Rounder Records, originally of Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

, but now based in Burlington

Burlington, Massachusetts

Burlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 24,498 at the 2010 census.- History :It is believed that Burlington takes its name from the English town of Bridlington, however this has never been confirmed....

, Massachusetts, is a record label founded in 1970

1970 in music

- Events :*January 3**Davy Jones announces he is leaving the Monkees**Former Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett releases his first solo album The Madcap Laughs....

 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students. It once served as a major distributor

Distribution (business)

Product distribution is one of the four elements of the marketing mix. An organization or set of organizations involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by a consumer or business user.The other three parts of the marketing mix are product, pricing,...

and central sales location for other independent labels specializing in roots music

Traditional music

Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...

, at one point representing as many as 450 other labels. In the 1990s, though, the company cut back on the distribution effort in order to focus on its own productions. In the early 2000s, shortly after the merger of the PolyGram and MCA label families, Rounder signed a manufacturing and distribution deal with Universal Music

Universal Music Group

Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...

, which also purchased an interest in the label.

Starting with 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...

, blues-rock

Blues-rock

Blues rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jams with rock and roll styles. The core of the blues rock sound is created by the electric guitar, piano, bass guitar and drum kit, with the electric guitar usually amplified through a...

, string band

String band

A string band is an old-time music or jazz ensemble made up mainly or solely of string instruments. String bands were popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and are among the forerunners of modern country music and bluegrass.-String bands in old-time music:...

, and bluegrass

Bluegrass music

Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

, Rounder expanded to over 3,000 titles of folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, 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...

, soca

Soca music

Soca is a style of music from Trinidad and Tobago. Soca is a musical development of traditional Trinidadian calypso, through loans from the 1960s onwards from predominantly black popular music....

, Cajun

Cajun music

Cajun music, an emblematic music of Louisiana, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada. Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem with the Creole-based, Cajun-influenced zydeco form, both of Acadiana origin...

, and Celtic

Celtic music

Celtic music is a term utilised by artists, record companies, music stores and music magazines to describe a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe...

. The name was chosen partly because of its association with the band Holy Modal Rounders

Holy Modal Rounders

The Holy Modal Rounders were an American folk music duo from the Lower East Side of New York City which started in the early 1960s, consisting of Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber. Their unique blend of folk music revival and psychedelia gave them a cult-like following from the late 1960s into the 1970s...

. The word rounder also means a hobo

Hobo

A hobo is a term which is often applied to a migratory worker or homeless vagabond, often penniless. The term originated in the Western—probably Northwestern—United States during the last decade of the 19th century. Unlike 'tramps', who work only when they are forced to, and 'bums', who do not...

 or tramp

Tramp

A tramp is a long term homeless person who travels from place to place as a vagrant, traditionally walking or hiking all year round. In British English meanwhile a tramp simply refers to a homeless person, usually not a travelling one....

. One of their earliest successes was the blues-rock band George Thorogood

George Thorogood

George Thorogood is an American blues rock vocalist/guitarist from Wilmington, Delaware, United States, known for his hit song "Bad to the Bone" as well as for covers of blues standards such as Hank Williams' "Move It On Over" and John Lee Hooker's "House Rent Boogie/One Bourbon, One Scotch, One...

 and the Destroyers.

One of the label's projects is the Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

 Collection, a series of releases of the work of the pioneering ethnomusiclogist

Ethnomusicology

Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...

 and folklorist.

Among Rounder's artists, bluegrass superstar Alison Krauss

Alison Krauss

Alison Maria Krauss is an American bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in...

 (who had been with the label for the duration of her career) was offered a number of major label deals following her commercial breakthrough in the late 1990s, but Krauss opted to remain with Rounder.
Rounder was one of the very first labels to become involved with compact disc

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

s, in 1985. In 2004, the company launched a book division known as Rounder Books.

Rounder formed a children's music

Children's music

Children's music is used here to refer to music composed and performed for children by adults. In European influenced contexts this means music, usually songs, written specifically for a juvenile audience. The composers are usually adults. Children's music has historically held both entertainment...

 division called Rounder Kids in the 90s, distributing soundtracks

Arthur TV soundtracks

The children's television show Arthur has released three Arthur soundtracks.-Arthur and Friends: The First Almost Real Not Live CD :...

 of the popular PBS Kids

PBS Kids

PBS Kids is the brand for children's programming aired by the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States founded in 1993. As with all PBS programming, PBS Kids programming is non-commercial. It is aimed at children ages 2 to 10...

 series Arthur

Arthur (TV series)

Arthur is an American/Canadian animated educational television series for children, created by Cookie Jar Group and WGBH for the Public Broadcasting Service...

. It's current label roster is the Canadian children's entertainer Raffi Cavoukian.

