The Nelson George Mixtape: Artists Issues The creation of black music departments meant bigger advances, larger recording budgets, more coordinated national promotion, and better royalty rates. However, artists still didn’t own their masters, meani... Read More...
The Nelson George Mixtape: The Slow Death of Mom & Pop Retailers Down at the bottom of the musical food chain, yet historically crucial to its health, were Mom & Pop record stores. In every African-American community there were at least one and often two or three ret... Read More...
The Nelson George Mixtape: (What Happened To) Black Concert Promoters? The concerns of black radio were even more intense within the ranks of black concert promoters. From the post- World War II period onward small black promoters, often working with booking agencies focused on ... Read More...
Nelson George Mixtape: The R&B World Circa 1979-Black Music Departments Starting in the early ‘70s all the major record companies made a commitment to being in the black music business. Up until then prolific independent labels like Detroit’s Motown, Memphis’ Stax, New York’s A... Read More...
The Nelson George Mixtape: R&B World Circa 1979 & the Black Music Association If you had no skin in the game, were not even conceived or simply wish to help yourself…..read…take notes and read more while remembering that what you are about to read IS history. Thank you, Nelson Georg... Read More...
The Funky Demise of Black Bands , Part IV : Beat Junkies- DJs, Sampling, Singers & Trap Just when you thought it had come to an end, Mr. George ,once again, does not disappoint as he continues his series on the demise of legendary Black bands. This series chronicles an important portion of music ... Read More...
The Nelson George Mixtape Funky Demise of Black Band Culture Part III This is the final section of a series of essay son funk ensembles in the 21st century. Funk was in transition from a music created with live horns, Latin percussion, and a tight rhythm section to a... Read More...
The Nelson George Mixtape:The Funky Demise of Black Band Culture, Part One At the intermission of a performance in Boston in 1919, band leader James Reese Europe called an impromptu meeting with his two drummers, Steve and Herbert Wright. Apparently, Europe, a man who had high sta... Read More...
Remembering Casablanca Records – The Nelson George Mixtape In summer 1975 record executive Neil Bogart had a serious problem. His Casablanca Records had KISS’s Alive due for release. It was the fourth album by his cartoony hard rock band and Bogart was determined t... Read More...