Blue Thumb Records
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Blue Thumb Records was an American record label founded in 1968 by Bob Krasnow, along with former A&M Records executives Tommy Lipuma and Don Graham. Krasnow had been in the record business for a number of years, working as a promotion man for King Records and also working for Buddah/Kama Sutra Records. Blue Thumb was originally intended to be the name of Captain Beefheart's band, but Bob didn't think the name was right for the group. However, he choose the name for his label, and the rest is history.
Some of the acts that appeared on the label include The Crusaders, Hugh Masakela, Captain Beefheart, Robbie Basho, Tom Rapp, Aynsley Dunbar's Retaliation, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, Dave Mason, The Pointer Sisters, T-Rex (in its earlier incarnation as Tyrannosaurus Rex), Ike & Tina Turner, Love, Mark-Almond, and National Lampoon (on the Banana label imprint).
Blue Thumb started out distributing themselves, but went to Capitol/EMI for distribution during late 1970 and early 1971. Gulf and Western's Famous Music Group took over distribution from mid 1971 until late 1974, when the Famous Music record labels was sold off to ABC Records later in the year. ABC kept the Blue Thumb imprint going (primarily for reissues, and for albums by the Pointer Sisters and the Crusaders), right up until ABC was bought out by MCA Records during the first part of 1979. MCA then discontinued the Blue Thumb imprint altogether.
The label was revived in 1995 for non-jazz (usually blues and adult contemporary) releases. This remained so, even after the 1998 mega-merger with parent Universal Music Group and PolyGram and being put under the fold of the Verve Music Group. In early 2005, the Blue Thumb imprint was deactived and was replaced with Verve Forecast to handle such releases.
