Takoma Records was a small but influential

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 produ ...

founded by guitarist John Fahey in the late 1950s.Hoffman, Frank. ''The Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound, Volume 1. CRC Press. 2005''
Retrieved December 2009. It was named after Fahey's hometown,

Takoma Park, Maryland Takoma Park is a city in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Washington, and part of the Washington metropolitan area. Founded in 1883 and incorporated in 1890, Takoma Park, informally called "Azalea City", is a Tree C ...

, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

History

Takoma Records began with a custom pressing of 100 copies of '' John Fahey/Blind Joe Death'', an album of Fahey's fingerstyle guitar playing released around 1959.According to ''

The Rolling Stone Record Guide ''The Rolling Stone Album Guide'', previously known as ''The Rolling Stone Record Guide'', is a book that contains professional music reviews written and edited by staff members from ''Rolling Stone'' magazine. Its first edition was published in 1 ...

'' (1st ed., 1979), only 95 copies of the record were available for distribution. The ''Guide'' gave the record 5 out of 5 stars. Fahey had no distribution and sold the pressing to friends and at music parties. A copy of this record sold on

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

for several thousand dollars. Fahey moved to

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

. He rediscovered the country bluesman

Bukka White Booker T. Washington "Bukka" White (November 12, 1906 February 26, 1977) was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. Biography White was born south of Houston, Mississippi. He was a first cousin of B.B. King's mother (White's mother and ...

. With Eugene "ED" Denson, Fahey drove to

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

, and the pair produced White's first recording in 23 years. It was released in 1963 along with Fahey's second album. Takoma expanded to include other guitarists, such as

Robbie Basho Robbie Basho (born Daniel R. Robinson, Jr., August 31, 1940 – February 28, 1986) was an American acoustic guitarist, pianist and singer. Biography Basho was born in Baltimore, and was orphaned as an infant. Adopted by the Robinson family, ...

, and other types of folk music. The compilation ''Contemporary Guitar'' was recorded in 1966 and featured Fahey, Basho, White, Max Ochs, and Harry Taussig. It demonstrated Fahey's interest in diverse guitar styles, from plantation blues to

raga A ''raga'' or ''raag'' (; also ''raaga'' or ''ragam''; ) is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music akin to a musical mode, melodic mode. The ''rāga'' is a unique and central feature of the classical Indian music tradit ...

. Although at the same time Takoma released the

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

album ''The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing'', its concentration was on acoustic guitar music, especially Fahey's. Fahey started a genre of guitar music known later as

American primitive guitar American primitive guitar is a fingerstyle guitar music genre, developed by the American guitarist John Fahey in the late 1950s. While the term "American primitivism" has been used as a name for the genre, American primitive guitar is distinct ...

in which he applied traditional fingerpicking to neoclassical compositions. Takoma's musicians using this technique included

Leo Kottke Leo Kottke (born September 11, 1945) is an acoustic guitarist. He is known for a fingerpicking style that draws on blues, jazz, and folk music, and for syncopated, polyphonic melodies. He overcame a series of personal obstacles, including parti ...

, Peter Lang,

Mike Auldridge Mike Auldridge (December 30, 1938 – December 29, 2012) was an American Dobro player and a founding member of the bluegrass group The Seldom Scene. The ''New York Times'' described Auldridge as "one of the most distinctive dobro players in the ...

, and Max Ochs. The label also produced records by

New Age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...

pianist

George Winston George Winston (born December 26, 1949) is an American pianist, guitarist, harmonicist, and record producer. He was born in Michigan and raised mainly in Montana ( Miles City and Billings), as well as Mississippi and Florida. He is best known fo ...

Mike Bloomfield Michael Bernard Bloomfield (July 28, 1943 – February 15, 1981) 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 ...

, and electronic musician

Joseph Byrd Joseph Hunter Byrd, Jr. (born December 19, 1937) is an American composer, musician and academic. After first becoming known as an experimental composer in New York City and Los Angeles in the early and mid-1960s, he became the leader of The Un ...

