If you’d been prescient enough, 20 years ago, to suggest that in 2014
Signature Sounds Recordings would have a catalog of more than 100
releases, a Top 20 album, and a three-day celebration of the label’s
artists, the most astute of scene-followers in Western Massachusetts
would’ve told you to dream on. Even Signature Sounds president Jim
Olsen, who co-founded the label and runs it with Mark Thayer, would’ve
thought you were crazy. “We started the label as a glorified hobby, with
no grand ambitions,” Jim reflects. “And Signature Sounds has grown
slowly and organically.”
Organically, for sure. The Signature Sounds moniker is first seen on a
pair of CD compilations released in conjunction with radio station WRSI
in 1992 and 1993 as benefit projects to help fight hunger in Western
Mass. But Signature Sounds isn’t incorporated until September 1994 and
its first official release, Boneyard, by former Van Morrison sideman
John Sheldon and his band Blue Streak, innocuously bearing the catalog
number SSRC 1227, appears in January 1995. Including a duet with James
Taylor, the CD hints at big things to come.
Jim, already known back then as the host of The Back Porch, the popular Sunday
morning radio show featuring an array of Americana, bluegrass, country,
and alt-country music, slowly begins building a catalog and roster of
artists for the label. In 1997, Signature Sounds becomes his full-time
job. By the time the label celebrates its 10th anniversary, it’s been
home to dozens of acclaimed releases, including ones by Josh Ritter,
Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer, Lori McKenna, Mary Gauthier, Salamander
Crossing, Mark Erelli, and Richard Shindell.
And that’s only the first chapter in the Signature Sounds story. During
the next few years, in an environment where record labels are constantly
becoming more and more generic and the trend toward downloading makes
physical CDs less essential for some music fans, the independent
Signature Sounds continues to buck the system and thrive. For proof, you
need look no further than the CD you hold in your hands. Signature
Sounds 20th Anniversary Collection: Rarities From the Second Decade not
only showcases the artistry as well as many of the artists who’ve
populated the label in its second decade, but it’s a treasure trove of
hard-to-find and previously unreleased gems that help define the
Signature Sounds sound.
“We had some great material that hadn't been heard, and it was fun to
round it all up,” Jim explains. “We didn’t want any demos, home
recordings, or live stuff. We wanted everything to be intended for a
release.” So there’s a Lake Street Dive track that was released as a
vinyl 45 for Record Store Day 2014; rare tracks by Crooked Still and
Jeffrey Foucault; a bonus LP track from Winterpills; a newly recorded
track by Chris Smither; EP tracks including one by Zoe Muth & the
Lost High Rollers; previously unreleased cuts by Rani Arbo & Daisy
Mayhem, Peter Mulvey, and others; and much more from the vaults,
including a celebratory hidden track by the Signature Sounds artists who
hold the distinction of bursting onto the Billboard top-selling 200
albums chart at a lofty Number 18.
So what’s been a key ingredient in the success and the durability of the
Signature Sounds label… especially at a time when most record labels no
longer have a true identity? “I think there is a continuity in what we
do,” Jim explains. “We’ve only added one or two new artists a year, and
worked with many of artists for a long time. Our artists tend to be
friends and tour partners, which lends a real sense of community to the
label.”
Back in the day, a small handful of record labels had personalities of
their own. If you were a jazz fan, for instance, chances are you could
trust a label such as Impulse Records to put out music worth seeking
out, even if you were unfamiliar with a particular artist. For Jim,
Reprise Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. was just such an
inspiration back in the 1960s and ’70s: “They signed amazing but
non-commercial artists like Randy Newman and Ry Cooder. And they stuck
with their artists even when their records didn't sell. In time it has
become clear that they were a visionary label.”
Just like Signature Sounds.
And just like the selections spanning this 20th Anniversary Collection, music from Signature Sounds—yesterday, today, and tomorrow—is always worth listening to. After all, good taste is timeless.
—David Sokol, Hadley MA, November 2014
David Sokol was music editor for the Advocate Newspapers from 1977 to
1993, going on to edit New Country magazine, which featured early
Signature Sounds tracks on its monthly samplers, and Disney Magazine.
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