Mississippi Records is a record store and label. It was founded by Eric Isaacson in 2003 in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

. It also houses a café, equipment repair shop, and the Portland Museum of Modern Art. The Mississippi Records motto is: "Love over gold."

Brick and mortar store

The Mississippi Records store is currently located at 5202 N Albina Ave,

. The name Mississippi Records originates from Isaacson's original store location at 4009 N Mississippi Ave,

. Isaacson started Mississippi Records in 2003, opening the store with "5000 dollars saved up" and 500 records. According to a video interview by the documentary project 12 Inches of Sound, Isaacson--a

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

native who moved to Portland in 1999--recognized that

North Portland North Portland is one of the six sextants of Portland, Oregon. North Portland is a diverse mixture of residential, commercial, and industrial areas. It includes the Portland International Raceway, the University of Portland, and massive cargo faci ...

lacked a record store. Isaacson worked previously as a manager at

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

's now-defunct Saturn Records.

History of record label

Alex Yusimov, an employee of the brick and mortar store, was among the first to release recordings under the Mississippi Records aegis, using the store address and the name for a personal pop record release. As such, according to Eric Isaacson, "the first 5 Mississippi releases had nothing to do with me." For many years Isaacson ran Mississippi Records from

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

with co-founder/co-owner Warren Hill. Isaacson and Hill have been friends since they were teenagers. Isaacson is historically taciturn about speaking on Mississippi's background: "I haven't really found a way of finding great joy in sharing this information because the records are a better messenger for my ideas than anything I could say and a lot of times when you talk about stuff it just loses a lot of its power." Mississippi Records co-founder Warren Hill has cited The Origin Jazz Library,

Smithsonian Folkways Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was fou ...

Arhoolie Records Arhoolie Records is an American small independent record label run by Chris Strachwitz and is based in El Cerrito, California, United States (it is actually located in Richmond Annex but has an El Cerrito postal address.) The label was founded b ...

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, and Herwin as sources of inspiration for Mississippi Records compilations. Many of the Mississippi Records compilations have been mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk, who owns Stereophonic Mastering in

. Warren Hill formed his own record label Little Axe Records in 2011, also based in

, "when the original Mississippi Records label split." On January 1, 2019, filmmaker Cyrus Moussavi and musician Gordon Ashworth became the new owners with Isaacson working as a label project manager. Mississippi Records relocated to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. In 2019, Mississippi Records went on a national tour.

Mississippi Records Tape Series

The Mississippi Records Tape Series is an ongoing open-edition mix tape project. Mississippi Records store employee Karen Atunes originally suggested the idea for a low-price mix tape to Eric Isaacson, with the first tape appearing in 2005. According to

Discogs Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...

, the Mississippi tapes "are often personal statements of theme, emotion or subject by Eric Isaacson, his friends or employees at the shop." Most of the tapes in the series contain a hand-drawn, black and white aesthetic, xeroxed

J-card A J-card is the paper card inserted in the plastic storage case of most audio cassette releases, as well as being latterly wrapped around the outside of many Blu-ray and DVD steelbooks and similar special editions. The J-card usually contains an im ...

References

External links

* *

list of Mississippi Records Tape Series releases - https://www.discogs.com/label/345965-Tape-Series?page=1 * Little Axe Records - https://www.littleaxerecords.com * Timothy Stollenwerk's Stereophonic Mastering - https://www.stereopho.com 2003 establishments in Oregon American independent record labels Oregon record labels Record labels established in 2003 Music of Chicago Companies based in Chicago {{US-record-label-stub