. When Denson became manager of the rock band Country Joe and the Fish, Fahey became the sole owner of Takoma.''Double Fantasy Label Purchases''. Billboard Magazine. October 14, 1995.
Retrieved December 2009. He moved the label to Los Angeles where he was studying for his

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

under D.K. Wilgus. The album '' 6- and 12-String Guitar'' by Leo Kottke was a surprise hit, and the profit funded an expansion of the label, which now had a staff. In 1970

Jon Monday Jon Monday (born 1947 in San Jose, California) 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 Ch ...

joined the label as promotion manager, eventually becoming general manager. The label grew as radio stations played new releases by Fahey and other Takoma artists. In 1973 Charlie Mitchell became Takoma's president. Takoma was one of the founding companies of the National Association of Independent Record Distributors (NAIRD).

Sale

In 1979 Fahey sold Takoma to Chrysalis Records, a company owned by

Terry Ellis Terry is a unisex given name, derived from French Thierry and Theodoric. It can also be used as a diminutive nickname for the names Teresa or Theresa (feminine) or Terence or Terrier (masculine). People Male * Terry Albritton (1955–2005), A ...

and Chris Wright which produced Blondie,

Pat Benatar Patricia Mae Giraldo (''née'' Andrzejewski, formerly Benatar; born January 10, 1953), known professionally as Pat Benatar, is an American rock singer and songwriter. In the United States, she has had two multi-platinum albums, five platinum alb ...

, and

Huey Lewis Hugh Anthony Cregg III (born July 5, 1950), known professionally as Huey Lewis, is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. Lewis sings lead and plays harmonica for his band, Huey Lewis and the News, in addition to writing or co-writing many o ...

. During the Chrysalis years, Takoma released albums by

The Fabulous Thunderbirds The Fabulous Thunderbirds are an American blues band formed in 1974. Career After performing for several years in the Austin, Texas blues scene, the band won a recording contract with Takoma/Chrysalis Records and later signed with Epic Recor ...

Canned Heat Canned Heat is an American band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1965. The group is noted for its efforts to promote interest in blues music and its original artists and rock music. It was founded by two blues enthusiasts Alan Wilson and Bob ...

, and

T-Bone Burnett Joseph Henry "T Bone" Burnett III (born January 14, 1948) is an American record producer, guitarist and songwriter. He rose to fame as a guitarist in Bob Dylan's band during the 1970s. He has received multiple Grammy awards for his work in fil ...

. Jon Monday was general manager until 1982, when Chrysalis sold the Takoma catalogue. It was bought by

Fantasy Records Fantasy Records is an American independent record label company founded by brothers Max and Sol Stanley Weiss in 1949. The early years of the company were dedicated to issuing recordings by jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, who was also one of its inves ...

in 1995. In 2004 Fantasy was purchased by the Concord Music Group. The Takoma Records label is now controlled by Ace Records. Takoma's bestselling album was Kottke's ''6- and 12-String Guitar'', often called "The Armadillo Album" because of the cover art. Another influential album was the 1974 ''

Leo Kottke, Peter Lang & John Fahey ''Leo Kottke/Peter Lang/John Fahey'' is a split album by American guitarists Leo Kottke, Peter Lang, and John Fahey, released in 1974. History Fahey had started a new genre of guitar music, known later as American primitive guitar, which compr ...

''. ED Denson co-founded and managed Kicking Mule Records, which also featured acoustic guitarists. In 1995 he left the music business and became a criminal defense lawyer. Robbie Basho died in 1986, John Fahey in 2001, and Charlie Nothing died of cancer on October 23, 2007.

References

External links

Illustrated Takoma Records discography
{{Authority control Record labels established in 1959 Blues record labels American independent record labels Defunct record labels of the United States Concord Music Group Companies based in Takoma Park, Maryland

History

Sale

See also

References

External links