Founded in 1983 by Larry Sloven and GRAMMY®-winning producer Bruce Bromberg, the Oakland-based HighTone Records launched auspiciously with Robert Cray’s acclaimed sophomore album, Bad Influence. Over the next 25 years, the label released titles from some of the biggest names in blues, country, gospel, rockabilly, and western swing, including Dave Alvin, Joe Ely, Joe Louis Walker, Dick Dale, Rosie Flores, Gary Stewart, Jim Muldaur and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, among many others.

Long before “Americana” became a genre, HighTone was quietly defining it.

As Sloven recounted, “Bruce and I did not have strict genre parameters. We just wanted to put out music that we liked and hoped we could find an audience for it—and we happened to have wide-ranging tastes in roots music. As it turned out, of the first eleven album releases on HighTone, there was blues, blues/rock, Bakersfield country, country rock, Black gospel, southern soul, and Texas singer-songwriter. Now it has a name—Americana.”

In 2016, the catalog found a new home at Concord and is now managed by Craft Recordings.

Today, HighTone returns with the same spirit and a broader vision–spotlighting legendary voices and overlooked gems from not only the original HighTone catalog—but also from acclaimed labels including Rounder, Sugar Hill, Vanguard and beyond.