A growing New Orleans record label is giving the city's musicians the personal attention and national recognition they deserve.

by Denise Trowbridge, New Orleans CityLife, May 2004

A few years ago, it wasn’t unusual to see Mark Samuels and his three children — Geoffrey, 13, Eric,12, and Naomi, 9 — standing on street corners in the French Quarter wearing sandwich boards advertising their latest CD releases or passing out flyers for live music shows. These days, it’s not unusual to see them riding through Mid-city during Jazz Fest in a van that’s got Kermit Ruffins, Theresa Andersson or Henry Butler tunes pouring out of a loudspeaker they’ve strapped to the roof.

Samuels is the founder and president of Basin Street Records, one of New Orleans’ premier independent record labels. The label is home to New Orleans musicians Theresa Andersson, Henry Butler, Los Hombres Calientes, Jon Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen, Kermit Ruffins, The Headhunters and jazz clarinetist Dr. Michael White.

Those afternoons spent passing out flyers have paid off. Basin Street Records sells more than 100,000 copies of its CDs each year, and it is continuing to grow. And thanks in no small part to Samuels’ dedication and grassroots marketing campaigns since its founding in 1997, Basin Street Records and its stable of artists have also garnered the kind of national recognition usually reserved for powerhouse labels like Arista, RCA, Atlantic and Columbia. Los Hombres Calientes’ debut CD won a Billboard Latin Music Award for best contemporary Latin jazz album in 2000. This year, their newest release, Vol. 4: VoDou Dance, has been nominated for the same award. Los Hombres was also nominated for a Grammy in 2002.

Locally, Basin Street’s CDS have consistently earned more than one spot on the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival’s top 10 sellers list. And they have won armloads of OffBeat’s Best of the Beat Awards through the years, including best album, best band, best song, best music business and best record label — a designation Basin Street Records has won four times in the last five years.

Judging by the company’s success, no one would guess that Samuels did not plan to start a record label. Basin Street Records, he says, was an accident. "I just wanted to be in music somehow," Samuels says. " It never even crossed my mind to own a record label."

Samuels’ love affair with music started at Ben Franklin high school, where he played in the band with Wynton Marsalis. "I played saxophone," he says, "badly."

Despite his lack of finesse on woodwinds, Samuels’ interest in music grew. After earning his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin, he moved to New York to work for Anderson Consulting. He kept his fingers in the city’s music scene, and every once in a while, he’d meet up with Marsalis for a night out on the town.

Like so many natives, Samuels eventually returned to New Orleans. He went to work running the family energy business with his father, Alvin. But his heart kept pulling him back to music, so Samuels decided that he wanted to become a manager and agent for New Orleans musicians.

In 1996, he started working with Tom Thompson, Kermit Ruffins’ manager. "He approached me with the idea of recording a live album for Kermit Ruffins," Samuels says. "I thought it was a good idea and that it would help me along the path of managing musicians, so I did it." The album, The Barbecue Swingers Live, was released in February of 1998 and did well.

One month later, Samuel’s fate — to start an award winning New Orleans record label — was sealed. "I ran into a friend at Kinko’s one afternoon in March," Samuels says. The friend was photocopying flyers for a show that night at the Funky Butt and asked Samuels to come out and see it. "At midnight, it was pouring down rain. I told my wife, Patti, that I was going to the show because I was afraid no one else would show up in such nasty weather."

That night — Samuels says it was March 7, 1998 — he met Irvin Mayfield, who was sitting in with the band. "I had read some great articles about his band, Los Hombres Calientes, so I started talking to him," Samuels says. "He said they were trying to produce a record before Jazz Fest and wanted to know if I’d be interested in putting it out for them."

It was a proposition Samuels felt he couldn’t refuse. Ten days later, Los Hombres Calientes’ self-titled debut album went to press. It became the No. 1 seller at Jazz Fest that year and won a Billboard Latin Music Award for best contemporary Latin jazz album — no small feat for a CD released in record time by an independent label that was only a year old.

The success has continued. This year, Los Hombres’ Vol. 4: VoDou Dance has been nominated for the same Billboard Music Award. Their third album, Vol. 3: New Congo Square, was nominated for a Grammy in 2002.

Shortly after Los Hombres’ first album was released, Samuels bought Thompson’s share of the label and left the family energy business so he could dedicate more time to growing Basin Street Records. In the beginning, it was just him, his wife and their three children passing out flyers and parading around town in sandwich boards advertising their artists’ new releases and live shows. " It was just the two of us running the label for three years," Samuels says. "Patti always said she was a woman of the 50s and the 90s. She baked every day and took the kids to swimming, tae kwon doe and baseball games all while taking the CDs to UPS and putting together 1,000 piece mailings of newsletters and promotions. I have no idea how she managed to do it all."

Then, in November of 2000, Basin Street Records was thrown a curveball — Patti died in a car accident on the way home from a family reunion in St. Louis. Samuels, as well as his parents and all three of his children were injured in the accident. His brother, Will, stepped in to run the label while Mark was dealing with his children’s injuries and Patti’s death. "He jumped in and took care of the day-to-day operations of the business," Samuels says. "He really took care of me."

But the difficult times were not over. September 11, the downturn in the economy and illegal music downloads all took their toll on the label. "All of those things kept us from getting as far ahead as we could be, despite the reputation our label has developed," Samuels says.

The shrinking ranks of music retailers thanks to legal and illegal music downloading has hit small labels like Basin Street hard, too. When chains like Tower Records declare bankruptcy, Samuels says, their inventory slims down and CDs released by artists other than the Britneys and Beyonces of the industry are the first to go. "When the foot traffic in stores disappears, it’s harder to get our CDs in them," he says.

But, unlike the Recording Industry Association of America, Samuels says the digital download revolution will ultimately benefit the music industry. "It will be just fine with me if music is purchased from Web sites instead of purchased in stores," he says, noting that the Internet eliminates distribution problems. "On the Web, the music is always readily available. That’s a good thing for the industry in the long term, and puts small labels like mine on equal footing with the big guys."

Right now, the recording industry is having growing pains. In the meantime, Samuels and Basin Street Records show no signs of slowing down. Last month, they released six new projects — five CDs as well as a concert DVD, which is the label’s first foray into feature-length music videos. That’s also the most new material they’ve produced in one year, up from just four releases in 2003.

Three of Basin Street’s artists have also gotten Hollywood’s attention this year. Theresa Andersson appeared in "A Love Song for Bobby Long," the John Travolta film recently filmed in New Orleans. Andersson, as well as Henry Butler and Los Hombres Calientes appeared in "Infidelity," an original film that aired on the Lifetime television network in April. The three also produced the film’s original motion picture soundtrack.

Samuel’s credits the label's success to the incomparable talent of its artists. "Every artist and project we have ever produced has been by a band that we really enjoy," he says. "We just felt like we had to do their record. They were projects that we just couldn’t say no to."

The support of the New Orleans community helps, too. "Locally,there are so many people and places that support us," Samuels says, adding that it’s important for everyone to patronize homegrown businesses. "I support the home team whenever I can," he says. "I buy local coffee and I drink local beer. People can support us by buying CDs and going out to see live music. Every dollar we make goes right back into more music. "

Ultimately, Basin Street Records is putting New Orleans musicians on the map. "I’d like Basin Street Records to be the Motown of New Orleans," Samuels says, "and to have the same impact on New Orleans music that Motown had on Detroit."

Samuels says there is no better city to be in the music business. "Most music, whether its jazz, blues or rock and roll has its roots in New Orleans," he says. "There’s no place in the world like it. To be a New Orleans musician really means something."