In 2010, Rounder was purchased by the Concord Music Group

Concord Music Group

Concord Music Group is a record company owned by Village Roadshow formed in 2004 by the merger of Concord Records and Fantasy Records. In 2005, the company acquired the classics and jazz label Telarc International. On December 18, 2006, Concord announced the re-launch of the soul label Stax;...

. It will continue to be distributed by Universal, as all of Concord has a distribution deal with UMG.http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/04/15/rounder_records_founders_say_sale_best_way_to_preserve_business/

Artists (past and present)

• Tom Adams
  Tom Adams (musician)
  Tom Adams is a bluegrass musician born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Featured as a banjo player on recordings made between 1974 and 2006 with The Adams Brothers, The Johnson Mountain Boys, The Lynn Morris Band, Blue Highway, Rhonda Vincent, Dale Ann Bradley, Michael Cleveland and many others, the...
  
  
• Darol Anger
  Darol Anger
  -Career:Darol Anger entered popular music at the age of 21 as a founding member of The David Grisman Quintet. Anger played fiddle to David Grisman's mandolin in The David Grisman Quintet's 1977 debut. He co-founded the Turtle Island String Quartet with David Balakrishnan in 1985 and performed,...
  
  
• Etta Baker
  Etta Baker
  Etta Baker was an American Piedmont blues guitarist and singer from North Carolina, United States.-Biography:...
  
  
• The Balfa Brothers
  The Balfa Brothers
  The Balfa Brothers were an American cajun music ensemble. Its members were five brothers; Dewey on fiddle, Will on fiddle, Rodney on guitar, harmonica, and vocals, Burkeman on triangle and spoons, and Harry on Cajun accordion....
  
  
• Marcia Ball
  Marcia Ball
  Marcia Ball is an American blues singer and pianist, born in Orange, Texas but who grew up in Vinton, Louisiana. She was described in USA Today as "a sensation, saucy singer and superb pianist.....
  
  
• Russ Barenberg
  Russ Barenberg
  Russ Barenberg is a Grammy-nominated American bluegrass musician.-Biography:Barenberg began playing guitar at age 13, taking lessons from Alan Miller, whose brother John Miller Barenberg he would later play with. His style was heavily influenced by the flatpicking technique of Clarence White. He...
  
  
• Pierre Bensusan
  Pierre Bensusan
  Pierre Bensusan is a French-Algerian guitarist. As a sephardic Jew, his family came from Spain, Spanish Morocco and French Algeria. The genre of his acoustic guitar music is often characterized as Celtic, Folk, World music, New Age, or Chamber jazz. He has also published three books of music and...
  
  
• Big Shoulders
  Big Shoulders
  Big Shoulders was a Chicago based blues influenced rock and roll band, known for their bawdy renditions of popular folk tunes. They were active in the 1980s and 1990s.Their two albums were produced by Ken Saydak, the band's singer and keyboardist....
  
  
• Tony Bird
  Tony Bird
  Tony Bird is a folk rock singer-songwriter who was born and grew up in Nyasaland in Southern Africa. He is known for his Dylanesque vocals and for his songs which describe life in colonial Nyasaland from a progressive anti-colonial point of view....
  
  
• Norman Blake
  Norman Blake (American musician)
  Norman Blake is an instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter. In a career spanning more than 50 years Blake has played in a number of folk and Country groups...
  
  
• Blue Rodeo
  Blue Rodeo
  Blue Rodeo is a Canadian pop and country rock band, which was formed in 1984 in Toronto, Ontario. They have been signed with Warner Music Group since their debut album Outskirts in March 1987...
  
  
• The Blue Sky Boys
  The Blue Sky Boys
  The Blue Sky Boys were an American country music duo consisting of the brothers Earl Bolick and Bill Bolick , whose careers spanned over forty years.-Biography:...
  
  
• The Bobs
  The Bobs
  The Bobs were dubbed the first new wave a cappella group in history when they were founded in San Francisco, California in the early 1980s. Now based in Seattle, Washington, this genre-bending, eccentric vocal group has maintained a healthy cult following in the U.S...
  
  
• Bodeans
  BoDeans
  The BoDeans are a rock band formed in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1983 by Kurt Neumann and Sam Llanas . In 1985, after adding a drummer and a bassist, the band signed a contract with Slash Records and recorded their first album...
  
  
• Roy Book Binder
  Roy Book Binder
  Roy Book Binder is an American blues guitarist. A student and friend of the Rev. Gary Davis, he is equally at home with blues and ragtime, he is known to shift from open tunings to slide arrangements to original compositions, with both traditional and self-styled licks...
  
  
• James Booker
  James Booker
  James Carroll Booker III was a jazz, New Orleans rhythm and blues and soul musician born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.-Biography:...
  
  
• Sandra Boynton
  Sandra Boynton
  Sandra Keith Boynton is an American humorist, songwriter, children's author and illustrator. Boynton has written and illustrated more than forty books for both children and adults, as well as over four thousand greeting cards, and four music albums...
  
