People love it when underdogs go against the giants and manage to beat them. Well, that's the story of Rounder Records, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a 90-minute PBS concert. It will air at 10:30 p.m. Saturday on Georgia Public Broadcasting's digitial HD channel and Knowledge channel.
Long after many major record labels have folded, Rounder Records continues to release quality CDs from artists including Marcia Ball, Buckwheat Zydeco, Dry Branch Fire Squad, Nanci Griffith, John Hartford, King Wilkie, Lisa Loeb, Tracy Nelson, Laura Nyro, Carl Perkins, Leon Redbone, Tony Rice, Riders in the Sky, Jo-El Sonnier, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, Rhonda Vincent, Loudon Wainwright III and Doc Watson.
The simple secret to the success of Rounder Records is that the company doesn't release CDs of artists that Rounder thinks music fans might like but CDs of artists that Rounder knows music fans like.
Usually, the artists that Rounder releases already have large loyal followings.
Rounder was started in 1970 by Boston-area college students Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, who had practically no record industry experience but who had a passion for music.
The previous year, they had paid $125 to acquire the rights to recordings by North Carolina banjo player George Pegram.
On Jan. 1, 1970, the three students released Rounder Records' first vinyl album, simply titled George Pegram. It featured Pegram's three-finger style of playing, his horse bellows and the fiddle accompaniment by Fred Cockerham.
The record didn't shoot up the charts and go gold, but it did convince the trio that they were on the right track. For its 25th anniversary in 1995, Rounder re-released Pegram's album along with six previously unreleased Pegram recordings.
The small recording venture eventually developed into one of the largest independent record labels in the United States with several label subsidiaries.
Perhaps Rounder's most significant accomplishment was winning the 2009 Album of the Year Grammy for its Raising Sand CD featuring Alison Krauss and Robert Plant.
Just a few weeks ago another Rounder subsidiary CD, The Crow/New Songs for the Five-String Banjo, by banjo player and comedian Steve Martin, won the 2010 Bluegrass Album of the Year Grammy.
Krauss, Martin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bela Fleck and Irma Thomas can be seen on the PBS special.
According to publicists, the artists featured in the special collectively have won 53 Grammy awards and have sold more than 25 million albums.
All because three college students thought it was worth investing $125 to release the recordings of a North Carolina banjo picker.
Don Rhodes has written about country music for 39 years. He can be reached at (706) 823-3214.
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