Point Blank Records
Encyclopedia
Point Blank Records is a record label
subsidiary of Virgin Records
.
Point Blank Records was founded in 1998 by John Wooler
. Wooler served as Deputy Head of A&R
at Virgin Records UK
from 1984-1994 and Senior Vice President of Virgin Records US
from 1994-2002. He had a passion for blues
, Americana
and soul
. His manager
, Simon Draper granted him a small budget to create the label. The first act signed to the record label was Larry McCray
followed by Albert Collins
and The Kinsey Report
. As time moved forward, artists such as John Lee Hooker
, Solomon Burke
, Pops Staples
, John Hammond
, Walter "Wolfman" Washington
, Van Morrison
, and Johnny Winter
were signed to the label as well. Wooler signed all the musicians on this label and produced
many of them.
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,...
subsidiary of Virgin Records
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, Culture Club, Lenny...
.
Point Blank Records was founded in 1998 by John Wooler
John Wooler
John Wooler is a producer, former record label executive, and co-founder of Exolution. With 25 years of worldwide music industry experience, he worked for almost 20 years as an executive at Virgin Records where he founded Point Blank Records...
. Wooler served as Deputy Head of A&R
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...
at Virgin Records UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
from 1984-1994 and Senior Vice President of Virgin Records US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
from 1994-2002. He had a passion for blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, Americana
Americana (music)
Americana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...
and soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
. His manager
Management
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...
, Simon Draper granted him a small budget to create the label. The first act signed to the record label was Larry McCray
Larry McCray
Larry McCray is an American blues guitarist and singer.-Biography:McCray, the second youngest of nine siblings, grew up living on a farm. McCray learned guitar from his sister, Clara. "She used to play real low-down and dirty", McCray recalled years later...
followed by Albert Collins
Albert Collins
Albert Collins was an American electric blues guitarist and singer whose recording career began in the 1960s in Houston and whose fame eventually took him to stages across the US, Europe, Japan and Australia...
and The Kinsey Report
Donald Kinsey
Donald Kinsey is an American guitarist and singer, best known as a member of The Wailers Band, the reggae backing group for Bob Marley & The Wailers....
. As time moved forward, artists such as John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...
, Solomon Burke
Solomon Burke
Solomon Burke was an American singer-songwriter, entrepreneur, mortician, and an archbishop of the United House of Prayer For All People. Burke was known as "King Solomon", the "King of Rock 'n' Soul", and as the "Bishop of Soul", and described as "the Muhammad Ali of soul", and as "the most...
, Pops Staples
Pops Staples
Roebuck "Pops" Staples was a Mississippi-born Gospel and R&B musician.A "pivotal figure in gospel in the 1960s and 70s," he was an accomplished songwriter, guitarist and singer...
, John Hammond
John P. Hammond
John Paul Hammond is an American blues singer and guitarist. The son of record producer John H. Hammond, he is sometimes referred to as "John Hammond, Jr.".-Background:...
, Walter "Wolfman" Washington
Walter "Wolfman" Washington
Walter "Wolfman" Washington is an American singer and guitarist, based in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. While his roots are in blues music, he blends in the essence of funk and R&B to create his own unique sound....
, Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
, and Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter
John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters...
were signed to the label as well. Wooler signed all the musicians on this label and produced
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
many of them.