  
• Brave Combo
  Brave Combo
  Brave Combo is a polka/rock band based in Denton, Texas. Founded in 1979 by guitarist/keyboardist/accordionist Carl Finch, they have been a prominent fixture in the Texas music scene for more than twenty-five years...
  
  
• Bob Brozman
  Bob Brozman
  Bob Brozman is an American guitarist and ethnomusicologist.He has performed in a number of styles such as Gypsy jazz, calypso, Blues, ragtime, Hawaiian and Caribbean music. Brozman has also collaborated with musicians from diverse cultural backgrounds such as India, Africa, Japan, Papua New Guinea...
  
  
• Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown
  Clarence Gatemouth Brown
  Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown was an American musician from Louisiana and Texas. He is best known for his work as a blues musician, but embraced other styles of music, having "spent his career fighting purism by synthesizing old blues, country, jazz, Cajun music and R&B styles"He was an acclaimed...
  
  
• Buckwheat Zydeco
  Buckwheat Zydeco
  Buckwheat Zydeco is the stage name of Stanley Dural, Jr. , an American accordionist and zydeco musician. He is one of the few zydeco artists to achieve mainstream success...
  
  
• 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...
  
  
• J J Cale
• Chuck Carbo
  Chuck Carbo
  Hayward "Chuck" Carbo was an American R&B singer , best known for his time as a vocalist in the New Orleans group The Spiders.Carbo sang with his brother, Leonard "Chick" Carbo, in The Spiders, who recorded for Imperial Records in the 1950s and scored a string of hits on the U.S. Black Singles chart...
  
  
• Cephas & Wiggins
  Cephas & Wiggins
  Cephas & Wiggins was an American acoustic blues duo, composed of guitarist John Cephas and harmonica player Phil Wiggins . They were known for playing Piedmont blues.- History :...
  
  
• Marshall Chapman
  Marshall Chapman
  Marshall Chapman is an American singer-songwriter and author.Chapman, the daughter of a cotton mill owner, was taken to an Elvis Presley concert in 1957 and says the experience changed her from a southern debutante to a nascent rock and roller...
  
  
• Bruce Cockburn
  Bruce Cockburn
  Bruce Douglas Cockburn OC is a Canadian folk/rock guitarist and singer-songwriter. His most recent album was released in March 2011. He has written songs in styles ranging from folk to jazz-influenced rock to rock and roll.-Biography:...
  
  
• The Cottars
  The Cottars
  The Cottars are a Canadian Celtic musical group originating from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia- Conception to Feast :From 2000 to March 2006 The Cottars were composed of: Ciarán and Fiona MacGillivray of Albert Bridge, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and The MacKenzies of Cape Breton. In 2006, big...
  
  
• Country Cooking
• Cowboy Jazz
• Cowboy Junkies
  Cowboy Junkies
  Cowboy Junkies are a Canadian alternative country/blues/folk rock band. The group was formed in Toronto in 1985 by Margo Timmins , Michael Timmins , Peter Timmins and Alan Anton ....
  
  
• Dailey & Vincent
  Dailey & Vincent
  Dailey & Vincent is an American bluegrass music group composed of Jamie Dailey Darrin Vincent , Christian Davis , Joe Dean, Jr. , Jeff Parker and BJ Cherryholmes . Former fiddle player Jesse Stockman left the band in early August 2011 due to a wrist injury...
  
  
• The Damnwells
  The Damnwells
  The Damnwells are an indie rock band originally from Brooklyn, New York The band formed in 2001 and has released four full length albums, Air Stereo , Bastards of the Beat , and One Last Century...
  
  
• Delta Spirit
  Delta Spirit
  Delta Spirit is a band from San Diego, California. The group combines unconventional instruments such as trash cans lids and orchestral bass drums, multi-instrumentalism and spiritually themed lyrics into a hybrid of rock and northern soul...
  
  
• Dennis DeYoung
  Dennis DeYoung
  Dennis DeYoung is an American singer, songwriter, musician and producer best known for being a founding member of the rock band Styx, a tenure that lasted from 1970 to 1999.-Early life:...
  
  
• Hazel Dickens
  Hazel Dickens
  Hazel Jane Dickens was an American bluegrass singer, songwriter, double bassist and guitarist. She was the eighth child of an eleven-child mining family in West Virginia. Her music was characterized not only by her high, lonesome singing style, but also by her provocative pro-union, feminist songs...
  
  
• Dirty Dozen Brass Band
  Dirty Dozen Brass Band
  The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is a New Orleans, Louisiana, brass band. The ensemble was established in 1977 by Benny Jones together with members of the Tornado Brass Band...
  
  
• Michael Doucet
  Michael Doucet
  Michael Doucet is a Cajun fiddler, singer and songwriter who founded the Cajun band BeauSoleil from Lafayette, Louisiana.In 2005 Doucet was one of 12 recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA award, which recognizes artistic excellence, cultural...
  
