Yazoo Records

Yazoo Records was an American record label founded in the mid-1960s by Nick Perls. It specialized in early American blues, country, jazz, and other rural American genres collectively known as roots music. The first five releases (L 1001 to L 1005) were issued under the label name of Belzona Records. The label was then renamed Yazoo Records, and the first five releases were reissued under the new name. The Belzona and Yazoo labels featured an Art Deco drawing of a peacock, adapted from the 1927 label of Black Patti Records. For Yazoo Records Perls compiled rare 78-rpm recordings made in the 1920s by musicians such as Charley Patton, Blind Willie McTell, the Memphis Jug Band, Blind Blake, and Blind Lemon Jefferson……In 1989 Yazoo was acquired by Shanachie Records (read more at Wikipedia)



Links to Peel
Peel began to play Yazoo records in the late 1960s, when the label's releases become available in record shops specialising in blues, folk and jazz and stocking US imports (its albums were never issued in the UK but became more widely available in the 1970s). This was at the height of the British blues revival, and the early Yazoo LPs, combining rare and well-chosen tracks with state-of-the-art remastering, were praised by reviewers and found a ready audience. He continued to feature the label's output regularly throughout his career, although concetrating mostly on its blues releases and paying less attention to the thematic anthologies which Yazoo issued after it was taken over by Shanachie Records. Artists he featured ranged from the well-known names mentioned above to more obscure figures (Cripple Clarence Lofton, Frank Stones).

Peel's colleague Andy Kershaw also followed Yazoo releases; a particular favourite of his was released in the mid-1970s, when the label began to extend its catalogue into ragtime, Hawaiian music and early jazz. Tracks from an album of vintage recordings by the virtuoso multi-instrumentalist Roy Smeck were heard regularly on Kershaw shows.

Shows Played
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 * DD Month YYYY: Song (single/album) Label