THE DELTA GROOVE STORY & INTERVIEW WITH
RANDY CHORTKOFF (C.E.O.)

The Force Behind Delta Groove Productions  

If you've been reading the latest issue of Blues Revue , you've probably seen a new, colorful, full-page ad on the last page for Delta Groove Productions. At a time when many record labels are cutting back operations and others have gone out of business, along comes this new kid on the block.
 
Randy Chortkoff 's passion for traditional Blues gave birth to Delta Groove Productions. DGP's mission statement has been essential to Randy's lifelong drive to keep that traditional Blues alive and, at the same time, to discover those young artists who are poised to carry the Blues torch into this new millennium.
 
It's that love of classic Blues that has made him a household name among Blues fans and artists in the Los Angeles area for decades. It was Randy who produced the annual Little Walter Tributes for over 10 years. Randy was also the promoter of countless other Blues concerts where he shared his deep love of the Blues with L.A. Blues fans. The concerts he promoted featured legendary first generation Bluesmen like Albert King ,Otis Rush ,Billy Boy Arnold ,Carey Bell ,Snooky Pryor ,Jimmy Rogers ,Dave and Louie Myers , and many others.
 
But that wasn't enough. Randy felt the calling to record Blues legends who were falling off the Blues radar. Through his efforts, Randy assembled some of L.A.'s top Blues musicians and produced Chicago harp ace Billy Boy Arnold's critically acclaimed 1993 comeback album Back Where I Belong for Alligator Records. He then did the same for the late King Ernest and Finis Tasby by producing their music for Evidence Records. 
 
Randy's first Delta Groove Productions project captured the time honored Blues approach of the Mannish Boys , an all-star collection of West Coast Blues stars led by the vocals of Finis Tasby, the guitar of Kirk Fletcher , and the dyed in the Blues rhythm section of drummer June Core and bassist Ronnie Weber . Randy then called in veterans like Paul Oscher ,Roy Gaines ,Johnny Dyer , and Mickey Champion to deliver the essence of the Blues. His next label project was to shine a spotlight on Kirk Fletcher, one of today's premier young Blues guitar slingers and the current guitarist in the Fabulous Thunderbirds . He surrounded Fletcher with Kim Wilson , Weber, Richard Innes ,Janiva Magness , and Tasby. And there are more releases planned for the immediate future, like Al Blake's Hollywood Blue Flames ,Frank "Paris Slim" Goldwasser , and Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers .
 
Art Tipaldi for BluesWax : Is Delta Groove Productions just born or has it been around awhile as a company?
 
Randy Chortkoff: It's been around as a company for maybe four years. It started as a company that always had two divisions, film financing and music productions. The company has secured over $30 million to facilitate the production of seven independent feature films over the last six years. Delta Groove also specializes in the production of movie soundtracks, music licensing, music publishing, and marketing services.
 
BW: So the question is: Why a Blues label now?
 
RC : First of all, Blues is my passion. I've been producing music for a long time. The first thing I actually produced and sold was Billy Boy Arnold's comeback album, Back Where I Belong , for Alligator Records in 1993. Then I produced some other CDs and shopped them. I then did King Ernest and Finis Tasby records for Evidence Records.
 
To bring it up to date, I produced the new Kirk Fletcher CD and shopped it to a few labels, but because the record business is in such bad shape today, no one would take it. I just wanted to get it out there, so I talked to Cross Cut Records in Germany and leased it to them just for Europe, not for any domestic. Then I made a Fred "Paris Slim" Goldwasser CD, which I haven't put out yet. And I leased that to Cross Cut. So I was sitting on these two records, which are not doing anything domestically because nobody would pick them up. Because I was fortunate enough to make some money over the last five years in film, against everybody's recommendations, I decided to put them out myself. Then it just snowballed from there.
           
BW: How did the Billy Boy Arnold record come about?   
 
RC : I used to use my birthday as an excuse to get all my musical friends together and do shows. I think the first one was 1987. Just prior, I had the opportunity to become friends with Luther Tucker . He was staying at my house and doin' some shows and my birthday was coming up. Since we all loved Little Walter, I thought why not do a big show for my birthday and call it a tribute to Little Walter.
 
