can't Get It Back", "Ugly", and "I'm Good", the latter appearing in the film Honey.
Cameo is an American funk band that formed in 1974. Cameo was initially a 14-member group known as the New York City Players; this name was later changed to Cameo.
Terry Knight was an American rock and roll music producer, promoter, singer, songwriter and radio personality, who enjoyed some success in radio, modest success as a singer, but phenomenal success as the original manager-producer for Grand Funk Railroad and the producer for Bloodrock.
Larry Ernest Blackmon is an American vocalist and musician who gained acclaim as the lead singer and founder frontman of the funk and R&B band Cameo.
Funk rock is a fusion genre that mixes elements of funk and rock. James Brown and others declared that Little Richard and his mid-1950s road band, The Upsetters, were the first to put the funk in the rock and roll beat, with a biographer stating that their music "spark[ed] the musical transition from fifties rock and roll to sixties funk."
Machismo is the funk group Cameo's 1988 follow up to their album Word Up!. It includes the hits "You Make Me Work" and "Skin I'm In". The album reached No. 10 on the Billboard R&B chart, No. 56 on the Billboard 200 Pop Albums chart, and No. 86 on the UK albums chart. It was certified Gold by the RIAA for sales of over 500,000 copies.
Real Men... Wear Black is a studio album by the funk group Cameo released in 1990 on Atlanta Artists/Mercury Records. The album reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Soul Albums chart.
Alligator Woman is a 1982 album by the American funk band Cameo, released by Casablanca Records. It is the group's eighth studio album, and the first released after group leader Larry Blackmon reduced the band from 11 members to 5 (himself, Tomi Jenkins, Nathan Leftenant, Charlie Singleton, and Gregory Johnson. Alligator Woman combined Cameo’s traditional funk with elements of rock and new wave, and was the band’s fifth consecutive album to be certified Gold by the RIAA for sales of over 500,000 copies. The cover artwork model is the Canadian singer/model Vanity.
Style is the ninth album by the funk band Cameo, released in 1983. It was their first album to introduce their Atlanta Artists label, with which they maintained their distribution through Polygram Records.
Best of Cameo is a compilation album released by the funk group Cameo in 1998. It is not to be confused with 1993 release, The Best of Cameo. The band's biggest hits are not included in this 11-track release. This title was re-released under the Collectables Records label on November 23, 2004, under the slightly different title, The Best of Cameo.
The Best of Cameo is a compilation album released by the funk/R&B group Cameo in 2004. It is not to be confused with the 1993 release The Best of Cameo. However, it is a repackaging of the 1998 issue of Best of Cameo, but with "The" added to the album's title, even using the same cover art. A more complete, career-spanning compilation, Gold, was released in 2005. <
Chocolate City Records was a record label subsidiary of Casablanca Record and FilmWorks. It was started in 1975 by Cecil Holmes, Neil Bogart's partner at Casablanca. In 1980 the label was sold to PolyGram along with Casablanca, which are now part of Universal Music Group; in 1983 Chocolate City Records went out of business and Cecil Holmes left Casablanca Records & Filmworks and went on to be the VP of Black music for CBS Records.
Con Funk Shun is an American R&B and funk band whose popularity began in the mid-1970s and ran through the 1980s. They were influenced by funk legend James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone. Signed to Mercury Records in 1976, Con Funk Shun enjoyed a decade of successful national and overseas tours, eleven chart-topping albums, and numerous hit singles. The group formally disbanded in 1986.
Gregory B. Johnson is a United States musician and pianist. He is a former member of the R&B group Cameo.
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