A FAST-GROWING LIST OF TODAY'S hottest artists in folk and roots music –including Kris Drever, Lau, Bellowhead, John McCusker, Heidi Talbot and Mary Hampton – have the same name in common: that of Navigator Records.
Despite having only launched in February this year, the Derby-based label already boasts a roster of sufficient size to produce a 17-track covermount sampler – one track per act – currently gracing the latest issue of Rock'n'Reel magazine.
The gen
erosity of this giveaway is just another instance of the effective marketing that has swiftly set Navigator apart from other folk-based independents. Drever and Lau, in particular, have been cropping up on radio shows and in publications that routinely ignore Scottish folk music, both reaping rewards in the shape of a Radio 2 Folk Award apiece. And of those 17 sampled Navigator artists, more than half are Scottish.
Navigator's joint proprieter, Tom Rose, had worked in record shops since leaving school. He opened his own, Reveal Records, in Derby in 1999. Nominated three times as Music Week's best UK independent retailer, Rose's store won the prize in 2005 – just as his attention began to shift, almost inadvertently at first, from retailing to recording.
Rose was electrified by live performances from Joan Wasser – now the super-hip Joan As Police Woman, then supporting Rufus Wainwright – and Drever, then a member of Kate Rusby's band, in which capacity Rose heard him sing just one song.
"I'd already been looking into licensing records from abroad, and I'd put out a few singles for local bands in the past," Rose recalls. "Then I went to these two gigs within a month, and they both had the effect that's still my benchmark for signing someone: they made me want to spread the word."
He named his original label after the shop, with a view to its encompassing a similarly broad stylistic range, but soon found his inclinations tending in one direction. "Having started with Kris and Joan, Reveal to me was about being open to any genre," Rose says. "But as I signed more acts, people started telling me how much they liked my new folk label. My original distribution was much more geared towards the indie-rock market, so I approached (folk distributor] Proper last summer and we set up Navigator as a separate entity, to focus on the folk and acoustic side."
Introductions and connections through the Edinburgh folk scene have powered the growth of the roster. After Lau became an early Reveal signing, band-member Drever introduced Rose to John McCusker, who introduced him to Heidi Talbot. Navigator are re-releasing two of McCusker's solo albums as a double CD next month, to be followed by Before the Ruin, from his new songwriting trio with Drever and Idlewild singer Roddy Woomble.
Another Lau member, Aidan O'Rourke, has a solo album due out on the label in November, while it was at the recording of Lau's acclaimed live album, late last year at Edinburgh's Bongo Club, that Rose met Bellowhead's manager, who happened to be manning the sound desk that night. That connection has resulted in three additional forthcoming releases from various members of Bellowhead's 11-piece line-up, as well as the band's own second album, Matachin.
"Folk wasn't a genre I knew in much depth before all this, but I've really thrown myself into it," says Rose. "I've always liked learning about different types of music – and, besides the quality of artists, the folk scene's great fun to be around; the people are great, everything's really relaxed. It's way more enjoyable than the indie-rock business."
You don't, however, get the likes of Bellowhead extricating themselves from a previous deal to join your fledgling label on the strength of enthusiasm alone. "Tom used to run a very successful record shop – he knows how to sell records," points out the renowned singer-songwriter Boo Hewerdine, another recent Navigator signing, with experience of both major labels and independents. "A lot of people who start record companies have all sorts of big ideas, but no real clue about actually making it work: he's equally good with the artistic and the pragmatic stuff."
When asked for the secrets of his success, Rose's response is the very essence of pragmatism. "We try and make it as easy as possible for people to cover our stuff," he says. "I'm pretty disciplined about making sure things happen on time, and being up to speed with what different parts of the media need, magazine lead times and so on. We take a lot of care with our packaging, and we always have good photos. We'll advertise an artist over maybe five or six months, not just once, and we'll promote them beyond the usual folk channels. And working with Proper, obviously, we've got the distribution side well covered. "
It's hardly rocket science, in music industry terms, yet it's an overall synthesis that has largely eluded other folk labels, especially in Scotland. And so, as his competitors watch and learn, Rose is preparing for his hectic autumn/winter release schedule at the helm of an exceedingly happy musical ship. "It's great – like a little folkie family," says Lau's accordionist, Martin Green. "We like to think this is how Motown felt back in the day – only with more fiddle players. And without Stevie Wonder playing at the Christmas parties."
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www.navigatorrecords.co.uk "The Scottish-English trio are unique in the folk scene for their self-written jigs, reels and complex instrumental work, and for the way they can repeatedly switch mood and direction within a song."
– The Guardian on Lau
"I was once asked to describe John McCusker … The answer I gave was, 'he's a musician's musician.' "
– Phil Cunningham
"If you thought folk music was all about earnest solitary figures with acoustic guitars, think again."
– The Sun on Bellowhead
The full article contains 982 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
