Família Soul em vinil
Neal Sugarman fala sobre a gravadora americana Daptone Records
Por Isadora Dutra
A Daptone Records é a gravadora de Nova York responsável pelos discos de Sharon Jones com os Dap-Kings, a banda da casa, entre outros elogiados lançamentos da música soul. Sediada no Brooklyn, a gravadora é abertamente influenciada pelo trabalho da Motown e da Stax, fundadas na década de 50 (ver dica na Sala de Leituras).
Junto com Gabriel Roth, Neal Sugarman é fundador e dirigente da Daptone, iniciada em 2000. Sugarman também é o saxofonista (+ flauta) da banda Sugarman 3 (também gravada pela Daptone) e compositor.
O músico fala à Palpitar sobre o trabalho da Daptone Records:
Palpitar: You from Daptone present yourself as a family of soul openly related to Motown’s spirit. Is it possible to be family in the music’s industry nowadays? And is it hard to found music conceived like in the 60’s in a scenario of eletronic equipments and digital music made?
Neal Sugarman: You are correct, How we set the label up was to build our own studio which I think is something labels do not do any more. Like Stax and Motown there is for the most part a house band( The Dap-Kings) and almost all the singers on the label are backed by at least 2 -3 of the members if not the hole band.
P: Is the 7 and 12 inchs back to stay for long? Why you think there’s a renewed interest for that tecnologie?
NS: I do think it is here to stay, it never really went away but for sure in the digital age it seems more and more relevant. When a lot of people are turning to down loading music, Vinyl as a medium to listen and look at album artwork with, that makes sense. It is for sure far better quality then cds. We know that now because we are all still listening to records that were made in the 60s and cds break after 1 year. The sounds is superior and a big thing for me is that you can only fit 15 to 20 minuets per side so you can really digest the music were as when you listen to cds you start at the beginning and never get to the end. I think if bands focused on making 30-40 minuets of music for an album rather then 60-90 minuets, which seems to be the new industry standard, there would be a lot better records out there.
P: Does soul matches better with Vinyl then Cd?
NS: I do think when you record analog to keep listen back on an analog format such as vinyl the sound is better.
P: You started with antique equipment and all analogues. How was the beginning of Daptone? What’s the studio’s history?
NS: We do have some nice vintage equipment but that was not ho we started.
We would use what ever we had (we started with very little money) but for sure what we were looking for was not the most expensive microphones but maybe the opposite, it could be very cheap new microphones that had a cool sound. We always thought of it as recording with an attitude. We always went for simple sounds and hit the tape hard. Rather then investing tons of money into vintage equipment.
P: Is all those tendencies in music — from technologies revivals to styles revivals — that it’s already being called the “vintage” music a kind of resistance to mainstream industry or a new fashion?
NS: As far as being mainstream or not, that question does not come to play. We have been doing the same kind of music for a long time. We always try to make music and records that look and sound like the records we love. They just happen to be like the records that were made in the late 60s early 70s
P: How does Brooklyn plays a part in Daptone’s work?
NS: We do love Brooklyn and all really like living and working here, as far as how it relates to the music we make, I think it it is more about the fact that all the great musicians that we play with also live here. That certainly says something about how great Brooklyn is but for us it is the people that live here. If all those people were in Chicago that is were we would want to be.
P: How do you select the artists for Daptone?
NS: Like I said most of the recording we do is with the same people in different settings for instance The Budos has members of The Dap-Kings and members of the Sugarman 3 also play in the Dap-Kings and the Menahan Street Band so most of the new groups are recording projects that people already involved in The Daptone family are doing. Some one might bring a singer in to record or for instance Charles Bradley sang on the Sugarman 3 record and then was asked by Tom Brennick to do an album with the Menahan Street band.
But we are always on the look out for more talent.
P: Can you tell us a little about what’s being made in soul in USA right now?
NS: There for sure is a lot of records that we have planed at Daptone.
The new Naomie Shelton and The gospel Queens, There is a great label run by some friends of ours called Truth And Soul who just did a great new Lee Fields record. There are so many great soul music fans putting out great compilations.
Conheça a banda de Neal Sugarman na PalpiTube e no MySpace.
Imagens: foto Neal Sugarman divulgação MySpace; capa do disco "Sugar's Boogaloo" da Sugarman Three, Daptone Records, divulgação MySpace.