  
• Dry Branch Fire Squad
  Dry Branch Fire Squad
  The Dry Branch Fire Squad is an old-time bluegrass band founded by Ron Thomason in 1976. The band has gone through many iterations in its existence. Thomason has been the one constant, serving as the band's MC, lead singer, and mandolin player...
  
  
• John Fahey
  John Fahey (musician)
  John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...
  
  
• Cathy Fink
• Béla Fleck
  Béla Fleck
  Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. Widely acknowledged as one of the world's most innovative and technically proficient banjo players, he is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.-Early life and career details:Fleck was born in...
  
  
• Benton Flippen
  Benton Flippen
  James Benton Flippen was an old-time fiddler from Mount Airy, North Carolina. He was one of the last surviving members of a generation of performers born in the early 20th century playing in the Round Peak style centering on Surry County, North Carolina...
  
  
• The Freight Hoppers
  The Freight Hoppers
  The Freight Hoppers is an old-time string band that performed for several years during the 1990s before disbanding. David Bass and Frank Lee formed The Freight Hoppers in 1992...
  
  
• J. Geils
  J. Geils
  John Geils popularly known as J. Geils, is an American blues-rock lead guitarist, singer and founder of The J. Geils Band; he has also recorded with several jazz musicians. Born in New York, he grew up in Far Hills, New Jersey where he graduated from Bernards High School.Since 1982, Geils has...
  
  
• Jimmie Dale Gilmore
  Jimmie Dale Gilmore
  Jimmie Dale Gilmore is a country singer, songwriter, actor, recording artist and producer, currently living in Austin, Texas.-Biography:...
  
  
• Girl Authority
  Girl Authority
  Girl Authority is an American pop girl group from Massachusetts.The group consists of nine girls, ranging in ages 11 to 16. The group was established in the summer of 2005 by the group's vocal coach/executive producer Samantha Hammel, Scott Billington and the CEO of Rounder Records John Virant.All...
  
  
• Philip Glass
  Philip Glass
  Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
  
  
• Mike Gordon
  Mike Gordon
  Mike Gordon is a bass guitar player and vocalist most noted for his work with the rock band Phish. Gordon is also an accomplished banjo player, and is proficient at piano, guitar, harmonica and percussion...
  
  
• The Grascals
  The Grascals
  The Grascals is a six-piece bluegrass band hailing from Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 2004, the band has since gained a level of notability by playing on the Grand Ole Opry and in bluegrass festivals around the country....
  
  
• David Grisman
  David Grisman
  David Grisman is an American bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist and composer of acoustic music. In the early 1990s, he started the Acoustic Disc record label in an effort to preserve and spread acoustic or instrumental music.-Biography:Grisman grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey...
  
  
• Richard Greene
  Richard Greene
  Richard Marius Joseph Greene was a noted English film and television actor. A matinee idol who appeared in more than 40 films, he was perhaps best known for the lead role in the long-running British TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood, which ran for 143 episodes from 1955 to 1960.It has been...
  
  
• David Grier
  David Grier
  David Grier is an American acoustic guitarist. He is considered to be one of the premier flatpicking guitarists in the world. His unique phrasing and his ability to create multiple variations on a theme are hallmarks of his playing style...
  
  
• Nanci Griffith
  Nanci Griffith
  Nanci Griffith, is an American singer, guitarist and songwriter from Austin, Texas.-Biography:...
  
  
• Woody Guthrie
  Woody Guthrie
  Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
  
  
• James "Slim" Hand
• Cheb Hasni
  Cheb Hasni
  Cheb Hasni born Hasni Chakroun was a performer of Algerian Raï music. He was popular across North Africa, having reached the height of his career in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was the son of a welder and grew up in a working class family where he was one of seven children...
  
  
• 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...
  
  
• Juliana Hatfield
  Juliana Hatfield
  Juliana Hatfield , is an American guitarist/singer-songwriter and author from the Boston area, formerly of the indie rock bands Blake Babies and Some Girls. She currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts....
  
  
• Tish Hinojosa
  Tish Hinojosa
  Leticia Hinojosa is a folksinger recording in both Spanish and English. Hinojosa was the youngest of 13 children. Hinojosa's parents were Mexican immigrants...
  
  
• Holy Modal Rounders
  Holy Modal Rounders
  The Holy Modal Rounders were an American folk music duo from the Lower East Side of New York City which started in the early 1960s, consisting of Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber. Their unique blend of folk music revival and psychedelia gave them a cult-like following from the late 1960s into the 1970s...
  
  
• Sierra Hull
  Sierra Hull
  Sierra Hull is an American bluegrass singer and mandolinist.Hull was signed to Rounder Records in 2002 at the age of 13 and released her debut album, Secrets, in 2008. The album peaked at #2 on the Billboard Top Bluegrass Albums chart...
  
