Elektra Records Celebrating 60th Anniversary With All-Star Event

Posted on Sep 30th 2010 4:00PM by David Chiu
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Mark Seliger

In 1950, a 19-year-old named Jac Holzman started a record label called Elektra in his St. John's College dorm. What began as a company specializing in folk music became one of the most legendary record labels in pop and rock music. Its impressive roster has included the Doors, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, Queen, the Cure, Metallica, Tracy Chapman and 10,000 Maniacs.

This year, Elektra is celebrating its 60th anniversary with an event on Oct. 14 at New York's 92nd St. Y featuring Holzman and label alums Jackson Browne and Natalie Merchant. Interviewing them will be Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye, who is also a writer and an unofficial Elektra historian.

"They made the mainstream come to them," Kaye tells Spinner, "as opposed to vice versa, and so were able to do something fairly unique in terms of what a record label. They were able to create their own identity."

In explaining the origins of the label, Kaye credits Holzman's vision, which was not to find the big pop stars at the time like Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney, but to record inexpensively. "He found a niche and he followed it," Kaye says. "His idea then as now was that if you make it available and don't charge a lot for it, people will find you."

Elektra's stable of major folk talent included Judy Collins, Tim Buckley and Phil Ochs. "And as folk music grew," Kaye says, "that's really key to Elektra's thing. They were able to follow its development into a rock 'n' roll that was based in art as opposed to the Top 40 ready-mades."

The label also combined its commercial success in the late '60s and early '70s with taking chances on iconoclastic artists such as MC5 and the Stooges.

"These were not easy calls," says Kaye. "But the one thing that Jac Holzman had was a sense of going with it. Even if it wasn't his particular cup of tea, he trusted the people who worked with him. He trusted instinct and he trusted somebody trying to do something different."

Kaye also says that the label reflected the personality who ran it over the years, from Holzman to successors such as David Geffen and Bob Krasnow. "You could tell who is running the show," he says. "Elektra had a very distinct sense of itself and that's why the records have such personality."

Kaye himself has a direct connection with Elektra, having produced the 1990 'Rubaiyat' box set that coincided with the label's 40th anniversary. Going back to the early '70s, Kaye also produced the classic garage rock collection for Elektra called 'Nuggets,' an idea that was conceived by Holzman.

"Jac let it happen," Kaye recalls. "It wasn't the record I think he thought it would be, but it was the record that organically developed. He didn't try to mastermind it or say, 'I don't know if the Shadows of Knight are worthy of this.' It's like he let it happen. That to me is a great mark of someone who instinctively knows how to allow creative people to have their way with the world."

Elektra halted operations in 2004 when it was absorbed into the Atlantic Records Group only to come back last year with a roster that includes artists such as Bruno Mars, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Cee Lo.

For the upcoming event taking place at the 92Y, Kaye says it's going to be a fun evening. He recently spoke with Holzman on the phone and says that the founder was full of vibrancy. "He is a great mind," Kaye says. "He gave me a certain sense of launch and confidence that I still retain and that's to me another legacy of Elektra, my own personal one."