Quilt By Association

Quilt By Association

Investigating The Secret World Of An Enigmatic Record Label

By Nick Spacek

From the ‘50s through the ‘70s, some of America’s “budget” record labels gained notoriety for seemingly random output. They released what they could afford to release and, as such, created a connective thread between musicians and styles that otherwise could not be more disparate.

Few encompassed this scattershot set of sounds quite like Quilt Records.

A scan through their catalog is to see the tympanist stylings of Mrs. Helen Marf; the “spirited, lazy blues walks” of Jumbo Puny O’Dainty; Clyle Davenport’s incidental music from cult British television series Efron’s Flight; and the surfrock of Sparta, Minnesota’s The Dumpster Lads. A random smattering of acts, still somehow cut from the same cloth.

It’s a fascinating legacy. Even the most encyclopedic music historian would probably be stumped when it comes to Quilt’s three decades of releases.

That’s because Quilt Records isn’t real.

Read more on page 20 of the February issue.