  
• Mississippi John Hurt
  Mississippi John Hurt
  John Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt was an American country blues singer and guitarist.Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine...
  
  
• Huxtable, Christensen & Hood
• The Incredible Casuals
  The Incredible Casuals
  The Incredible Casuals is an American rock band based in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. They were formed in 1981 by bassist and songwriter Chandler Travis, guitarist Steve Shook, drummer Vince Valium and guitarist Johnny Spampinato, brother of NRBQ's Joey Spampinato. The band has been described as "The...
  
  
• Bill Keith
  Bill Keith (musician)
  Bill Keith is a five-string banjoist who made a significant contribution to the stylistic development of the instrument. In the 1960s he introduced a variation on the popular "Scruggs style" of banjo playing which would soon become known as melodic style, or "Keith style." -Professional...
  
  
• Kids of Widney High
• King Wilkie
  King Wilkie
  King Wilkie is an American music group formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2002 by Reid Burgess and Ted Pitney. While their early sound was commonly filed under bluegrass, the group has continually defied expectations, drawing from other influences, such as folk and Americana music...
  
  
• Alison Krauss
  Alison Krauss
  Alison Maria Krauss is an American bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in...
  
  
• Sleepy LaBeef
  Sleepy LaBeef
  Sleepy LaBeef is an American rockabilly musician.LaBeef stands 6' 7" tall and was given the nickname "Sleepy" from the appearance of his eyes. Born in Arkansas, he was raised on a melon farm and moved to Houston when he was 18...
  
  
• David Laibman
  David Laibman
  David Laibman is Professor of Economics at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He received a Ph.D. in Economics in 1973 at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York...
  
  
• Lead Belly
• Sondre Lerche
  Sondre Lerche
  -Career:Sondre Lerche was born in Bergen, Norway. Growing up, Lerche was heavily influenced by the '80s pop that emanated from his older siblings' rooms. Compelled by a defining fascination for bands such as The Beatles, A-ha, the Beach Boys, and Prefab Sprout, Lerche began formal guitar...
  
  
• The LeRoi Brothers
  The LeRoi Brothers
  The LeRoi Brothers are an American rock band from Austin, Texas.The group was founded in 1981 by Mike Buck , Don Leady, Steve Doerr, and Alex Napier...
  
  
• John Linnell
  John Linnell
  John Sidney Linnell is an American musician, is known primarily as one half of Brooklyn, New York alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants...
  
  
• Lisa Loeb
  Lisa Loeb
  Lisa Anne Loeb is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She launched her career in 1994 with the song, "Stay ". She was the first artist to have a number one single in the United States while not signed to a recording contract.Loeb's efforts now include music, film, television, voice-over...
  
  
• David Mallett
  David Mallett
  David Mallett is a singer-songwriter best known for his authorship of the popular tune "Garden Song," made famous by John Denver and Arlo Guthrie. He has recorded for independent record labels for most of his career. A resident of Maine for most of his life, in the 1980s he relocated to Nashville,...
  
  
• Del McCoury
  Del McCoury
  Delano Floyd McCoury is an American bluegrass musician. As leader of the Del McCoury Band, he plays guitar and sings lead vocals along with his two sons, Ronnie McCoury and Rob McCoury, who play mandolin and banjo respectively...
  
  
• John McCutcheon
  John McCutcheon
  John McCutcheon is an American folk music singer and multi-instrumentalist who has produced 34 albums since the 1970s. He is regarded as a master of the hammered dulcimer, and is also proficient on many other instruments including guitar, banjo, autoharp, mountain dulcimer, fiddle, and...
  
  
• Natalie MacMaster
  Natalie MacMaster
  Natalie MacMaster, CM is an award-winning fiddler from the rural community of Troy in Inverness County, Nova Scotia, Canada who plays Cape Breton fiddle music....
  
  
• Magic Dick
  Magic Dick
  Richard "Magic Dick" Salwitz was the harmonica player for The J. Geils Band. In addition to the harmonica, Salwitz plays the trumpet and saxophone. He attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he met John "J" Geils and Danny Klein and became a founding member of...
  
  
• Mike Marshall
• John Mellencamp
  John Mellencamp
  John Mellencamp, previously known by the stage names Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American rock singer-songwriter, musician, painter and occasional actor known for his catchy, populist brand of heartland rock that eschews synthesizers and other artificial sounds...
  
  
• The Meters
  The Meters
  The Meters are an American funk band based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Meters performed and recorded their own music from the late 1960s until 1977...
  
  
• Whistlin' Alex Moore
  Whistlin' Alex Moore
  Whistlin' Alex Moore was an American blues pianist, singer and whistler. He is best remembered for his recordings of "Across The Atlantic Ocean" and "Black Eyed Peas and Hog Jowls."-Early life:...
  
