Honest Jon's is a British independent record shop based on
Portobello Road
is a street in the Notting Hill district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London. It runs almost the length of Notting Hill from South to North, roughly parallel with Ladbroke Grove. On Saturdays it is home to Portobello ...
in
Ladbroke Grove
Ladbroke Grove ( ) is a road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, which passes through Kensal Green and Notting Hill, running north–south between Harrow Road and Holland Park Avenue.
It is also the name of the sur ...
, London, operating since 1974. The shop is owned and run by Mark Ainley and Alan Scholefield, who took over from one of the original proprietors, "Honest" Jon Clare. Their record label of the same name is run in conjunction with
Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn (, ; born 23 March 1968) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the frontman, main vocalist, and lyricist of the rock band Blur (band), Blur and the co-creator and primary musical con ...
, who has been quoted as saying: "I don't really like the term
world music
"World music" is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, Cross-cultural communication, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical ...
. Wherever it comes from, it's all just music, isn't it? Hopefully that's what Honest Jon's is about – to open a few minds to what's out there."
The shop sells a multitude of genres of music on vinyl and CD, specializing in jazz, blues, reggae, dance, soul, folk and outernational. It runs a mail-order business.
Formed in 2002, the label has released
compilation album
A compilation album comprises Album#Tracks, tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one Performing arts#Performers, performer or by several performers. If the recordings are from ...
s such as its ''London Is The Place For Me'' series, excavating the music of young Black London, in the years after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
("a fascinating archive of material from the 1950s and 1960s, chronicling a time when diasporic rhythms were more or less the sole preserve of the small communities responsible for bringing them to these shores");
[Dave Stelfox]
"Various Artists: London Is the Place for Me: Part Four. Honest Jon's; 2007"
''Pitchfork
A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials.
The term is also applie ...
'', 14 February 2007. also collections of British folk,
Port-of-Spain
Port of Spain ( ; Trinidadian and Tobagonian English, Trinidadian English: ''Port ah Spain'' ) is the capital and chief port of Trinidad and Tobago. With a municipal population of 49,867 (2017), an urban population of 81,142 and a transient dail ...
soca,
Afro-Cuban jazz
Afro-Cuban jazz is the earliest form of Latin jazz. It mixes Afro-Cuban clave-based rhythms with jazz harmonies and techniques of improvisation. Afro-Cuban music has deep roots in African ritual and rhythm. The genre emerged in the early 1940s ...
from
the Bronx
The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...
, Jamaican dancehall; and retrospectives of artists including
Moondog
Louis Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999), known professionally as Moondog, was an American composer, musician, performer, music theoretician, poet and inventor of musical instruments. Largely self-taught as a composer, his ...
,
Maki Asakawa
was a Japanese jazz and blues singer, lyricist and composer. Known as the , she was an important voice of Japan's urban counterculture.
It was written in ''The Japan Times'' that she "made her name in 1970" with ''The World of Maki Asakawa'' an ...
,
Bettye Swann and
Cedric "Im" Brooks & The Light of Saba. The label has released original music by
Candi Staton
Canzetta Maria "Candi" Staton (, ) (born March 13, 1940) is an American singer–songwriter, best known in the United States for her 1970 cover of Tammy Wynette's " Stand by Your Man" and her 1976 disco chart-topper " Young Hearts Run Free". In E ...
,
Actress
An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...
, T++,
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble is an eight-piece, Chicago-based brass ensemble consisting of eight sons of the jazz trumpeter Phil Cohran. Their musical style ranges from hip hop to jazz to funk and rock, including calypso and gypsy music. They call t ...
, Mark Ernestus,
Trembling Bells
Trembling Bells were a Scottish folk rock group formed in 2008 by drummer Alex Neilson, a musician with a history of free and improvised playing with several artists. Based in Glasgow, the group released three albums through Honest Jon's Recor ...
,
The Good, the Bad & the Queen
The Good, the Bad & the Queen were an English art rock supergroup composed of singer Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz, bassist Paul Simonon of the Clash, guitarist Simon Tong of the Verve, and drummer Tony Allen of Fela Kuti's band Africa ...
,
Simone White,
Shackleton,
Michael Hurley,
Terry Hall, DJ Sotofett, and the
Moritz Von Oswald
Moritz von Oswald (born 1962) is a German record producer and percussionist from Hamburg and based in Berlin. He is a co-founder of the production duo and record label Basic Channel. He has collaborated with Juan Atkins, Carl Craig, and Nils Pett ...
Trio,
Vladislav Delay Quartet, Insanlar &
Ricardo Villalobos
Ricardo Villalobos (born 6 August 1970) is a Chilean-born German electronic music producer and DJ. He is well known for his work in the minimal techno and microhouse genres, and is one of the most significant figures in the minimal techno scene.
...
, Kassem Mosse, Pinch, Don't DJ, Tribe of Colin and many more. It recorded the
chaabi orchestra of Abdel Hadi Halo on location in Algiers;
Lobi Traore and Kokanko Sata Doumbia in
Bamako
Bamako is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Mali, with a 2022 population of 4,227,569. It is located on the Niger River, near the rapids that divide the upper and middle Niger valleys in the southwestern part of the country.
Bamak ...
; and
Tony Allen in
Lagos
Lagos ( ; ), or Lagos City, is a large metropolitan city in southwestern Nigeria. With an upper population estimated above 21 million dwellers, it is the largest city in Nigeria, the most populous urban area on the African continent, and on ...
.
In 2008, Honest Jon's began a run of compilations of early recordings – mostly drawn from the
EMI
EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...
Archive in
Hayes, Hillingdon
Hayes is a town in west London. Historically situated within the county of Middlesex, it is now part of the London Borough of Hillingdon. The town's population, including its localities Hayes End, Harlington and Yeading, was recorded in the ...
– stretching back to the start of the twentieth century, covering all corners of the world: from the break-up of the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
more than a hundred years ago, to 1950s Beirut, to late-1920s Baghdad, to 1930s East Africa.
See also
*
List of record labels
File:Alvinoreyguitarboogie.jpg
File:AmMusicBunk78.jpg
File:Bingola1011b.jpg
Lists of record labels cover record labels, brands or trademarks associated with marketing of music recordings and music videos. The lists are organized alphabetically, ...
References
External links
Official site
2002 establishments in England
British independent record labels
Indie rock record labels
Record labels established in 2002
{{Independent-record-label-stub