TK Records

TK Records
Parent company Warner Music Group
Founded 1973
Founder Henry Stone
Status Defunct (1981)
Distributor(s) Henry Stone Music, Rhino Entertainment
Genre Various
Country of origin United States
Location Hialeah, Florida

TK Records was an American independent record label started by record distributor, Henry Stone in Miami, Florida,[1] one of several labels that he founded in the 1960s and 1970s. It distributed disco stars, KC and the Sunshine Band until 1981.

"T.K." are the initials of sound engineer Terry Kane, who built Stone's recording studio on the second floor of his office in Hialeah.[2]

TK Records is closely associated with soul/R&B and the early rise of disco music, being the label on which the second bona fide disco song (after The Hues Corporation's "Rock The Boat") to reach #1 on the pop music charts was released, "Rock Your Baby" by George McCrae in 1974. A little more than a year after McCrae's hit, the record label struck gold with KC & The Sunshine Band with five #1 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including "Get Down Tonight", "That's the Way I Like It", "Shake Your Booty", "I'm Your Boogie Man" and "Please Don't Go", while "Keep It Coming Love" topped the R&B chart as well.

Subsidiary labels included Wolf and Bold  – and other artists which impacted these and TK, include: Betty Wright (on Alston), Clarence Reid, a.k.a. Blowfly, Benny Latimore (Glades), Peter Brown (Drive), Foxy, Kracker (Dash), Jimmy "Bo" Horne (Sunshine Sound), Timmy Thomas (Glades), Little Beaver, Gwen McCrae (Cat), T-Connection (Dash), Bobby Caldwell (Clouds), and Anita Ward (Juana). Within a couple of years, TK's notability in disco music would be surpassed by other labels such as Casablanca Records and RSO Records, but, in the early years, TK was undoubtedly in the top tier of the disco genre.

In 1980, TK Records encountered financial problems and the label was acquired by Morris Levy's Roulette Records, and the unification of the labels formed Sunnyview Records. The last single to be released on the TK label was "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Another One Rides the Bus". When Morris Levy was forced to leave the country in 1986, Henry Stone formed Hot Productions with Paul Klein and continued to re-release the TK catalog on CD until its acquisition by Rhino Records a division of Warner Music Group.

Wolf Records

Wolf Records was a jazz subsidiary that released only three albums, each produced by Joel Dorn:

It is not to be confused with the present day, Austrian based, record label of the same name, which was founded in 1982 and specialises in releasing blues music.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "TK Records Story". Bsnpubs.com. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  2. ↑ "Henry Stone". DiscoMusic.com. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  3. ↑ "Wolf Records > Wolf Story". Wolfrec.com. Retrieved December 14, 2011.

External links

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