Norton Records: Рок-н-ролл мұрағаты және тәуелсіз музыка лейблы

US record label
the Canadian independent record label of the same name

Norton Records is an independent record label founded by musicians Miriam Linna and Billy Miller in 1986. The label concentrates on rock, rockabilly, primitive music, punk, garage rock and early rhythm and blues. Most of its output, both new releases and reissues, is issued on vinyl.

Billy Miller first encountered Miriam Linna while she was drumming for The Cramps in 1976. The two were properly introduced one day in 1977 while Miller was vending at a record show; the two chatted about music and he sold Linna a copy of "You Must Be a Witch", a single by The Lollipop Shoppe. Miller later said, "You can't let a gal with taste like that slip away!" A year later, in 1978, Miller and Linna started Kicks, a magazine devoted to obscure rock, soul, and rockabilly. In 1986, the couple published an article in Kicks about West Virginia guitarist Hasil Adkins, for which the response was so intense that Linna and Miller decided to form a record label to reissue his music. They named their company after Ed Norton, Art Carney's character on The Honeymooners. Adkins had recorded about 15 singles in the 1950s, but many had never been released or collected on an LP. The label's debut release was a four song 7" titled "Haze's House Party," soon followed by the Adkins compilation Out to Hunch. "We made 500 copies and prayed that it would sell," Linna recalled of the latter. In 1987, Norton released an Adkins 7" with two songs, and Miller co produced recording sessions for a subsequent LP, The Wild Man.

Along with previously unreleased discoveries, Linna and Miller have reissued hundreds of obscurities and classics from the 1950s and 1960s, and their label's extensive catalog also includes current talents. Notable artists released on Norton include Tommy James, Doug Sahm, Gene Vincent, Kim Fowley, Reigning Sound, King Coleman, Esquerita, Charlie Feathers, Flat Duo Jets, Ron Haydock, Flamin' Groovies co founder Roy Loney, Terry Manning, Rudy Ray Moore, Ronnie Self, Jack Starr, Gene Summers, The Teenbeats, King Uszniewicz, Gino Washington, Andre Williams, and Link Wray. The Rolling Stones Cover series of 7 inch records, pairing contemporary artists covering Stones songs, began in 2003 and features 32 split singles with London Records styled graphics. The Sun Records Jukebox Series collected 28 Sun label rarities by the likes of Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Sonny Burgess, among many others, on 14 split singles with classic Sun Records inspired designs. Norton's El Paso Rock series of LPs and CDs chronicles the early days of the El Paso, Texas rock scene, beginning with the legendary first recordings of Bobby Fuller, including the original 1964 pre hit version of "I Fought the Law" first issued on Fuller's own Exeter label. Volume two in the series offers more Fuller in a selection of "never before issued live mayhem from Texas teen clubs, shopping centers, bowling alleys circa 1962 64 plus insane home recordings. "</blockquote>

In 2009, Linna launched her paperback book imprint, Kicks Books, with Sweets and Other Stories by Andre Williams, followed in 2011 by This Planet Is Doomed – a collection of Sun Ra's poetry – and Save the Last Dance for Satan, Nick Tosches' account of the music business and the Mafia. There are several Kicks titles in print, including I Fought the Law, Linna's Bobby Fuller biography published in 2015. Kicks Books releases have been accompanied by Kicks Perfume custom fragrances, and Kicks also pressed a 7" Sun Ra centennial memorial souvenir record in 2014 to launch a three book Sun Ra series.

Norton Records kicked off its 20th anniversary in 2006 with a massive (for an indie) 80 page catalog, featuring a cover photograph of Marty Lott (the Gulf Coast Fireball, aka The Phantom) and a dedication: "Our 20th Anniversary catalog is dedicated to the memory of Norton's very first artist, the immortal Hasil Adkins." Adkins died in 2005.

In January 2016, the label opened a brick and mortar retail store, the Norton Record Shop, in the Prospect Heights area of Brooklyn, to sell records and printed matter. Miller died of Multiple Myeloma in November 2016. Linna issued the acclaimed lost Dion album on Norton in 2018. The shop closed in 2018, and mail order operations moved to Cleveland, Ohio. Linna published the 576 page Mind Over Matter: The Myths and Mysteries of Detroit's Fortune Records in 2020.