{"id":1407,"date":"2021-04-22T16:57:48","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T16:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/folksyblues.com\/?page_id=1407"},"modified":"2021-04-22T16:57:48","modified_gmt":"2021-04-22T16:57:48","slug":"fat-possum-records","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/folksyblues.com\/?page_id=1407","title":{"rendered":"Fat Possum Records"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Fat Possum Records<\/strong>\u00a0is an American\u00a0i<\/a>ndependent record label\u00a0based in\u00a0Water Valley\u00a0and\u00a0Oxford, Mississippi. At first Fat Possum focused almost entirely on recording previously unknown\u00a0Mississippiblues\u00a0artists (typically from Oxford or\u00a0Holly Springs, Mississippi). Recently, Fat Possum has signed younger rock acts to its roster. The label has been featured in\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>, New Yorker<\/em>, The Observer<\/em>, \u00a0a\u00a0Sundance Channelproduction,\u00a0features on\u00a0NPR,\u00a0and a 2004 documentary,\u00a0You See Me Laughin<\/em>.\u00a0Fat Possum also distributes the\u00a0Hi Records\u00a0catalog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fat Possum was founded in\u00a01<\/a>991\u00a0by\u00a0\u00a0Living Blues<\/em>\u00a0editor Peter Redvers-Lee, who went to the\u00a0University of Mississippi\u00a0for his MA studies in Journalism.\u00a0He planned on starting a record label and picked the name with another student, Billy ”Pup” Cochrane.\u00a0Co-founder Matthew Johnson, who grew up in the state, was also a student at the University of Mississippi.\u00a0By 1994 or so\u00a0Lee left, and freelance recording engineer Bruce Watson assumed his managerial role.\u00a0An early investor was\u00a0John Hermann\u00a0of Widespread Panic, who also pitched\u00a0Robert Palmer’s name as producer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The label initially specialised in discovering blues players from the\u00a0North Mississippi region, many of whom had never recorded before.\u00a0At Fat Possum’s behest some artists, particularly\u00a0R. L. Burnside, released both standard blues albums and more techno albums,\u00a0done in the style that would later be made famous by\u00a0Moby’s album\u00a0Play<\/em>. <\/sup>This led to a fair amount of controversy among blues purists, a group in which Johnson was largely uninterested.\u00a0Many of the early artists for Fat Possum were picked\u00a0with the aid of Palmer (previously a teacher of Johnson at the University of Mississippi), who also produced a number of records for the label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although their releases were critically acclaimed, particularly\u00a0Junior Kimbrough’s album\u00a0All Night Long<\/em>, which received 4 stars from\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/em>\u00a0and the loud approval of\u00a0Iggy Pop. In 1995, they added Arkansas bluesman John ”So Blue” Weston to their roster, with\u00a0So Doggone Blue<\/em>\u00a0(FP 1003) produced by\u00a0Grammy\u00a0nominee and\u00a0Living Blues<\/em>\u00a0writer Larry Hoffman.\u00a0Disputes between the artist and label resulted in Hoffman buying back the master and selling it to Evidence Records (UPC: 730182609226).\u00a0Fat Possum was perennially strapped for cash. Word of mouth and artist compilations, such as\u00a0Not the Same Old Blues Crap 3<\/em>\u00a0(with a cover illustration by\u00a0Joe Sacco)\u00a0and\u00a0All Men Are Liars<\/em>, gradually pulled Fat Possum out of the red, even if only for brief periods of time. A legal fight with\u00a0Capricorn Records, who were to be their distributor, drained Fat Possum’s funds and left a number of projects on the shelf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With time, many of the label’s artists have died.\u00a0Asie Payton,\u00a0King Ernest, and\u00a0Charles Caldwell\u00a0died before their records could be released. Kimbrough died in 1998 and Burnside in 2005.\u00a0T-Model Ford\u00a0and\u00a0Robert Belfour\u00a0joined in the 2010s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

www.fatpossum.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fat Possum Records\u00a0is an American\u00a0independent record label\u00a0based in\u00a0Water Valley\u00a0and\u00a0Oxford, Mississippi. At first Fat Possum focused almost entirely on recording previously unknown\u00a0Mississippiblues\u00a0artists (typically from Oxford or\u00a0Holly Springs, Mississippi). Recently, Fat Possum has signed younger rock acts to its roster. The label has been featured in\u00a0The New York Times, New Yorker, The Observer, \u00a0a\u00a0Sundance Channelproduction,\u00a0features on\u00a0NPR,\u00a0and a… Forts\u00e4tt l\u00e4sa Fat Possum Records<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1407","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/folksyblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/folksyblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/folksyblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/folksyblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/folksyblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/folksyblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1408,"href":"https:\/\/folksyblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1407\/revisions\/1408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/folksyblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}