Florida Funk: Henry Stone and T.K. Records (1976)

ARTICLE BY – Steve Ditlea
“It would be hard to imagine a more unlikely location for a major recording center than Hialeah, Florida. Nestled between Miami and The Everglades, a racetrack its best known cultural attraction, this sleepy tropical town of 100,000 is far removed from the New York-Los Angeles-Nashville axis around which the music business revolves. Despite its location, or perhaps because of it, Hialeah has given birth to an extremely popular elemental rhythm-and-blues sound which is at odds with the slick string-laden soul music produced elsewhere. In the past 18 months the Miami Sound, as it is known, clattering, boisterous, hot-blooded, has become a fixture in discos around the country and at the top of the national pop charts…The current trend may be toward black-owned r&b labels, but Henry Stone, who is white and in his late 50’s, has never lost touch with the pulse of the streets.”

DATE OF PUBLICATION – Sunday, March 7, 1976