MARCH 2017 BUDDY 11

B L U E S

Beginning in 1974 in hishometown of Austin as a bassplayer, Eddie’s career has evolvedover the years to include pro-ducer, promoter and record la-bel founder as well. And as aresult, he is also something of aBlues historian. But that’s be-cause it’s his history too.

After playing bass for numer-ous bands and artists includingLou Ann Barton and HubertSumlin, Eddie landed a primespot in Anson Funderburgh &the Rockets and moved to Dal-las. It was both rewarding andexhausting. Funderburgh touredintensely and it made Eddie thinkthere must be other, less exhaust-ing ways to make it in the musicbusiness.

In 1984, while living in Dal-las, Stout started his first label,Pee Wee Records. During itsseven-year run, the label released14 albums, including one by UPWilson. “When I was playingbass with Mark Pollack & theMidnighters, we used to playThe Bluebird in Fort Worth,”says Eddie.

“UP and Robert Ealey used tocome sit in. I had just completedthe Texas Lovers project for mylabel and was fired up. I went toUP and said, ‘Let’s do an album’“.Pee Wee Records eventuallyincluded releases by The Pala-dins, Ted Roddy, AnsonFunderburgh, Mark Pollock,Kathy Murray and the Kilowatts,all of which Stout licensed for

IF WORKING IN BLUES MUSIC PAID WHATIIt’s worth to our culture, Eddie Stout would beIa millionaire many times over. That’s not thecase, but The Blues Foundation which named Stouta recipient of the Keeping The Blues Alive Awardsfor 2017 has recognized his 40+ years of being atenacious and tireless supporter of the genre.

European distribution.His experience led to a job

with Amazing Records, helpingto secure licensing agreementsfor them; so, shutting down PeeWee Records, he returned toAustin. Stout brought his skillsto the Antones’ label as well.With Eddie’s efforts, nearly ev-ery artist on the Antone’s labeltoured Europe and had Euro-pean licensing and distribution,including taking Lou Ann Bartonand 22 other Texans to the So-viet Union.

But the dot com crash of theearly ’90s caused the record busi-ness to come to screeching halt.Technology changed the busi-ness forever. No one was physi-cally buying CDs — peoplestarted downloading their mu-sic. And no one was buying Blues.

A stint with Malaco Recordslasted a year. The distance be-tween Jackson, Mississippi andAustin, Texas, proved too diffi-cult. Suddenly, Eddie Stout wasout of Blues and selling shoes.

But he still had a passion forthe music he grew up with and in1999 started a new label, DialtoneRecords. As of 2017, Dialtonehas released over 30 projects, allby African American musicians– all great talents, but many un-known–outside their communi-ties. Stout handpicks the back-ing bands and produces the re-leases. – “Dialtone Records is notabout touring,” says Stout. “It’sabout recording these amazing

Tenacious andtireless

Eddie Stout receives the Keeping The Blues Alive Awardsfor 2017 from The Blues Foundation

By Blue Lisamusicians so they’re not lost orforgotten.”

Not that there aren’t any tours.Every year the label does at leastone overseas trip. In July of thisyear, Stout will take CookieMcGee and Birdlegg on a shorttour with appearances scheduledin Sweden, Norway and Belgium.

After beingripped off bytwo differentdistributors inhis career, Stoutdecided tohandle the dis-tribution him-self. There isonly one placeto buy his re-leases — on theD i a l t o n eweb site atdialtonrecords.com

Eddie Stoutalso heads theEast Side KingsFoundation, anonprofit orga-nization that“Serves to pro-tect, celebrate,

and preserve “African AmericanBlues, Jazz and Gospel” in Aus-tin.” The foundation presents theEast Side Kings Festival every fall(in 2017 it’s September 9 & 10),and has a SXSW showcase sched-uled on March 16 featuring TheEast Side Kings, Cookie McGee,Birdlegg, Lady Lotion, AndreaDawson, Captain Jack Watson,Crystal Thomas and EJ Mathews.More information about theseevents can be found atf a c e b o o k . c o m /EastsideKingsFestival. Stout ac-knowledges his fellow EastsideKings Foundation Board of Di-rectors members, Jason Moellerand Stevie Fulton in being in-strumental to the foundationssuccess.

He also works with two Japa-nese entrepreneurs — YasufumiHigurashi & Kochi Akira — onprojects. Eddie says “These arethe two guys who believed in mefor 27 years. They owned P-Vine/Blues Interaction distribution/record company in Japan. Theyknow more about blues thananybody I know. Without theirhelp, Dialtone would not bearound.”

And although he’s not mon-etarily a rich man, the love andsupport of 4-year-old daughterElena and wife Sylvia make hima rich man indeed. The Blues ishis business, and right now hislife — and business — is good.

Eddie Stout — keeping theblues alive for more than 40 years.Here’s to many, many more. ■

His career includes: producer, promoter and record label founder as well: Eddie Stout