by Victoria Cheng
The long metal shelves sit empty on the warehouse floor of the Rounder Records building on Camp Street and the last stacks of duct-taped boxes accumulate in a corner, awaiting shipment.
For two decades, the rhythms and twang of the best bluegrass and folk music acts in the country passed through these walls. Now, with the building sold and up for lease, the music will flow through Rounder’s new location in Burlington.
During the last stages of the move in mid-February, a few straggling employees unplugged the office computers and telephones, wrapping up stray electric cords and a local piece of music history.
As Rounder Records grew from its humble beginnings in 1970 as the brain-child of two Tufts grads, the label branched out with imprints for children’s music, reggae, jazz and pop, becoming in the process an independent music powerhouse. Its roster of artists now includes Bruce Cockburn, They Might Be Giants, Raffi and Alison Kraus, to name a very few.
Local acts such as Tracy Bonham, Michael Tarbox and the Tarbox Ramblers and Guy Van Duzer also made their way from Cambridge music clubs to the Rounder label. Rounder artist and repertoire talent scouts regularly showed up at the Lizard Lounge, Toad, Johnny D’s and the Middle East.
“Rounder has an astute group of listeners, a lot of people who work at the warehouse, who supported used record stores and came out to clubs,” said music critic Steve Morse, who fears that the company’s move signals capitulation to the economics of the business. “I think they’re cashing out, from a cultural point of view… You see what’s happening nationally with file-sharing programs, where a lot of kids don’t want to pay for music. They’re closing, laying-off, cutting corners and now moving to prolong the life of the label, to help the label survive in the long-run, but in the short-run, it’s a devastating blow.”
Morse said he recalls the Rounder events at Davis Square's Johnny D’s as a crucial part of the Cambridge music scene. “They’ve been a vital presence in Cambridge for so long and there’s a cultural stimulation of having Rounder in Cambridge, not to mention the prestige.”
Bill Nowlin, one of the label’s founders, said he also has fond memories of the area. He and co-founder Ken Irwin lived for folk music events at Club 47 in Harvard Square.
“Cambridge was a formative aspect of my musical education,” he said.
"The link goes back over 40 years. We were first based in Somerville, and we moved to our location in North Cambridge around 1984," he said.
"I was very happy with the location but the building was deteriorating and we had worries it would crumble over time. The warehouse, the whole back third of the building, we needed when we used to do distribution for several hundred other small labels, but those days are gone. Maybe we could have fixed it up internally, but there was a feeling that it was time for a change of some sort," he said.
Nowlin said he would welcome the idea of a return to Cambridge. “We’re not in a position to do anything in the next five years, but if the powers that be in Cambridge can make us an offer, I can imagine a location that would include Rounder and Club Passim forming a cultural enclave.”
The long metal shelves sit empty on the warehouse floor of the Rounder Records building on Camp Street and the last stacks of duct-taped boxes accumulate in a corner, awaiting shipment.
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