Since 1983, HighTone Records has been one of this country's leading independent labels specializing in American roots music, from country to rockabilly, western swing, blues, and gospel. Here, co-owner Larry Sloven reflects on the company's beginnings and comments on its unique contribution to the world of American Music:


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Bruce Bromberg (HighTone's other co-owner) and I met in 1977, when I was working right here in Oakland at Pacific Records and Tape Distributors. Bruce was the west coast sales and marketing rep for Tomato Records, and he also had his own record label called Joliet Records. So we distributed Tomato, and we distributed Joliet.

After working in distribution for a few more years, I quit and spent more than a year traveling around the world. When I came back from my trip, I worked for the Music People One Stop in Oakland. Pretty soon, I decided that I wanted to start a side venture, and I approached Bruce about doing it. At that time, he was working on Bad Influence, his second record with blues artist Robert Cray. The first one had come out on Tomato. Bruce had pitched Cray's record to a bunch of bigger labels, like Arista, and Rounder, and Alligator, and nobody had really gone for it. So I told him we should put it out ourselves, and we ended up doing it.

That was in September of 1983, and it was the official beginning of HighTone. Originally, we intended the first few HighTone records to be a series of reissues. We had talked about reissuing the Tommy Duncan recordings on the Intro label, or maybe some blues stuff from the 1950s. But the Cray thing presented itself, and we did very well with it.

Because our initial success was with Cray, and because the next few records we released after that were blues and gospel, everybody thought of HighTone as a blues label for quite a few years. But it was never really our intention to be just that. Bruce and I both love country music, and since then, we've gone off in all kinds of other directions, all within the realm of roots music.

Like most small businesses, and most independent record companies, HighTone's catalog reflects the tastes of the people that run it. We like acts that combine traditional musical elements with a new approach to them -- usually it's a combination of rock and country elements. It wasn't called Americana in 1977, but Bruce and I knew that we liked country music, and we knew that our orientation to it was non-Nashville, non-easy-listening, and off-center. Music with more soul, more tradition. But also with contemporary elements -- not just a copy of what already existed.

Take Robert Cray -- he created a whole new interest in blues because of his combination of old and new elements. He was working within a traditional form, but he lent something new to it, as well. I feel like we pioneered the whole Americana/No Depression scene. We signed Joe Ely in 1986, and in a lot of ways, that was the beginning of Americana as a genre. Tulare Dust, our Merle Haggard tribute, was the first #1 Americana record.

Actually, our current position really reflects my ideal -- the way that I envisioned the label in the beginning. We have a medium-sized catalog, and we're releasing all kinds of American roots music. We're developing some really good artists who started their careers with us. We've got a few artists who were already established when they came here, like Dave Alvin, Tom Russell, and Chris Smither, who have continued to mature and to expand. And we've got a lot of really interesting archive material in different styles, from old-timey country, to blues, to rockabilly.

We've always tried to maintain a balance between new artists and established artists. We've discovered some great new talent, like Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Robert Cray, Buddy and Julie Miller, James Armstrong, Joe Louis Walker, Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys, and the Hot Club of Cowtown. And we've managed to sign a lot of people who were my heroes before I started HighTone, like Joe Ely, Hank Thompson, Gary Stewart, Dave Alvin, and Phil Alvin.

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For inquiries about the HighTone catalog, please contact Business Affairs.