Tucker gave me all these phone numbers. I started calling people like Jimmy Rogers, Dave and Louis Myers. Another friend had found Billy Boy Arnold in Chicago. I was always a big fan of Billy Boy's Vee Jay material. So I invited Billy Boy out, too. I found out that Willie Dixon had moved from Chicago to California, so I invited him too. We did the show at this huge venue in Hollywood. The band had Tucker, Dave and Louis Myers, and Jimmy Rogers on guitars, Willie Dixon on bass, Rod Piazza on harmonica, Honey [Piazza ] on piano, and Al Duncan from Chess Records on drums. We had three rooms going at once. From then on, I did it every year.
 
Through the years, I had every Chicago harp player you could possible think of. All the West coast players too. Carey Bell, James Cotton ,Little Willie Anderson ,Lester Davenport ,Big Daddy Kinsey , Kim Wilson, Curtis Salgado , and William Clarke . And the list just goes on and on.
 
When I brought Billy Boy Arnold out here, he did so well that I took him on a little tour. We did the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland; then I took him into Canada. Then I decided I'd pinch my pennies and find some money and get him into the studio. I recorded him and shopped it and Bruce [Iglauer ] at Alligator picked it up.
 
BW: What's the label's mission?
 
RC : My mission statement is to not make concessions; to not get too contemporary. I want people to feel the real low down, traditional Blues. I would love to sell lots and lots of records, but at the same time I'd like to leave the statement that I was able to increase the awareness of the everyday person about the roots of all American music. And do it without hiring a Rock guitar player who's never heard of T-Bone Walker to play a Blues record. I'm gonna hire the younger guys who've done their homework. You can't play and feel it unless you've been exposed to everything starting with the Delta Blues. If a young Blues player hasn't absorbed and practiced Delta Blues, then he can't play the Blues right.
 
BW: Are you actively looking for more people to record?
 
RC : Yeah. I contacted Al Blake and we're putting out his latest record, The Hollywood Blue Flames , which is the Hollywood Fats band together again. I've also signed Mitch Kashmar , a harp player who has been around as long as Kim Wilson. He's never had a record. I've also just signed Rod Piazza for his next CD. With the new Rod CD, I want to make a DVD in the studio at the same time we're recording the album. It's gonna be a CD and DVD in the case with the DVD as a free bonus. It'll have maybe one or two complete songs from the studio, then it'll have commentary from Rod and Honey and others. Our concept for this record is to really dig down deep into Rod's roots. For a few cuts I want to bring in some really ghetto players from Chicago to back Rod in a way similar to how he first started playing in ghetto bars of Watts in the 1960s. 
 
BW: Do you envision your role as producer of all the Delta Groove records?
 
RC : Because I really love being in the studio, I'm gonna produce as much as I can produce. I think I've got a pretty good ear. But when it comes to people like Al Blake, I'm not against buying music that is all ready completed. I will probably produce at least eighty percent of the music I put out.
 
BW: What's the difference when you take off the owner's hat and put on the producer's hat? What has to happen?
 
RC : For one thing, you have to be a lover and passionate about the music. Being a musician helps a lot. If I'm gonna put out music, I have to be hands on. I'm a big fan of all forms of Blues, Texas, New Orleans, not just the Chicago stuff. I do like Blues that rocks. One of my very close friends was Lester Butler . I'd like to make some records like what Lester and the Red Devils did with traditional Blues.
 
BW: So Delta Groove Productions is not just gonna be a West Coast, Little Walter, Chicago Blues label.
 
RC : Absolutely not. Lester's music appealed to Rock audiences. I do feel that you can take traditional Chicago and Delta Blues and create a grungy feel that can appeal to Rock audiences and still have the Blues at the foundation. My friend Andy Kaulkin is president of Epitaph Records and he put out all that R.L. Burnside music. I'm not against any of those new concepts as long as they stay true to the art form and the roots of the music, not somebody just imitating some Blues trend what they think the Blues is. I'm very open to discovering new concepts as long as it stays traditional.
 
BW: This isn't gonna be a one record per year kind of label?
 
