SXSWORLD

The Watson Twins Greg Laswell Living Sisters Forward With Optimism By John Morthland the label he runs—currently home to Levon Helm, Mindy Smith, the Indigo Girls, Merle Haggard, Matt Nathanson and Greg Laswell, among others—has just as many years ahead of it. "Oh, yeah, sure, I'm optimistic about the future," he chuckles. "Right 010 marks Vanguard Records' 60th anniversary as an independent label. Given recent conditions in the record business, this is no small achievement. Even more remark- able, Welk Music Group president Kevin Welk believes now we're profitable, and how many labels can say that?" Welk's feisty stance is in keeping with the label's history. Unhappy 2 60 Years Strong, Vanguard Records Looks with the sound of classical records, in 1950, Maynard and Seymour Solomon used a $10,000 loan from their father to launch Vanguard in New York City as a classical label. Vanguard grew along with the popularity of LPs, never being known, like many contemporaries, as a "singles label." John Hammond Sr. soon launched a Jazz Showcase series at Vanguard, and in the '60s the company moved to the forefront of the folk boom with the likes of Joan Baez, Buffy St. Marie, Ian and Sylvia, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and Richard and Mimi Farina. The label also signed nonpareil country flatpicker Doc Watson and Delta bluesman Mississippi John Hurt, giving their albums the same high-fidelity sound as the classical line. They then helped spur the '60s urban blues revival before moving into rock via Country Joe and the Fish. Vanguard began tapering off in the early '70s after Baez left and a ballyhooed classical budget line sold weakly. When sold to champagne music maker Lawrence Welk's WMG (which later added the Sugar Hill label) in 1985, it was living off reissues. Though the medium had changed to CDs, it was still a reissue label when Lawrence's grandson Kevin arrived in 1994 as sales and marketing manager. Though Vanguard had no staff to speak of, he wanted to start releasing new artists and began with the DIY Peter Case Sings Like Hell, featuring the former Plimsouls frontman. From the beginning, according to Welk, the plan was "to not try to do too much, to grow the company step by step," by giving small advances and putting the avail- able money into marketing. 52 SXSW ORLD / F EBRUAR Y 2010 into a distribution deal with EMI Music. "But our basic principles remain intact today," Welk maintains. "Those are artist development and controlling our own destiny. When we start to break an act, everyone in the company is on board, and our success stories take a long time; it can be a pretty tedious process." Welk will not sign a new artist unless all his arms—promotion, publicity, art, distribution, marketing—agree that they can do some- thing with the act, and then they move forward to build careers rather than putting all betting chips on particular records. Vanguard becomes involved in alternative marketing (Laswell was the first artist to be sold at Whole Foods outlets), sponsorships, airplay, licensing songs to movies and television (Nathanson's 2007 "All We Are" was used in five different network programs), digital sales, touring, merchandising, sometimes even publishing. "We're selling an artist, not a song, though it's great if a hit single happens," Welk stresses. "With record sales as low as they are today, creating awareness has to be the name of the game." When it works, sales follow. Smith took nearly a year to break via There is now a full staff of about 50, and in 2008, Vanguard entered her second single, "Come to Jesus," which gained airplay on country, Christian, AAA and adult contemporary radio while hitting #32 on Billboard's Adult Top 40 chart. That accelerated sales of her One Moment More debut album to 300,000. Folk-rocker Nathanson points to a two-and-one-year cycle on his Vanguard debut (and sixth album overall), Some Mad Hope, but that's okay. "I believe records should take a long time to make and a long time to promote," he says. "Music deserves that kind of focused attention and respect." In his case, it led to the hit single "Come On Get Higher" (#59 on Billboard's Hot 100). In these ways, Welk believes that the present-day label carries on the Vanguard tradition, even in a music business that its founders would not recognize. "Here's our common denominator with Maynard and Seymour Solomon," he declares. "They looked for opportunities and niches they felt they could focus on and be successful at, and so do we." n Check my.sxsw.com for Vanguard Records artists performing at SXSW 2010.

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