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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
Wed Dec 28, 2011, 01:20 PM Dec 2011

In a Big Year for New Soul, a Small But Influential Label Turns 10

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/12/in-a-big-year-for-new-soul-a-small-but-influential-label-turns-10/250495/



In a year when Adele, the retro-soul stylist with a ground-shaking alto, sold a gazillion albums, and Amy Winehouse, the game-changing soul-revivalist who battled her demons in public, passed away, it's been easy to overlook another milestone in this new era of soul: the tenth anniversary of Daptone Records, the very label that helped usher in that era.

Founded at the start of the decade by musicians Gabriel Roth and Neal Sugarman, the label puts out classic soul, funk, blues, R&B, and afrobeat. Their continued success has been largely off the mainstream radar, serving as a reminder that the soul revival of the past few years has been taking place at all levels of music, from indie-leaning clubs to the Grammys.

Daptone's creation story is also a reminder that soul never entirely went away in the first place. While working as a musician in the New York soul and funk scene in the '90s, Roth and his colleague Philip Lehman started the short-lived Desco Records, where Roth began crafting his analog producing process. Sugarman, meanwhile, came out of the Boston punk scene in the '80s. When he arrived in New York he worked as a freelance jazz musician. He forged his relationship with Roth when his group, The Sugarman 3, recorded music on Desco.

There wasn't really a plan to start Daptone. Roth and Sugarman wanted to keep their records together and sustain the energy that they started at Desco. The forward-thinking friends felt there was no other label that could deliver the sound they wanted, so they decided to create it themselves. "From the beginning we never planned to have some big record company," Roth explains. "I wasn't trying to become a mogul or producer; we just wanted to make some records and have fun." They now both play in flagship band the Dap-Kings: Roth on bass and Sugarman on sax.
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