EMPIRE MUSICWERKS PRESERVES MUSIC HISTORY WHILE MAKING ITS OWN
* * *
With 85,000 master recordings reaching back to doo wop, R&B and Blues,
and embracing Cuban classics, Latin jazz, and more,
Empire is a young label built on a solid foundation decades old
* * *
Catalogues include cutting edge hip-hop, disco remixes and even ballet
* * *
Empire poised to doo wop, Hip-Hop and Jazz it up with digital downloads

When the format of music shifted from vinyl to tape, it was inevitable that many titles wouldn’t make the transition. When cassettes bowed to CDs, countless more songs remained in the vaults, and with them, essential notes in music history.

Miami-based record label Empire MusicWerks (www.empiremusicwerks.com) has rekindled the torch for the missing-but-not-forgotten, stormed the vaults and literally rescued some 85,000 master recordings since president and CEO Paul Klein formed the company in 2000.

With an astonishing depth and breadth of knowledge, Klein is an absolute music head who can cite the lineage of doo wop groups like The Tokens and The Classics, Cuban artists Bola de Nieve and Doris de la Torre, and rappers Ras Kass and Blueface. He also knows the backstories on labels such as Onyx Records and Parrot Records, along with the other 84,992 songs that comprise his massive Empire, which acquires, owns and distributes the catalogues through Universal Music & Video Distribution.

In addition to individual tunes, Klein often acquires labels, such as Beltone Records, Sound Triangle, Riviera Records, General Records, Bluebell, Studio 3 Records, Sinfonia Records, Fono Tone, and their entire repertoires.

In an industry where the business has overshadowed the music, Empire’s focus follows and maintains the examples set by its predecessors who originally released the songs it now carries forward.

"Most of the record companies out there are lawyers and accountants. This record company is based in music from the top down. It’s about music and not about anything else," Klein asserts. "It’s the love of music that drives this. It’s something very rare, where one person knows what they want to do, makes a compilation, gets involved with the cover art, and chooses the songs. That’s how it was done in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, but now it’s all corporations, and nobody really knows what’s going on."

Who would have thought that legendary Cuban performers such as Ana Margarita Martinez Casado’s or Armando Orifiche’s music would go digital? But it will when history meets technology as Empire prepares to make its repertoires available for digital downloading. A major announcement will be forthcoming.

"I have always been a very big fan of music," says Klein, who has only held two jobs in his life, a remarkable feat for anyone, especially for one in which the typically unstable music industry is a cornerstone of his career. "The very first thing I did was in 1983. I went to Philadelphia and made a record with a group called Gypsy Lane, who did all the music for The Village People and Jacques Morali. The drummer had two little boys, four and six, and we made a record with them, which I distributed myself in Canada, where it went gold, and then was released all over Europe. They were called The Little Dabs, and was one of the first kid groups ever. A label that was distributed through Sony for the rest of the world licensed the record from me, and that was my first dab in the record industry."

With a sharp ear to catalogue acquisitions and marketing, Empire releases music that runs the genre scale, including doo wop, Jazz, Rock, Cuban, Latin, Indian and many others. If it’s been recorded and it’s quality sounds, it could become part of the Empire. For instance, there’s Jimi Hendrix, but Klein looked back a little further to saxman Lonnie Youngblood, who was one of the first to hire Hendrix in a working band.

"We’ve put out music by The Escorts, which was a band that a guy named George Kerr recorded in the ‘70s when they were in prison," the Canadian native relates. "Our catalogues go back to the 1940s, but we’re putting out [Marilyn Manson precursor] The Spooky Kids, and we’re very excited about that."

By contrast, Klein continues, "We’re releasing a very interesting group called The Bauls of Bengal. These guys played on stage with The Rolling Stones. They’re on the cover of Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding album. These guys were to that music what Ravi Shankar was to The Beatles. It’s an incredible underground thing."

Other new old music from the label includes a recording by Andrés Segovia and John Williams, The Aquatones (whose ‘50s ballad "You" was featured in an episode of The Sopranos), a compilation of updated disco remixes cleverly titled Queer for the Ear, and even a DVD series of famed ballet performances, The Bolshoi Collection.