Sussex Records, Inc. was a Los Angeles-based

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the prod ...

, founded by music executive and businessman

Clarence Avant Clarence Alexander Avant (born February 25, 1931) is an American music executive, entrepreneur, and film producer, who also went by the name of " The Black Godfather". Avant's 75th birthday was celebrated by ''Billboard'' in its February 2006 i ...

, that existed from 1969 through 1975.

History

Sussex Records was launched in December 1969 by Avant, who had previously set up another mainly black music label,

Venture Records Venture may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * The Ventures, an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 *"A Venture", 1971 song by the band Yes *''Venture'', a 2010 EP by AJR Games * ''Venture'' (video game), a 1981 arcade ga ...

for MGM. An offshoot of

Buddah Records Buddah Records (later known as Buddha Records) was an American record label founded in 1967 in New York City. The label was born out of Kama Sutra Records, an MGM Records-distributed label, which remained a key imprint following Buddah's foundi ...

, initially it was located at 6430 W Sunset Blvd in

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywoo ...

, at the corner of Sunset and Cahuenga Blvds. In 1972, it moved to 6255 W Sunset Blvd, Suite 1902. All records were distributed by

until 1974 when Sussex switched to independent distribution until its closure. The company folded in July 1975, due to unpaid state and federal taxes amounting to $62,000: the Internal Revenue Service padlocked the offices and auctioned off all assets. Many of the label's master tapes went missing and were presumed destroyed. Rights to the catalog were acquired in a bankruptcy action by Tom Ficara and Combined Artists.

Bill Withers William Harrison Withers Jr. (July 4, 1938 – March 30, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. He had several hits over a career spanning 18 years, including "Ain't No Sunshine" (1971), "Grandma's Hands" (1971), " Use Me" (1972) ...

was the label's best-selling artist with a string of pop and R&B hits and several successful albums. They included three million-selling singles, "Ain't No Sunshine" (#3 pop, #6 R&B, 1971), the label's only chart-topper, "Lean On Me" (#1 pop and #1 R&B, 1972) and "Use Me" (#2 pop and #2 R&B, 1972). His recordings, many self-written and produced, were later purchased by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

, when Withers signed for the label in 1975. In 1971, the label notched another gold disc with Detroit guitarist

Dennis Coffey Dennis James Coffey (born November 11, 1940) is an American guitarist. He was a studio musician for many soul and R&B recordings, and is well known for his 1971 Top 10 hit single " Scorpio". Biography Coffey learned to play guitar at the age ...

who reached #6 on the pop charts and #9 on the R&B charts with " Scorpio". The Presidents vocal group had a major hit for Sussex in 1970 with "5-10-15-20" (#5 R&B, #11 pop), produced by

Van McCoy Van Allen Clinton McCoy (January 6, 1940 – July 6, 1979) was an American musician, record producer, arranger, songwriter, singer and orchestra conductor. He is known for his 1975 internationally successful song " The Hustle". He has approxima ...

. The group from Washington DC had released the label's first single, "For You", a minor R&B hit, a few months earlier. In 1972 another guitarist was signed named Eddy Senay who had a hit called "Hot Thang"; he also covered the Bill Withers hit "Ain't No Sunshine". Later the hit "Cameo" started to break out worldwide as a popular hit with his fans around the world. After Sussex folded, Avant went on to form another record company, Tabu Records.

Subsidiary

A subsidiary of Sussex was Clarama Records. It was launched by Clarence Avant in 1974. One act to get in early on the label was Brenda & Albert who were formerly with Faith Hope and Charity.''Billboard'', February 16, 1974
Page 6 Avant Moving Sussex & New Label Through Indies By Claude Hall ''* Continued from page 1''
/ref>

Sixto Rodriguez

The label is also known for signing American singer-songwriter and guitarist Rodriguez in 1970. After the move to Sussex, his professional name was changed to simply Rodriguez. Rodriguez recorded and released his two albums, '' Cold Fact'' in 1970 and '' Coming from Reality'' in 1971. But after both sold poorly in the US, he was quickly dropped. Though the albums sold poorly in the US; its origin country, the album sold extremely well in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

, Australia and surrounding countries. The albums proved very successful and influential eventually being certified

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Pla ...

and causing a cultural phenomenon. Rodriguez has since remained a mystery artist in his native country of the US but a cultural figure in many others. Rodriguez found more fame with the release of the 2012 documentary film ''

Searching for Sugar Man ''Searching for Sugar Man'' is a 2012 documentary film about a South African cultural phenomenon, written and directed by Malik Bendjelloul, which details the efforts in the late 1990s of two Cape Town fans, Stephen "Sugar" Segerman and Craig B ...

'' a documentary film directed and written by

Malik Bendjelloul Malik Bendjelloul (14 September 1977 – 13 May 2014) was a Swedish documentary filmmaker, journalist and former child actor.Rohter, Larry (20 July 2012)Retrieved 26 February 2013.Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second larges ...

fans, Stephen "Sugar" Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumoured death of Rodriguez was true and, if not, to discover what had become of him.

Artists

*Amish *

Willie Bobo William Correa (February 28, 1934 – September 15, 1983), better known by his stage name Willie Bobo,Biography ''AllMusic'' was an American Latin jazz percussionist of Puerto Rican descent. Bobo rejected the stereotypical expectations of Lati ...

*Billy Charne *

*Priscilla Coolidge-Jones *

Creative Source Creative Source was an American R&B group from Los Angeles, who had several funk and disco hits during the 1970s. History Creative Source was formed in 1972 by several veterans of the West Coast recording studios. They were managed by Ron Towns ...

* Zulema Cusseaux * Dandelion Wine *

Gallery Gallery or The Gallery may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Art gallery ** Contemporary art gallery Music * Gallery (band), an American soft rock band of the 1970s Albums * ''Gallery'' (Elaiza album), 2014 album * ''Gallery'' (G ...

* Faith, Hope & Charity * Lonette *Masterfleet *Mutzie * The Presidents * The Decisions *The Primo People

he Primo Family He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

* Ralph Graham * Rodriguez *Eddy Senay *Segments of Time *

The Soul Searchers Charles Louis Brown (August 22, 1936 – May 16, 2012) was an American guitarist, bandleader and singer known as " The Godfather of Go-Go". Go-go is a subgenre of funk music developed around the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area in the mid-1 ...

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared rad ...

* Wadsworth Mansion *

Wednesday Wednesday is the day of the week between Tuesday and Thursday. According to international standard ISO 8601, it is the third day of the week. In countries which have Friday as their holiday, Wednesday is the fifth day of the week. In countries ...

Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

References

External links