Does the The Sound of a Label still exist?

With the release of Diana Ross' Supertonic on Motown Records, [[1) I was surprised it was still in existence, and [[2), that DR had a relationship with them [[other than the expanded reissues).
It occured to me that I'm not aware of record labels any longer, I may know a singer, but not their record label. Whereas even if I didn't know a singer or group if they were on Motown, or PIR, or Atlantic, or Stax or even Electra, I would sometimes take a chance and purchase it. Not now. I'm relegated to purchasing singers or groups I know and if it's streaming I have no idea what and if they are on a label, or if it is self released.
Again I think I was fortunate to come up through the times of these great record labels as well as 45's and LP Vinyl.

I too miss all the classic motown lables-motown-soul-gordy-tamla.

I can relate to what you are saying. Here is a recent example. I read the thread that was made about the upcoming Barbara Lewis CD on Cherry Red Records. I happen to like Barbara very much. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, I have every Atlantic 45 that she released. I was surprised to see where the release will include some songs that she made on the Reprise label. I never knew she had gone from Atlantic Records to Reprise Records. So that in itself will probably force me to buy the new release coming out. Had she stayed exclusively on the Atlantic label, I probably would have known about the releases. I bet a great number of members of this forum were unaware that she went to the Reprise label. However, Reprise is not a ***** [five star] label by any stretch of the imagination.

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Originally Posted by woodward

I can relate to what you are saying. Here is a recent example. I read the thread that was made about the upcoming Barbara Lewis CD on Cherry Red Records. I happen to like Barbara very much. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, I have every Atlantic 45 that she released. I was surprised to see where the release will include some songs that she made on the Reprise label. I never knew she had gone from Atlantic Records to Reprise Records. So that in itself will probably force me to buy the new release coming out. Had she stayed exclusively on the Atlantic label, I probably would have known about the releases. I bet a great number of members of this forum were unaware that she went to the Reprise label. However, Reprise is not a ***** [five star] label by any stretch of the imagination.

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Actually, Barbara Lewis did not go directly from Atlantic to Reprise. In between those two labels she had three singles and one LP for the Enterprise label, which was a subsidiary label of Stax. It would have been nice if those recordings were going to be included on the upcoming Cherry Red package but, sadly, they are not.

In looking at www.soulfulkindamusic.net, I discovered that Barbara actually had releases on 4 different labels. Atlantic and Enterprise and Reprise were mentioned in thread #4, but her very first release in 1961 was on the Karen label [313] My Heart Went Do Dat Da b/w Longest Night of the Year. In 1962 when she started with Atlantic Records, the exact same a and b sides from her Karen release were also her first Atlantic release.

There are still labels today that I follow, although none quite have as distinct a sound as Motown, Stax or Philly.

Try Daptone Records, Freestyle Records, Jalapeño Records, Légére Recordings and Record Kicks. :D