P-Vine Records is an

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

based in Tokyo, Japan.

History

It was started in 1976 by Blues Interactions, a firm founded in 1975 by Yasufumi Higurashi and Akira Kochi, as a record label focused on black music. The label name comes from the "Peavine Branch" of the Mississippi Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad sung in blues songs by Charley Patton and Big Joe Williams. In the early years, the label focused on

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

and R&B but gradually expanded to wider genres such as

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

j-pop J-pop ( ja, ジェイポップ, ''jeipoppu''; often stylized as J-POP; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1 ...

house music House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute. It was created by Disc jockey, DJs and music producers from Chicago metropolitan area, Chicago' ...

, and

garage punk A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicle ...

. The label has released some newly recorded materials, including the album ''Original Chicago Blues'' with

Kansas City Red Arthur Lee Stevenson (May 7, 1926 – May 7, 1991), known as Kansas City Red, was an American blues drummer and vocalist who played a major role in the development of urban blues. He performed and recorded with many notable blues artists, such as ...

Eddie Taylor Eddie Taylor (January 29, 1923 – December 25, 1985) was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. Biography Born Edward Taylor in Benoit, Mississippi, as a boy Taylor taught himself to play the guitar. He spent his early years playing ...

, and

Big John Wrencher Big John Wrencher (February 12, 1923 – July 15, 1977), also known as One Arm John, was an American blues harmonica player and singer, well known for playing at the Maxwell Street Market in Chicago in the 1960s. He toured Europe in the 1970s.Ha ...

. But its focus has been on reissuing vintage recordings. P-Vine has released materials from labels such as

Chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

, Delmark,

Modern Modern may refer to: History * Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Phil ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, Black Top, and

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. It was also responsible for releasing previously unreleased live and studio recordings by

Parliament-Funkadelic Parliament-Funkadelic (abbreviated as P-Funk) 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 fu ...

, as well for releasing albums on CD that were previously only released on vinyl. Apart from the P-Vine label, Blues Interactions once launched other labels, such as Substance and P-Vine NonStop. As of 2021, these labels are defunct. They also published magazines (''Blues & Soul Records'' and ''Black Music Review'') and books. As of 2021, Blues & Soul Records magazine have been transferred to Two Virgins, while Black Music Review suspended its publication in November, 2011. The current P-Vine, Inc. publishes some books under its Ele-King brand. In 2015 P-Vine released ''B.B. King The Complete RPM-Kent Recording Box, The Life, Times and the Blues of B.B. in All His Glory'', a boxed set of 17 CDs, with comprehensive booklet, vinyl record and Japanese translation of ''The Arrival of B.B. King The Authorized Biography'' by Charles Sawyer. From late 1970s to the 1980s, P-Vine organized concerts such as the Blues Show with

Albert Collins Albert Gene Drewery, known as Albert Collins and the Ice Man (October 1, 1932 – November 24, 1993),Skeely, Richard. "Albert Collins: Biography" Allmusic.com. was an American electric blues guitarist and singer with a distinctive guitar style. ...

Eddie Vinson Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson (born Edward L. Vinson Jr.; December 18, 1917 – July 2, 1988) was an American jump blues, jazz, bebop and rhythm and blues, R&B alto saxophonist and blues shouter. He was nicknamed Cleanhead after an incident in whi ...

, and

John Lee Hooker John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often ...

traveling to Japan. Around 2007, Blues Interactions temporarily reactivated its concert promoter business. In 2008, it organized the P-Vine Blues Festival in Tokyo with Willie Walker and others on the bill. Blues Interactions had been independently owned by the two founders until November 2006 when Space Shower Networks, a cable-television enterprise focusing on music, acquired 49% of its stock. In November 2007, Blues Interactions became a wholly owned subsidiary of Space Shower Networks, and the two founders withdrew from management. The new management announced that the company would maintain the P-Vine label and its name. In April, 2011, Blues Interactions changed its name to P-Vine, Inc. and Toshio Mizutani was brought in as a new president of the company. In February, 2020, Mizutani acquired the entire stock of the company from Space Shower Networks, having the company return to independent status once again.

Notes

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Blues record labels Japanese record labels Jazz record labels Record labels established in 1975 Rhythm and blues record labels Rock and roll record labels Soul music record labels