Everything about Takoma Records totally explained
Takoma Records was a small but influential
record label founded by
John Fahey in the late 1950s. It was named after Fahey's hometown, the
Washington, D.C. suburb of
Takoma Park, Maryland.
Takoma Records began with a custom pressing of 100 copies of
John Fahey/Blind Joe Death, an album of his own guitar playing released by John Fahey around 1958. He had no distribution and sold the pressing mainly to friends, and at music parties. A copy of this record recently sold on
eBay for several thousand dollars.
John moved to
Berkeley, California, and the label was really launched when John rediscovered the country bluesman,
Bukka White. With
Eugene "ED" Denson, John drove to
Memphis and the pair produced Bukka's first recording in 23 years. Later in 1963 they released it, as well as John's second album of his own music.
Independent labels were a novelty at that period in American musical history, but gradually in the next several years word spread about the music. At the same time independent "
folk music" labels like
Rounder were springing up, and establishing distribution systems. The content of the Takoma label expanded to include other guitarists, such as Robbie Basho, and other types of folk music. At the same time the label ventured into the
avant-garde with "The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing".
Acoustic guitar music, especially that of John Fahey, remained the mainstay of the label.
Around 1967, Denson moved to full-time management of the rock band
Country Joe and the Fish and John became the sole owner of Takoma. He moved the label and himself to
Los Angeles, where he was studying for his
Masters degree at
UCLA under
D.K. Wilgus.
Leo Kottke's
6 and 12 String Guitar became a surprise hit and the profits funded an expansion of the label which now had a staff.
Fahey had started a new genre of guitar music, known later as
American Primitivism, which comprised traditional fingerpicking
steel string guitar techniques applied to neo-classical compositions. The Takoma label showcased such music; its roster included Leo Kottke,
Peter Lang,
Robbie Basho and already famous
Mississippi bluesman Bukka White.
George Winston released his first album on Takoma and
Mike Bloomfield released several solo albums on the label. American composer and electronic music pioneer
Joseph Byrd released three records in 1975-76 on Takoma, which were co-produced by
Jon Monday.
In 1979, Fahey sold Takoma to
Chrysalis Records, owned by
Terry Ellis and
Chris Wright, which had artists such as
Blondie,
Pat Benatar, and
Huey Lewis. Jon Monday was General Manager of the label from 1970 until 1982 when Chrysalis sold the Takoma catalog. The catalog was purchased in 1995 by
Fantasy Records, which in 2004 was taken over by the
Concord Music Group. Fantasy has a handful of the Takoma recordings on the market as CDs as of this writing in 2007.
The label's best selling release was Kottke's
6 and 12-String Guitar (often called The Armadillo Album because of the cover art). Another influential album on Takoma was the 1974
eponymous compilation LP featuring Fahey, Kottke and Lang.
ED Denson went on to co-found and manage
Kicking Mule Records, which similarly featured acoustic guitarists. In 1995, he left the music business and became a criminal defense lawyer. By the early 21st century, the news about the label seems limited to death notices. Robbie Basho died in 1986, John Fahey in 2001, and Charlie Nothing died of cancer October 23, 2007.
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