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Ichiban Records was an American independent record label, founded in 1985 by John Abbey [1] and Nina Easton in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(November 2012) |
Ichiban Records was an American independent record label, founded in 1985 by John Abbey [1] and Nina Easton in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
Wrap Records and Nastymix Records were some of its subsidiary labels. Urgent! Records and Mr. Henry Records of Houston were both distributed by Ichiban. [2] Besides recording a string of hip hop groups in later years, Ichiban originally specialised in blues and has also released albums by musicians such as Buster Benton and Raful Neal. Ichiban filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1999. [3] The catalog is now controlled by EMI, but nothing has been reissued since the label ceased operations.
The label's name, "ichi-ban", is Japanese for "number one" or "first one", an expression commonly used in Japan to mean the best.
Benjamin Franklin Peay, known professionally as Brook Benton, was an American singer and songwriter whose music transcended rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and pop music genres in the 1950s and 1960s, with hits such as "It's Just a Matter of Time" and "Endlessly".
Tyrone Davis, was an American blues and soul singer with a long list of hit records over more than 20 years. Davis had three number 1 hits on the Billboard R&B chart: "Can I Change My Mind" (1968), "Turn Back the Hands of Time" (1970), and "Turning Point" (1975).
John Paul Hammond is an American singer and musician.
Raful Neal was an American Louisiana blues singer, harmonicist and songwriter from the United States.
Cochise was an English country rock band that performed in the early 1970s. Their albums and singles were released on the United Artists and Liberty Records labels.
Mildred Virginia Jackson is an American R&B and soul recording artist. Beginning her career in the early 1960s, three of Jackson's albums have been certified gold by the RIAA for over 500,000 copies sold. Jackson's songs often include long spoken sections, sometimes humorous, sometimes sexually explicit. According to the cataloguing site WhoSampled.com, her songs have appeared in 189 samples, 51 covers, and six remixes.
Since she always enjoyed writing poems, in the early '70s Jackson began crafting such proto-rap R&B singles as the outspoken "A Child of God ".
The Falcons were an American rhythm and blues vocal group, some of whose members went on to be influential in soul music.
Clarence Smith, known as Sonny Rhodes, was an American blues singer and lap steel guitar player. He recorded over two hundred songs. "I'm what you call a self-proclaimed Disciple of the Blues!" said Rhodes about his years playing and singing for fans of blues around the world. He was nominated 15 times for Blues Music Awards and won in the category 'Instrumentalist – Other' in 2011.
Aaron Corthen, known as A.C. Reed, was an American blues saxophonist, closely associated with the Chicago blues scene from the 1940s into the 2000s.
Willie C. Cobbs was an American blues singer, harmonica player and songwriter. He is best known for his song "You Don't Love Me".
Colin Larkin is a British music writer. He founded and was the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Along with the ten-volume encyclopedia, Larkin also wrote the book All Time Top 1000 Albums, and edited the Guinness Who's Who of Jazz, the Guinness Who's Who of Blues, and the Virgin Encyclopedia of Heavy Rock. He has over 650,000 copies in print.
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music is an encyclopedia created in 1989 by Colin Larkin. It is the "modern man's" equivalent of the Grove Dictionary of Music, which Larkin describes in less than flattering terms. It is published by the Oxford University Press and was described by The Times as "the standard against which all others must be judged".
Gary B.B. Coleman was an American soul blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and record producer.
Arley "Buster" Benton was an American blues guitarist and singer. He played guitar in Willie Dixon's Blues All-Stars and is best known for his solo rendition of Dixon's song "Spider in My Stew." Benton was tenacious, and despite the amputation of parts of both legs in the latter part of his lengthy career, he never stopped playing his own version of Chicago blues.
Blind Willie Walker was an early American blues guitarist and singer, who played the Piedmont blues style. He was described by blues musicians such as Reverend Gary Davis and Pink Anderson as an outstanding guitarist. Josh White called him the best guitarist he had ever heard, even better than Blind Blake: "Blake was quick, but Walker was like Art Tatum." In his performances, he was often accompanied by guitarist Sam Brooks.
Arcane is the debut studio album led by drummer Cindy Blackman which was recorded in 1987 and released on the Muse label.
Willie James Lyons was an American Chicago blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He worked primarily in the West Side of Chicago from the late 1950s up to his death. Lyons was an accompanist to many musicians who included Luther Allison, Jimmy Dawkins and Bobby Rush. A noted performer in his own right, Lyons work was influenced by B.B. King and Freddie King, T-Bone Walker and Lowell Fulson. His only solo album was Chicago Woman, recorded in France in 1979.
Luther "Houserocker" Johnson was an American electric blues singer, guitarist and songwriter. He recorded two studio albums in his lifetime and was a regular live performer over seven decades. He is not to be confused with Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson, nor Luther "Georgia Boy" Johnson.
William Daniel McFall, known professionally as Blues Boy Willie, was an American electric and soul blues singer, musician, and songwriter. Influenced jointly by his grounding in gospel and Junior Parker's recordings, Blues Boy Willie's songwriting has produced gritty songs, including "Be Who?", "Injustice", and "The Fly".