RC : Oh, no. I'm investing a lot of time, money and energy into this. I have long-term plans.
 
BW: What are the little nuts and bolts things you have to take care of when you start up a label?
 
RC : I'm basically learning as I go. I do have a lot of friends in the record business, but I think they are very conservative in what they do. I don't feel that being conservative is the way to be successful. I'm a big risk taker. Because I have a large company that deals with films, I have people working for me who are very personable salesmen and women. I've taken some of my select people and made them work for the music side. I've made one of my good salesmen the radio and promotions guy. My twenty-three-year-old cousin is a very talented artist, so I've made him in charge of our Web design. We do all our artwork and productions in house.
 
I'm doing untraditional things. For example, I have City Hall as a distributor. They send out catalogues, record stores look at the catalogues, and purchase what they want to purchase. I have a guy from my office calling every record store that City Hall distributes to and establishing a personal relationship with the buyer. In that way, I'm making them more aware of what we're about so that they'll order our records. Also, I have my own in-house radio guy who is calling all the radio stations to establish relationships with the DJ and program director to get the product on the air.
 
BW: How do you get distribution?
 
RC : I called around for distribution and I couldn't really find it. No one wanted to pick up my label. I called City Hall and told them that not only am I running a record label, I also am a film producer and I plan on utilizing this music in soundtracks for the films I produce. That caught their attention.
 
BW: That's a great selling point. How do you plan to put these two entities, film and music, together?
 
RC : Here's my dream: To make motion pictures and put the real, traditional Blues in there. The Blues that puts a smile on peoples' faces and expose the mainstream to the music by tricking them into listening. That would be the ultimate, to make a movie based on the music, but in the meantime, I'm looking for ways to incorporate our music into the movies that I get involved in.
 
The mainstream of people have a preconceived idea of what the Blues is. People who haven't experienced the deep Blues have a preconceived idea that it's depressing, crying in your beer music that sings about "I lost my baby." I was recently in Memphis and I went down on Beale Street and into the clubs to hear these young players who have no concept of what the music is really about. All they were playing was twelve-bar shuffles and destroying the music. That's what the general public is being fed and they don't like it.
 
Martin Scorese does the Year of the Blues and PBS spends millions of dollars on marketing and advertising, but it's marketed as Blues. And people just didn't watch the shows or buy the music. My concept is to trick the public into really feeling the Blues. I think the way to do that is to create something like the O Brother phenomenon. That sold over $2 million dollars of Bluegrass soundtrack music. That's a genre of music that people would never go out and buy. They heard the music in the movie without being told they were gonna hear hillbilly music. The music made the public feel a certain way and they went out and bought it. The same thing is happening with the Ray Charles movie. People who would never buy Ray Charles music or Soul music are buying the music.
 
BW: What first caught you about music?
 
RC : I couldn't figure out where I got bit by the Blues bug. Jimmy Reed caught me early and prior to that I loved the English music. But I remember that my dad was a big Jazz fan. He and his friend used to go to Central Ave. back in the day and see the Jazz shows. They became good friends with Louis Armstrong . Whenever he was in L.A., he and his wife and band members would come to our house and have a big spread of food. I was always in bed, but I found these slides of my dad and mom and Louis. There's one shot of me when I was six years old with my fingers in my ears and Louis blowin' his horn above my head. I think that it was my dad playin' Louis Armstrong, Louie Prima , and Joe Liggins and the Honey Drippers around the house that was my earliest music memories.
 
BW: Is it true that you have also been playing harmonica for decades?
 
RC : Yeah, I am a harp player, but I've never had the patience to sit and really make the harmonica my life like Al Blake, William Clarke, or Rod Piazza. I'm not in that league at all.
 
BW: Is there anything else I need to know?
 
RC : I gotta give credit where it's due. I was listening to English Blues and I was friends with Paul Butterfield . I'd never really listened to Little Walter or Sonny Boy or early Junior Wells . I met Rod Piazza in the late 1970s and then he made me tapes to educate me to understand what the music was all about. I owe him a debt of gratitude for that.
 
Art Tipaldi is a contributing editor at BluesWax .Art may be contacted at blueswax@visnat.com .