Salsoul Records is an American
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
based
record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the prod ...
, founded by three brothers,
Joseph Cayre, Kenneth Cayre, and Stanley Cayre (the Cayre brothers). Salsoul issued about 300 singles, including many
disco/
post-disco
Post-disco (also called boogie, synth-funk, or electro-funk) is a term to describe an aftermath in popular music history circa 1979–1985, imprecisely beginning with an unprecedented backlash against disco music in the United States, leading ...
12-inch releases, and a string of albums in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The label started in business in 1974, went defunct in 1985 and was relaunched in 1992. Artists such as The
Salsoul Orchestra
The Salsoul Orchestra was the backing band of session musicians for many acts on the New York City label Salsoul Records and, under its own name, recorded several hit singles and albums between 1975 and 1982.
History
The orchestra was formed i ...
(led by
Vincent Montana Jr),
Aurra,
Skyy,
Inner Life,
Rafael Cameron
Rafael Cameron (born 1951) is a Guyanese American singer-songwriter best known for his boogie (genre), boogie song "Boogie's Gonna Get Ya", which was remixed by François Kevorkian. His most successful single in his career was, however, "Magic Of ...
, Edwin Birdsong,
Instant Funk,
Loleatta Holloway, Civil Attack,
Double Exposure
In photography and cinematography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more exposures to create a single image, and double exposure has a corresponding meaning in respect of two images. The exposure values may or may not be id ...
, Love Committee(Gold Mind),
First Choice,
Joe Bataan
Joe Bataan (also spelled Bataán) (born Bataan Nitollano; November 15, 1942) is a Latin soul musician from New York.
Early life
Joe Bataan was born Bataan Nitollano and grew up in the 103rd Street and Lexington Avenue part of East Harlem in Ne ...
, The Strangers, Moment of Truth, Vaughan Mason & Butch Dayo,
Carol Williams,
Jocelyn Brown, and
Charo were at one time part of their roster.
Bethlehem Music Company's catalogs, which included Salsoul Records,
Bethlehem Records (a jazz label) and others, were licensed by
Verse music group from 2010 for five years, before Verse's catalogs were bought out by BMG Rights Management in 2015.
History
Early days
The Cayre family had been involved in many entrepreneurial ventures before they manufactured and distributed
8-track tape
The 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8; commonly called eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, and eight-track) is a magnetic tape sound recording technology that was popular from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when the compact cassette, whi ...
s, which included
Bethlehem Records, in the early 1970s. They had purchased some catalogs of
Mexican music
The music of Mexico is very diverse and features a wide range of musical genres and performance styles. It has been influenced by a variety of cultures, most notably deriving from the culture of the Europeans, Indigenous, and Africans. It also ...
to distribute, and infringed on the copyrights of
CBS Records and
RCA Records
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also ...
by selling them in the United States. They acquired a license for North American distribution for some of CBS's Latino catalog. This led to recording sessions that were distributed by
CBS. When CBS was unable to increase profits, the rights reverted to the Cayres.
Origin of name
The label's name was conceived by artist
Joe Bataan
Joe Bataan (also spelled Bataán) (born Bataan Nitollano; November 15, 1942) is a Latin soul musician from New York.
Early life
Joe Bataan was born Bataan Nitollano and grew up in the 103rd Street and Lexington Avenue part of East Harlem in Ne ...
, who recorded some of the earliest sessions for the Cayre brothers before the label's formation. "Salsoul" was street lingo for the musical culture of urban
Latinos who were listening to
soul music
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became pop ...
and combining it with
salsa music
Salsa music is a style of Latin American music. Because most of the basic musical components predate the labeling of salsa, there have been many controversies regarding its origin. Most songs considered as salsa are primarily based on son montu ...
. Bataan chose the name for an
LP he made for the Cayre brothers. Bataan had the first single, "The Bottle", and album, ''Afro-filipino'', on the initial Salsoul label released through Epic, before a deal with RCA.
1970s: Influence from Philly soul
Ken Cayre sought
session musicians
Session musicians, studio musicians, or backing musicians are musicians hired to perform in recording sessions or live performances. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a recording artist on a ...
to play
Philly soul. He worked with the key session players for Gamble and Huff's
Philadelphia International Records label and its predecessor, Gamble-Huff Productions, founding members of the MFSB Orchestra on Philadelphia International.
Gamble and Huff
Kenneth Gamble (born August 11, 1943, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and Leon A. Huff (born April 8, 1942, Camden, New Jersey) are an American songwriting and production team credited for developing the Philadelphia soul music genre (also known as ...
were in dispute with their key musicians over business matters and Salsoul quickly took the chance to put them under contract. Among these Philly soul artists were
Vince Montana (orchestral arrangements and vibes),
Norman Harris (lead and rhythm guitar, arrangements, songwriting and production),
Ronnie Baker (bass guitar, arrangement and production),
Earl Young (drums and percussion),
Bunny Sigler
Walter "Bunny" Sigler (March 27, 1941 – October 6, 2017) was an American R&B singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer who did extensive work with the team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, and was instrumental in creating th ...
and others. Baker, Harris and Young are now widely credited with crystallizing the sound and structure of a
disco record.
Earl Young's 16 beat of the
hi-hat cymbal originated a staple '70s disco beat for dancers. Baker would create a thunderous bass sound, exemplified on the record "Love is the Message" by
MFSB
MFSB, officially standing for "Mother Father Sister Brother", was a pool of more than 30 studio musicians based at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios. They worked closely with the production team of Gamble and Huff and producer/arranger Thom B ...