  
• Lynn Morris
  Lynn Morris (musician)
  Lynn Morris is an American bluegrass musician.Morris was raised in Lamesa, Texas, where she played guitar early in life. While in college she began playing bluegrass music, and began playing banjo while completing a degree in art...
  
  
• Nashville Bluegrass Band
  Nashville Bluegrass Band
  The Nashville Bluegrass Band is an American bluegrass music ensemble founded in 1984.The group's members first played together in 1984 as a backing band for Vernon Oxford and Minnie Pearl; each of the members were established musicians from the Nashville bluegrass community. They signed to Rounder...
  
  
• Tracy Nelson
  Tracy Nelson (singer)
  -Youth in Wisconsin:Nelson was born and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. There she first learned about R&B music from WLAC radio in Nashville. In her teens, Nelson sang folk music in coffeehouses and with a group called The Fuller's Wood Singers and was lead singer in a band called The Fabulous...
  
  
• NRBQ
  NRBQ
  NRBQ is an American rock band founded in 1967. It is known for its live performances, containing a high degree of spontaneity and levity, and blending rock, pop, jazz, blues and Tin Pan Alley styles. Its best known line-up is the 1974–1994 quartet of pianist Terry Adams, bassist Joey Spampinato,...
  
  
• Alecia Nugent
  Alecia Nugent
  Alecia Nugent is a country, Americana, bluegrass vocalist and musician. Alecia has worked with bluegrass legend Carl Jackson on all of her albums. Alecia was nominated for IBMA Female Vocalist of The Year in 2009.-Albums:...
  
  
• Laura Nyro
  Laura Nyro
  Laura Nyro was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist. She achieved considerable critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and New York Tendaberry, and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and The 5th...
  
  
• Ellis Paul
  Ellis Paul
  Ellis Paul is an American singer-songwriter and folk musician. Born in Aroostook County, Maine, Paul is a key figure in what has become known as the Boston school of songwriting, a literate, provocative and urbanely romantic folk-pop style that helped ignite the folk revival of the 1990s...
  
  
• 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...
  
  
• Carl Perkins
  Carl Perkins
  Carl Lee Perkins was an American rockabilly musician who recorded most notably at Sun Records Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, beginning during 1954...
  
  
• Madeleine Peyroux
  Madeleine Peyroux
  Madeleine Peyroux is an American jazz singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Peyroux is noted for her vocal style, which has been compared to that of Billie Holiday....
  
  
• Grant-Lee Phillips
  Grant-Lee Phillips
  Grant-Lee Phillips is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist known for his versatile voice, intense lyrical narratives and dexterity on the acoustic twelve-string guitar, a style that often sees him compared to Neil Young, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan.- Background :Born in...
  
  
• Pianosaurus
  Pianosaurus
  Pianosaurus was a 1980s rock and roll band from New York, formed by Alex Garvin, Steve Dansiger, and Bianca Miller. Their music was played on toy instruments, the name being taken from a child's plastic toy piano in the shape of a dinosaur with a keyboard running along the right side.After two...
  
  
• Robert Plant
  Robert Plant
  Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...
  
  
• Preacher Jack
  Preacher Jack
  Preacher Jack is the stage name of John Lincoln Coughlin , who is an American pianist. Coughlin taught himself piano growing up in Malden, Massachusetts, and became an underground success playing in Boston in the 1960s and 1970s. George Thorogood heard him play and had him signed to Rounder...
  
  
• Raffi
  Raffi (musician)
  Raffi Cavoukian, CM, OBC , better known by his stage name Raffi, is a Canadian-Armenian singer-songwriter, author, essayist and lecturer...
  
  
• Ed Reavy
  Ed Reavy
  Ed Reavy was an Irish-American songwriter, composer of numerous traditional Irish dance tunes. He was from Barnagrove, County Cavan. Reavy was a fiddler, and recorded in 1927 for the Victor record label, including two reels and two hornpipes...
  
  
• Leon Redbone
  Leon Redbone
  Leon Redbone is a singer and guitarist specializing in interpretations of early 20th-century music, including jazz and blues standards and Tin Pan Alley classics....
  
  
• Tony Rice
  Tony Rice
  Tony Rice is an American acoustic guitarist and bluegrass musician. He is considered one of the most influential acoustic guitar players in bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, newgrass and acoustic jazz.Rice spans the range of acoustic music, from traditional bluegrass to jazz-influenced New...
  
  
• Jonathan Richman
  Jonathan Richman
  Jonathan Michael Richman is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. In 1970 he founded The Modern Lovers, an influential proto-punk band. Since the mid-1970s, Richman has worked either solo or with low-key, generally acoustic backing...
  
  
• Amanda Shaw
  Amanda Shaw
  Amanda Amaya Shaw is an American cajun fiddler, singer, and actress from Covington, Louisiana.- Musical training :Shaw received some of her early musical training in Southeastern Louisiana University's Community Music School. She studied classical violin starting at age 4, and at 8 began playing...
  
