Music To Listen To 10/11/15

Back in the 50's and early 60's the landscape was covered with a multitude of independent record companies.   They were necessary to be based out of New York or LA, they popped up in cities throughout the country.  Memphis, New Orleans, Philadelphia and many other cities found themselves home to such companies.   Most of these companies were aligned with one of the Major Record companies for their distribution ends, to ensure their records got out to as many people as possible.  But that wasn't always the case.  One thing that distinguishes these small, independent companies from those that are around today is that a lot of the people that ran these companies were not in it for the love of music, but for a chance to make a quick buck.  Some of them even had ties to organized crime.  Ok, so maybe some things aren't completely different, but I think a lot of the smaller, independent companies today start out from a love of the music

A lot of these companies put out music that you've probably never heard of.  Some of them, if they were lucky, had at least one star.  King Records had James Brown.  Some had a hit record and maybe that was all.  What they all had was some great music.  This is the music that make up the history of Rock and Roll.  It may not be remembered very much today, but this is what people were listening to back in the day.  I've been listening to some of this music for the last week and it's fascinating.  Some of these companies were so varied in their listings, some stuck to certain genres, but it all makes up for some really good listening music.

The best part is that Amazon is offering, I don't even know how many, a lot of these songs on 2 CD sets from their specific record company and all for, mostly, under ten dollars.  Most of the CDs contain up to 25 songs on a disc, so you're getting 50 songs for less than ten dollars.  I don't want to make this sound like a commercial for Amazon.com but you really can't go wrong with these CDs.  

.