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One day back in 1993, Dan Storper walked into one of his retail stores, which specialized in clothing and handcrafts from Latin America, to find an employee playing music that was completely outside the boutique aesthetic he wanted to create. His solution was to make his own music mixes, which soon gave way to proper compilation CDs that were sold onsite. In short order, Putumayo World Music became a perennial clearinghouse of themed collections featuring established artists alongside edgy up-and-comers.
GR: It’s now been 15 years. What sort of things are you going to do to mark the big occasion?
DS: Well, I was inspired to start Putumayo World Music partly as a result of hearing some great Afropop music by a San Francisco Bay area group, Kotoja. So, I decided to celebrate this anniversary by producing an African Party CD collection which includes Kotoja, Oliver Mtukudzi and several other of our favorite artists and new discoveries such as Chiwoniso and Mapumba. We also have organized a free 15th Anniversary concert in collaboration with SummerStage in Central Park on Sunday, July 27th. It features three of our favorite groups who’ve appeared on our CD collections: Taj Mahal And The Phantom Blues Band, The Skatalites and Los Pinguos. I’m also traveling to Capetown and Johannesburg for release events there.
Was there a definite tipping point moment when you decided to leave the clothing business behind to focus on music?
From the moment I began to work on the first Putumayo CD collection, I realized that it was a lot more enjoyable for me than designing clothing. After the first two releases came out in 1993, I started trying to figure out a way to leave the clothing business behind. I finally sold that part of the business in 1997, coincidentally on the day Seinfeld aired an episode featuring Putumayo [the episode features Elaine going shopping at a Putumayo store – ed.].
In light of the changing market for music, do you now regret the decision?
Not for one second. Yes, it has gotten somewhat tougher, but we’ve really seen a growing interest in world music and increasing sales of our CDs around the world. Some of our earlier CDs like Arabic Groove, French Café and Salsa Around The World continue to sell strongly even though they’ve been available for many years. One of my favorites of the past year, Latin Jazz, has gotten considerable praise from the Latin and jazz community. It’s great when you can introduce both new listeners as well as experienced world music fans to artists they hadn’t heard of.
What would you say is the one unifying goal that drives each and every release?
There really is a musical aesthetic running through our releases. I sometimes call it the “spirit of Bob Marley.” His music was universal and that’s really the kind of music I’m looking for. World and roots music serves to lift people’s spirits in areas of the world that struggle with poverty, disease, war and other problems. It helps them rise above their daily problems.
Was it always intended that artist Nicola Heindl would be doing all the artwork? Why go this route?
Actually, as with the creation of Putumayo World Music, it was a coincidence that led me to her. I was looking for an illustrator to do the covers of our first two CDs and Nicola happened to be a friend of the person that did our store displays. I’d bought a note card in London that she’d illustrated and loved her style, which seemed to capture a sense of joyous naiveté that marks much of the exceptional music created around the world.
Most people starting a music label would have gone the artist driven/single artist album approach, what drew you to this highly successful approach of producing compilations?
I was and am interested in travel, music and art and felt that it would be helpful to introduce people to other cultures through a musical travel-log. It seemed natural and, 15 years later, still seems right for me. We’ve released 15 artist albums, but I never felt like we did a good enough job promoting them.
You oversee a big company. Yet still find time to do your radio show? Why do you take the time to do a radio show yourself?
My feeling is that radio is one of the best ways to introduce music to people and as time has gone on and more and more stations have been carrying our radio show, it becomes a kind of responsibility. It also helps me consider themes and songs that could be used in our CD series. World Lounge, for one, began as a radio show.
Everyone has their own way of doing A&R. What works for you?
There’s nothing like listening to great African music in a club in Cape Verde or Capetown. One of my favorite experiences took place about eight years ago in funky bar in Dakar. A few of the members of Orchestra Baobab were performing Afro-Latin music for about 15 old timers dancing African rumba. It was so magical that I went back the next two nights. These days, we spend a lot of time on the internet, going through our database of more than 10,000 songs we like, attending festivals and generally searching the world for great music.
So did you ever thank that employee who was playing terrible music in the store for prompting you to create the mixes that lead to the launching of the label?
I plan on tracking him down and inviting him to our SummerStage concert. I remember him fondly, although I wasn’t really amused to hear techno/metal music in my store.
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