  
• Riders in the Sky
• Jimmie Rodgers
  Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)
  James Charles Rodgers , known as Jimmie Rodgers, was an American country singer in the early 20th century known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling...
  
   multi-volume catalog reissue
• Rush
  Rush (band)
  Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...
  
  
• Mike Seeger
  Mike Seeger
  Mike Seeger was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, and pan pipes. Seeger, a half-brother of Pete Seeger, produced more than 30 documentary...
  
  
• Peggy Seeger
  Peggy Seeger
  Margaret "Peggy" Seeger is an American folksinger. She is also well known in Britain, where she lived for more than 30 years with her husband, singer and songwriter Ewan MacColl.- The first American period :...
  
  
• Allen Shelton
  Allen Shelton
  Allen Shelton was an American five-string banjo player known for being a member of Jim & Jesse's Virginia Boys since the 1960s. His picking style is described as "bouncy".-Biography:...
  
  
• Jon Sholle
  Jon Sholle
  Jon Sholle, born April 2, 1949 in New York City, is an American guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and musician who plays mainly jazz, bluegrass, rock, country, roots music, and folk music.-As musician:...
  
  
• Ricky Skaggs
  Ricky Skaggs
  Rickie Lee "Ricky" Skaggs is a country and bluegrass singer, musician, producer, and composer. He primarily plays mandolin; however, he also plays fiddle, guitar, and banjo.-Early career:...
  
  
• Son Volt
  Son Volt
  Son Volt is an alternative country group formed by Jay Farrar in 1994 after the breakup of the band Uncle Tupelo.-History:The group formed after Farrar met Jim and Dave Boquist during the final Uncle Tupelo tour. Together with former Uncle Tupelo drummer Mike Heidorn, the band rehearsed and...
  
  
• Jo-El Sonnier
  Jo-El Sonnier
  Jo-El Sonnier is an American singer-songwriter and accordionist who performs country music and Cajun music. Originally signed to Mercury Nashville Records, Sonnier charted several minor singles on the Billboard country charts in the late 1970s...
  
  
• The SteelDrivers
  The SteelDrivers
  The SteelDrivers is a bluegrass band from Nashville, Tennessee. Members include founder/mandolinist Mike Henderson, fiddler Tammy Rogers, bassist Mike Fleming, guitarist Chris Stapleton and banjoist Richard Bailey...
  
  
• Steep Canyon Rangers
  Steep Canyon Rangers
  The Steep Canyon Rangers are an American bluegrass band from Brevard, North Carolina.In 2008, the band received a nomination from International Bluegrass Music Association for "Album and Gospel Performance of the Year"....
  
  
• SteveSongs
  Steve Roslonek
  Steve Roslonek is an American children's music performer whose band SteveSongs has garnered several awards from parenting organizations, such as the Parents' Choice Award and the iParenting Media Awards. His music is featured on the Miss Lori and Hooper segments of PBS Kids Preschool Destination,...
  
  
• 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...
  
  
• Tut Taylor
  Tut Taylor
  Tut Taylor is an American bluegrass musician.Taylor played banjo and mandolin as a child, and began playing dobro at age 14, learning to use the instrument with a distinctive flat-picking style. Taylor was a member of The Folkswingers in the 1960s, who released three LPs; he recorded his debut...
  
  
• The Tragically Hip
  The Tragically Hip
  The Tragically Hip, often referred to simply as The Hip, is a Canadian rock band from Kingston, Ontario, consisting of Gordon Downie , Paul Langlois , Rob Baker , Gord Sinclair and Johnny Fay . Since their formation in 1983 they have released 12 studio albums, two live albums, and 46 singles...
  
  
• Ten Shekel Shirt
  Ten Shekel Shirt
  Ten Shekel Shirt is a rock band based in New Haven, CT. The band was founded by Lamont Hiebert, and currently consists of Hiebert along with Jonny Rodgers, Colin Meyer and Tim Sway....
  
  
• Vienna Teng
  Vienna Teng
  Cynthia Yih Shih , better known by her stage name Vienna Teng, is a Taiwanese American pianist and singer-songwriter based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Teng has released four studio albums: Waking Hour , Warm Strangers , Dreaming Through the Noise , and Inland Territory...
  
  
• They Might Be Giants
  They Might Be Giants
  They Might Be Giants is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years Flansburgh and Linnell were frequently accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG became a full band. Currently, the members of TMBG are...
  
  
• Linda Thompson
  Linda Thompson
  Linda Diane Thompson is an American actress, lyricist and beauty pageant winner who rose to international fame as Elvis Presley's long time girlfriend after he separated from his wife.-Pageants:...
  
  
• George Thorogood and the Destroyers
• Happy
  Happy Traum
  Happy Traum is an American folk musician who started playing music in the Fifties. Happy is most famously known as one half of Happy and Artie Traum, a duo he began with his brother...
  
