Vinyl Ventures
My Fifty Years at Rounder Records
by Bill Nowlin
Paperback (Published)
(March 2021)
ISBN: 9781800500068
6.1 x 9.17 inches
Price: $29.95
In stock
Rounder won 56 Grammy Awards and documented a swath of music that in many cases might otherwise never have been presented to a broader public. It’s arguably a quintessentially American success story. This book focuses on the early years up to and just through when Rounder evolved to a second stage, with a generational change that has kept the label healthy and flourishing when so many other cultural enterprises from the era have folded or gone dark. It’s the story of three people with no background in business who took an idea and, through hard work and passion, built up something of lasting cultural significance.
Rounder Records was born in 1970, a “hobby that got out of control,” a fledging record company more or less conceived while the Sixties were still in flower, which began on just over $1,000. Founded by three friends just out of college, the Boston-area company produced over 3,000 record albums, the most active company of the last half-century specializing in roots music and its contemporary offshoots. Rounder won 56 Grammy Awards and documented a swath of music that in many cases might otherwise never have been presented to a broader public. It’s arguably a quintessentially American success story. This book focuses on the early years up to and just through when Rounder evolved to a second stage, with a generational change that has kept the label healthy and flourishing when so many other cultural enterprises from the era have folded or gone dark. It’s the story of three people with no background in business who took an idea and, through hard work and passion, built up something of lasting cultural significance. Rounder Records: A Biography is less a standard history and more an idiosyncratic memoir written by one of the three Rounder founders. The book includes original photographs taken by the author or drawn from the Rounder archives.
- By (author) Bill Nowlin
"Nowlin . . . writes with warmth and candor. . . It's a lively history of a business, of roots and Americana music, and the changes over the last half-century of recording and releasing." --The Boston Globe "The book is impressive in its detailing of what it was like to build such a company and the many travails they experienced over the years. The index of albums alone is a fascinating trip into decades of roots music." --Halsey, Derek, Bluegrass Unlimited, August 2021 "Nowlin's enthusiasm for Rounder Records and what they built never falters, and provides the reader with endless streams of personal investigation and reflection." --Teplyske, Donald, countrystandardtime.com
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Two Bold Singermen and the English Folk Revival
The Lives, Song Traditions and Legacies of Sam Larner and Harry Cox
The Ultimate Guide to Great Reggae
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