.
Baker, Harris and Young had the
girl group
A girl group is a music act featuring several female singers who generally harmonize together. The term "girl group" is also used in a narrower sense in the United States to denote the wave of American female pop music singing groups, many of who ...
First Choice under contract and they brought them along to Salsoul. Led by Rochelle Fleming, the group had success on the Philly Groove label with ''Armed and Extremely Dangerous'' (1973), which Salsoul acquired and would re-release among its classic catalogue in the 1990s. For Salsoul, First Choice would record "Dr. Love" (1977) and "Let No Man Put Asunder".
Montana wrote, arranged, and produced second single and the first Salsoul hit, "Salsoul Hustle" (1975) by the newly formed Salsoul Orchestra, which included members of the Philly session players. During the following years, the label enjoyed a string of hits, but Salsoul's biggest successes came in the later years, as the company moved from disco to funk. Instant Funk reached the top of the Billboard R&B chart (No. 20 pop) in 1979 with "Got My Mind Made Up", a million-seller produced by Bunny Sigler, with the group's follow-up album also going gold. Cayre brothers also produced Flashlight (Philly Groove Records).
According to Ken Cayre, it was his exposure to early
discothèque
A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music.
Nightclubs gener ...
s that gave him the idea to record music for the dance market. Salsoul released the first commercially available
12-inch single
The twelve-inch single (often written as 12-inch or 12″) is a type of vinyl ( polyvinyl chloride or PVC) gramophone record that has wider groove spacing and shorter playing time with a 'single' or a few related sound tracks on each surfac ...
,
Double Exposure
In photography and cinematography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more exposures to create a single image, and double exposure has a corresponding meaning in respect of two images. The exposure values may or may not be id ...
's "
Ten Percent
''Ten Percent'' is the debut studio album recorded by American male vocal quartet Double Exposure, released in 1976 on the Salsoul label.
History
The album features the title track, which peaked at No.2 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart, No. 54 on ...
", in 1976. Salsoul was affected by
the disco backlash of 1979, but it was one of the few labels to survive after the death of disco. It continued to release new material until 1984, when the Cayre brothers shut down their recorded music operations to concentrate on the
home video
Home video is prerecorded media sold or rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD, Blu-ray and streaming m ...
business, such as
GoodTimes Entertainment
GoodTimes Entertainment, Ltd. was an American home video company that originated in 1984 under the name of GoodTimes Home Video. Though it produced its own titles, the company was well known due to its distribution of media from third parties and ...
.
1980s
Skyy made it to No. 1 R&B in 1981 with "Call Me" (No. 26 pop) and Aurra climbed to No. 6 R&B in the same year with their release, "Make Up Your Mind" (No. 71 pop). Sigler also reached the R&B top 10 in 1978 with his solo single "Let Me Party With You" (No. 8 R&B, No. 43 pop) on the
Gold Mind subsidiary.
The Cayres recorded at the same studios, Sigma Sound, as Gamble & Huff in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. It was one of the earliest facilities to install 24-track equipment and owned a "live roos" for small orchestras. Many of the remixes and singles were mixed or recorded by Bob Blank at his studio.
Revival
In 1992, Salsoul Records was revived as Salsoul New Generation Records (also known as Double J Records). Because of the resurgent interest prompted by Loleatta Holloway's "
Love Sensation", Black Box's "
Ride On Time" &
Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch
Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch was an American hip-hop group formed in 1991 by Mark Wahlberg (alias Marky Mark), Scott Gee, Hector the Booty Inspector, DJ-T, and Ashey Ace. The group's best known song is " Good Vibrations", which made it to numbe ...
's "
Good Vibrations
"Good Vibrations" is a song by the American rock music, rock band the Beach Boys that was composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love. It was released as a single on October 10, 1966 and was an immediate critical and commercial hit, toppi ...
" in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the label's catalogue was digitally remastered. Two volumes of
remix
A remix (or reorchestration) is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, poem, or photograph can all be remixes. The o ...
albums were also issued the same year.
More than a year beforehand, also in "
Ride on Time" by
House
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air ...
pioneers Black Box, which was at first criticised by fans of vintage Salsoul and Ms. Holloway herself, but after legal matters were settled, many lauded the Italian DJ group for exposing an entire new generation to the Salsoul Sound. A year after revival, Salsoul changed its name to Bethlehem Music Company, but it still used Salsoul as an imprint, with Bethlehem Music Company focusing on releasing Salsoul material and also Bethlehem's jazz recordings.
In 1992 and 1993 Salsoul sub-label Double J released two volumes of remixes (''Synergy'' and ''Rhythm'') by contemporary
house-music artists.
See also
*
List of record labels
File:Alvinoreyguitarboogie.jpg
File:AmMusicBunk78.jpg
File:Bingola1011b.jpg
Lists of record labels cover record labels, brands or trademarks associated with marketing of music recordings and music videos. The lists are organized alphabetically, b ...
*
Prelude Records
Prelude Records was a New York-based independent record label that was active from 1976 to 1986. At one time, François Kevorkian held an A&R position at Prelude. The label's owner was Marvin Schlachter.
History
Prelude was first launched in 1 ...
References
External links
Ken Cayre interview
{{authority control
American record labels
Record labels established in 1974
Record labels disestablished in 1985
Record labels established in 1992
Re-established companies
Post-disco record labels