Flying Fish Records
Encyclopedia
Flying Fish Records was a Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

-based eclectic blues and country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

. It was founded in 1974
1974 in music
-January–April:*January 3 – Bob Dylan and The Band kick off their 40-date concert tour at Chicago Stadium. It's Dylan's first time on the road since 1966.*January 17...

 by Bruce Kaplan, former president of the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

's Folklore Society.

Flying Fish played a major role in bringing traditionally oriented American music to a wider audience in the 1970s. At the time Kaplan started the label, most similarly oriented companies produced albums with decidedly "homemade" packaging (e.g. cover art, etc.) and marketed the albums to a relatively narrow audience of aficionados. Kaplan realized that music of this sort had the potential to reach a wider audience, but needed to be packaged in a professional manner; people not already devotees were unlikely to take a chance on something that did not look like it came from a "real" record company. Kaplan also invested in broader promotion of the music (wide provision of albums to radio; targeted advertising to back up tours). Essentially, he located a niche between the hit-based promotion model of the major labels and the faith of the small independents that the music would find its own audience.

Starting with the Hillbilly Jazz double album
Double album
A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....

 featuring fiddler Vassar Clements
Vassar Clements
Vassar Clements was a Grammy Award- winning American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borrows from swing, hot jazz, and bluegrass along with roots also in country and other musical...

, and following up with a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 winning album by John Hartford
John Hartford
John Cowan Hartford was an American folk, country and bluegrass composer and musician known for his mastery of the fiddle and banjo, as well as for his witty lyrics, unique vocal style, and extensive knowledge of Mississippi River lore...

, Flying Fish Records' success with this niche approach led to similar changes by many other roots labels of the period.

The label bought Hogeye Music in the mid-1980s.

In December 1992, Kaplan developed an ear infection that did not respond to antibiotic treatment and he died very unexpectedly. After a brief period under the direction of long time employee Jim Netter, supported by Kaplan's widow Sandra Shifrin (a social worker), the label was sold to Rounder Records
Rounder Records
Rounder Records, originally of Cambridge, Massachusetts, but now based in Burlington, Massachusetts, is a record label founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students...

, where Kaplan had worked as a producer for a brief period before founding Flying Fish.

Kaplan is survived by his wife, Sandra, and daughter, Anna, who will begin Columbia College in the Fall 2009 to major in Music Production and Business.

Flying Fish Records also distributes Blind Pig Records
Blind Pig Records
Blind Pig Records is an American blues record label.Blind Pig was formed in 1977 in Ann Arbor, Michigan by Jerry Del Giudice, owner of the Blind Pig Cafe, and his friend Edward Chmelewski. The label is now based in San Francisco...

 and Rooster Blues. They have recorded Sweet Honey in the Rock
Sweet Honey in the Rock
Sweet Honey in the Rock is an all-woman, African-American a cappella ensemble. They are an American Grammy Award-winning troupe who express their history as women of color through song, while entertaining their audience. They have together worked from four women to the difficult five-part harmony...

, Sam Bush
Sam Bush
Sam Bush is an American bluegrass mandolin player considered an originator of the Newgrass style.- History :...

, John Hartford
John Hartford
John Cowan Hartford was an American folk, country and bluegrass composer and musician known for his mastery of the fiddle and banjo, as well as for his witty lyrics, unique vocal style, and extensive knowledge of Mississippi River lore...

, Jean Ritchie
Jean Ritchie
Jean Ritchie is an American folk singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player.- Out of Kentucky :Abigail and Balis Ritchie of Viper, Kentucky had 14 children, and Jean was the youngest...

, Tom Paxton
Tom Paxton
Thomas Richard Paxton is an American folk singer and singer-songwriter who has been writing, performing and recording music for over forty years...

, David Amram
David Amram
David Amram is an American composer, musician, conductor, and writer. As a classical composer and performer, his integration of jazz , ethnic and folk music has led him to work with the likes of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Willie Nelson, Langston...

, Anne Hills
Anne Hills
Anne Hills is an American folk singer-songwriter.Hills was born in October, 1953, to a family of missionaries in India and grew up in Michigan. She studied at Interlochen, where she played in a band with Chris Brubeck and Peter Erskine. In 1976, she moved to Chicago and was a co-founder of the...

, Chubby Carrier
Chubby Carrier
Roy "Chubby" Carrier is an American zydeco musician. He is the leader of Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band.Carrier's father and grandfather both played zydeco music, and his cousins recorded under the name The Carrier Brothers. He was taught to play accordion by his father, Roy Carrier Sr.,...

, James Sapp, Steve Lyon, Pat Burton, Linda Waterfall
Linda Waterfall
Linda Waterfall is an American folk musician and singer-songwriter. She has recorded more than 10 albums beginning with her first in 1977.-Career:...

, Northern Lights, Valerie Wellington
Valerie Wellington
Valerie Wellington was an African American, Chicago blues and electric blues singer and actress. Her 1984 album, Million Dollar $ecret saw her work with Sunnyland Slim, Billy Branch, and Magic Slim. In her early years, Wellington also worked with Lee "Shot" Williams...

, Tom Ball & Kenny Sultan, John Cephas, and Phil Wiggins.

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