'''Nashboro Records''' was an American [[gospel music|gospel]] label principally active in the 1950s and 1960s.
==History== Nashboro was founded in [[Nashville]], [[Tennessee]] by Ernie Lafayette Young (1892-1977), who was the owner of a record store, Ernie's Record Mart, and sponsor of a weekly hit parade show on radio station [[WLAC]]. In 1951, Young founded Nashboro to issue gospel records, and the following year also created [[Excello Records]] to release secular music, especially R&B and blues acts.<ref name=encyc>Robert Darden, "Nashboro Records". W.K. McNeil, ed. ''Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music''. Routledge, 2013, pp. 270-271.</ref>
Nashboro became a prolific issuer of Southern gospel groups, and Young frequently signed gospel acts from competing labels after they had folded. Some of the groups were backed by the [[Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section]] in the studio.<ref name=encyc/>
Young died in 1977, by which time Nashboro was increasingly reissuing out of its back catalogue rather than issuing new material. The label's catalogue was sold to [[AVI Records|AVI Entertainment]] in 1994,<ref>{{cite news |last=Lichtman |first=Irv |date=September 1, 1979 |title=American Variety Acquires Nashboro |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DyQEAAAAMBAJ&dq=%22AVI+Records%22&pg=PT2 |newspaper=Billboard |page=3 |access-date=June 11, 2015}}</ref> [[MCA Records]] in 1997, and [[Hip-O]] shortly thereafter.<ref name=encyc/> Relatively little of it has seen reissue, though in December 2013 [[Tompkins Square Records]] released a 4-CD compilation of Nashboro artists titled ''I HEARD THE ANGELS SINGING: Electrifying Black Gospel from the Nashboro Label, 1951-1983'' (894807002981).<ref>''I Heard the Angels Singing: Electrifying Black Gospel from the Nashboro Label, 1951-1983.'' Tompkins Square Records, 2014. Includes essay about label by Opal Louis Nations.</ref>
Nashboro was one of several labels to have its catalog of master recordings destroyed in the [[2008 Universal fire]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-recordings.html|title=The Day the Music Burned|last=Rosen|first=Jody|date=2019-06-11|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-07-02|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
==Artists== {{Col-begin}} {{Col-break}} *[[The Angelic Gospel Singers]] *[[The Barrett Sisters]] *[[Horace Clarence Boyer|The Famous Boyer Brothers]] *[[Alex Bradford]] *[[J. Robert Bradley]] *[[Brother Joe May]] *[[Dorothy Love Coates]] *[[The Consolers]] *[[Edna Gallmon Cooke]] *[[The Crescendos]] ("[[Oh Julie (The Crescendos song)|Oh Julie]]") *[[The Dixie Nightingales]] *[[Isaac Douglas]] *[[The Fairfield Four]] *[[Five Singing Stars]] *[[The Gospel Harmonettes]]<ref>[https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-gospel-harmonettes-mn0001357069/discography The Gospel Harmonettes disco] Retrieved 29 October 2021</ref> *[[Bessie Griffin]] {{Col-break}} *[[Pilgrim Jubilees]] *[[The Radio Four]] *[[Cleophus Robinson]] *[[Silvertone Singers of Cincinnati]] *[[Roscoe Shelton]] *[[The Skylarks (gospel group)|The Skylarks]] *[[The Jewell Gospel Singers]] *[[Gloria Spencer (musician)|Gloria Spencer]] *[[Earlston Ford]] *[[Candi Staton]] *[[Slim & the Supreme Angels]] *[[The Swanee Quintet]] *Sister Emma Tucker *[[Willie Neal Johnson & The Gospel Keynotes]] *[[Marvin Yancy]] *[[Sister Lucille Pope|Sister Lucille Pope & the Pearly Gates]] *The Bright Stars *Oscar Bishop {{Col-end}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==See also== *[[Excello Records]]
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[[Category:American record labels]] [[Category:Gospel music record labels]] [[Category:Record labels established in 1951]] [[Category:Record labels based in Nashville, Tennessee]] [[Category:1951 establishments in Tennessee]]