Benchmark Recordings | |
---|---|
Founded | 2002 |
Founder | Bill Coben, Denny Bruce |
Genre | Blues rock |
Country of origin | U.S. |
Official website | www |
Benchmark Recordings [1] is a record label that was founded in 2000 by music industry veterans Bill Coben and Denny Bruce [2] .
The initial catalog included the first four albums by The Fabulous Thunderbirds, which were originally released in the late 1970s and early 1980s on the Takoma Records label and distributed by Chrysalis Records. The early albums featured Kim Wilson on vocals and harmonica and Jimmie Vaughan on guitar.
A compilation of live recordings and new material titled Tacos Deluxe was released in 2004.
In 2008 Jon Monday [3] , who had worked with Denny and Bill at Takoma Records in the 1970s and 1980s, joined the company as its President.
A CD titled I'm With You Always by Mike Bloomfield, a live recording from 1977 (exact date unknown), was released in late 2008. The songs on the album are a catalog of blues history, spanning acoustic, Chicago, and blues-rock styles.
In 2011 Benchmark released a "Best of" collection documenting live and studio recordings from their first decade, titled, The Best of the Fabulous Thunderbirds: Early Birds Special. The album features a collection of songs from the original tracks from their first four albums, live versions, and the hits from their later albums: Tuff Enuff and Powerful Stuff.
The label is now co-owned by Jon Monday and Bill Coben.
The Fabulous Thunderbirds are an American blues band formed in 1974.
Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny was an English singer who was lead singer of the British folk rock band Fairport Convention. She has been described as "the pre-eminent British folk rock singer".
Michael Bernard Bloomfield was an American guitarist and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, as he rarely sang before 1969. Respected for his guitar playing, Bloomfield knew and played with many of Chicago's blues musicians before achieving his own fame and was instrumental in popularizing blues music in the mid-1960s. In 1965, he played on Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, including the single "Like a Rolling Stone", and performed with Dylan at that year's Newport Folk Festival.
Kicking Mule Records was an American independent record label, founded in Berkeley, California in 1971 by guitarist Stefan Grossman and Eugene "ED" Denson, formerly co-owner of Takoma Records. The company's name comes from the country blues sexual two-timing allegory "there's another mule kicking in your stall".
Takoma Records was a small but influential record label founded by guitarist John Fahey in the late 1950s. It was named after Fahey's hometown, Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
The Magnificent Moodies is the 1965 debut album by The Moody Blues, first released in the UK, and the first and only album featuring their R&B line-up of guitarist Denny Laine, bassist Clint Warwick, keyboardist Mike Pinder, flautist–percussionist Ray Thomas, and drummer Graeme Edge. Lead vocals were shared by Laine, Pinder and Thomas. The album is a collection of R&B and Merseybeat songs, including "Go Now", produced by Alex Wharton, which had been a Number 1 hit single earlier that year. For the U.S. release, on London Records, with the title of Go Now – The Moody Blues #1, four songs were replaced and the tracks re-ordered. The American and Canadian versions also incorrectly title three songs.
Jimmie Vaughan is an American blues rock guitarist and singer based in Austin, Texas. He is the older brother of the late Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Mike Buck is an Austin, Texas-based drummer and co-owner of Antone's Record Shop located in downtown Austin.
John Aloysius Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who played the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been enormously influential and has been described as the foundation of the genre of American primitive guitar, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the self-taught nature of the music and its minimalist style. Fahey borrowed from the folk and blues traditions in American roots music, having compiled many forgotten early recordings in these genres. He would later incorporate 20th-century classical, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Indian influences into his work.
Canadian blues is the blues and blues-related music performed by blues bands and performers in Canada. Canadian blues artists include singers, players of the main blues instruments: guitar, harmonica, keyboards, bass and drums, songwriters and music producers. In many cases, blues artists take on multiple roles. For example, the Canadian blues artist Steve Marriner is a singer, harmonica player, guitarist, songwriter and record producer.
Jerry McCain, often billed as Jerry "Boogie" McCain, was an American electric blues musician, best known as a harmonica player.
JW-Jones is a Canadian blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and band leader. He is a Juno Award nominee (2015), Billboard magazine Top 10 Selling artist, and winner of the International Blues Challenge for "Best Self-Produced CD Award" for his release 'High Temperature' in 2017 and Best Guitarist in 2020.
Girls Go Wild is the alternate title of the 1979 debut studio album by the Texas-based blues rock band The Fabulous Thunderbirds. The album was an eponymous release, but due to the prominence of the words "Girls Go Wild" on the cover it has often been referred to by that name. The album was reissued via Benchmark Recordings in 2000.
What's the Word is the second studio album by the Austin, Texas-based blues band The Fabulous Thunderbirds, released in 1980. Like its predecessor, the album initially sold poorly, but is now regarded as a successful white blues recording. The 2000 CD reissue on Benchmark Records contains three bonus tracks, two of which were recorded live at Club Koda, Austin, Texas.
Denny Bruce is an American record producer and artist manager.
Jon Monday is an American producer and distributor of CDs and DVDs across an eclectic range of material such as Swami Prabhavananda, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Huston Smith, Chalmers Johnson, and Charles Bukowski. Monday directed and co-produced with Jennifer Douglas the feature-length documentary Save KLSD: Media Consolidation and Local Radio. He is also President of Benchmark Recordings, which owns and distributes the early catalog of The Fabulous Thunderbirds CDs and a live recording of Mike Bloomfield.
The Dance of Death & Other Plantation Favorites is the third album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 1965. The 1999 reissue contained four previously unreleased tracks.
After the Ball is an album by the American folk musician John Fahey, released in 1973. It was his second and last recording on the Reprise label and like its predecessor, Of Rivers and Religion, it sold poorly.
"Diddy Wah Diddy" is a song written by Willie Dixon and Ellas McDaniel, known as Bo Diddley, and recorded by the latter in 1956. The song shares only its title with Blind Blake's song "Diddie Wah Diddie" recorded in 1929. Over the years, the Bo Diddley song has been covered by many bands and artists, including the Astronauts, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, the Remains, the Twilights, Taj Mahal, the Sonics, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Ty Segall Band, and the Blues Band among others.
The Best of the Fabulous Thunderbirds: Early Birds Special is a 2011 compilation album by Texas-based blues rock band The Fabulous Thunderbirds released on Benchmark Recordings. The album features a collection of songs from the original tracks from their first four albums, live versions, and the hits from their later albums, spanning their first decade of recording and touring.