   & Artie Traum
  Artie Traum
  Artie Traum was a New Age Voice Award-winning guitarist, producer and songwriter. Traum's work appeared on more than 35 albums...
  
  
• Tony Trischka
  Tony Trischka
  Tony Trischka is an American five-string banjo player.-Biography:Tony Trischka was born in Syracuse, New York, and graduated from Syracuse University with a B.A in Fine Arts, and was inspired to play the banjo in 1963, listening to the Kingston Trio's "Charlie and The MTA". Trischka was a...
  
  
• Dan Tyminski
  Dan Tyminski
  Daniel John "Dan" Tyminski is a bluegrass composer, vocalist, and instrumentalist. He is a member of the band Alison Krauss and Union Station and has released two solo albums, Carry Me Across the Mountain , on the Doobie Shea Records label, and Wheels , on the Rounder Records label.He is best...
  
  
• Uncle Earl
  Uncle Earl
  Uncle Earl is an American old-time music group, formed in 2000 by KC Groves and Jo Serrapere. They are an all-women-band and often they refer to themselves as the g'Earls. Their fans have also been nicknamed as g'Earlfriends....
  
  
• Joe Val
• Guy Van Duser
  Guy Van Duser
  Guy Van Duser is an American folk/jazz guitarist. He recorded for Rounder Records extensively from the 1970s to the 1990s, and often appeared on American Public Media's A Prairie Home Companion....
  
  
• Rhonda Vincent
  Rhonda Vincent
  Rhonda Lea Vincent is a bluegrass singer, songwriter, mandolin player, guitarist, and fiddle player.Her musical career started as a child in her family's band, The Sally Mountain Show, and has spanned almost four decades...
  
  
• Loudon Wainwright III
  Loudon Wainwright III
  Loudon Snowden Wainwright III is a Grammy Award-winning American songwriter, folk singer, humorist, and actor. He is the father of musicians Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche, brother of Sloan Wainwright, and the former husband of the late folk singer Kate McGarrigle.To...
  
  
• Martha Wainwright
  Martha Wainwright
  Martha Wainwright is a Canadian-American folk-rock singer-songwriter. She is the daughter of American folk singer and actor Loudon Wainwright III and Canadian folk singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle...
  
  
• Doc Watson
  Doc Watson
  Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson is an American guitar player, songwriter and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues and gospel music. He has won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's flatpicking skills and knowledge of traditional American music are highly regarded...
  
  
• Ween
  Ween
  Ween is an American alternative rock group. They formed in 1984 in New Hope, Pennsylvania when central members Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo met in an eighth grade typing class. Ween has a large cult underground fanbase despite being generally unknown in American pop music...
  
  
• Cheryl Wheeler
  Cheryl Wheeler
  Cheryl Wheeler is an American singer-songwriter of contemporary folk music, based in New England. To date, she has recorded several folk albums, and has toured extensively throughout the United States....
  
  
• The Wild Magnolias
  The Wild Magnolias
  -History:A group calling itself the Wild Magnolias, participating in the local "Indian masking" traditions and performing New Orleans Mardi Gras music, extends at least back into the 1950s. The group's lead member was called the Big Chief, and at least three Big Chiefs are known to have headed the...
  
  
• Bob Wills
  Bob Wills
  James Robert Wills , better known as Bob Wills, was an American Western Swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader, considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western Swing and universally known as the pioneering King of Western Swing.Bob Wills' name will forever be associated with...
  
  

Subsidiary labels a.k.a. The Rounder Records Group

• Bullseye Blues
• Dolphin Safe
• Easydisc
• Flying Fish
  Flying Fish Records
  Flying Fish Records was a Chicago-based eclectic blues and country record label. It was founded in 1974 by Bruce Kaplan, former president of the University of Chicago's Folklore Society....
  
  
• Grand Illusion
• Heartbeat
  Heartbeat Records
  Heartbeat Records is an independent record label based in Burlington , Massachusetts. The label specializes in Jamaican music. Founded by reggae music enthusiasts Bill Nowlin and Duncan Brown, the label's first release was a vinyl LP reissue of Linton Kwesi Johnson's Dread Beat an' Blood...
  
  
• Heavy Rotation
• Henry Street
• Hudson Music
• Moon Junction
• Philo
• Rounder Select
• Rounder Specials
• Symmetry
• Tone Cool Records
• Trampoline
• Upstart
• Varrick
• Vestapol
• Zoë
  Zoë Records
  Zoë Records is an independent record label in the United States. It is a part of the Rounder Records group.Zoë predominantly distributes albums by folk rock and alternative pop artists...
  
  

External links

• Official site
• The Never-Ending Revival: Rounder Records and the Folk Alliance by Michael F. Scully (University of Illinois Press, 2008)
• Radio Interview with founders Marian Leighton Levy and Ken Irwin