Orange Soul Sheet Tipping to the Nu Music Movement Volume 1 issue 10 718-455-0092
[email protected] 818-506-1424 (West Coast office) June1-15, 2007 Kevin Harewood (Publisher) Bruce Jones (advertising sales) ===================== A Look Back to Move Forward We are in the month of June which is hailed as “Black Music Month”. This yearly occurrence has led me to reflect on the music that has been the foundation of the music menu of my life. The first artists I really got into were Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Sly and The Family Stone. It is a well known fact that Stevie and Marvin recorded for the then independently owned Motown family of labels. Sly recorded for the major Columbia Records. However, his music and visual output still exhibited that he was a bastion of independent thought. In my college days I began an affinity for jazz by coming across Grover Washington Jrs Soul Box and Mr Magic albums. These records made me go back and find the music of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Dexter Gordon my father had played since I was a little thing. Grover was originally on the independent CTI label owned by Creed Taylor. My excursion into reggae started with Bob Marley’s “Natty Dread” which was on Chris Blackwell’s then independent Island Records. I really got open to hip hop with “Rock Box” on the independent Profile label and “Eric B For President” by Eric B and Rakim which ended up on Island subsidiary 4 th and Broadway. My first job in the music business was at the then independent A&M records.