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• Photo Gallery: Rare Photos Taken at Columbia's Famed 30th Street Studio
Amid drastic drop-offs in CD sales, the major labels have discovered new sources of revenue — by looking in their basements. Sony BMG recently launched Icon Collectibles, a line of rare photos from the label's archives, with candid, unpublished shots of artists from Miles Davis to Bob Dylan, and Warner label Rhino Entertainment just started selling reproductions of concert posters for bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane.
"The downturn caused everyone to say, 'What assets do we have that we're not taking advantage of?' " says John Ingrassia, the head of Sony BMG's catalog division. Ingrassia started exploring the Sony BMG archives, three stories beneath the label's Manhattan headquarters. There he found rows and rows of binders with thousands of photos — from a young Bob Dylan rehearsing in Carnegie Hall to Billie Holiday recording Lady in Satin in 1957. Soon afterward, Sony BMG started up Icon Collectibles, selling limited-edition prints of dozens of those images for between $300 and $1,700.
Rhino, a label that specializes in reissues of classic rock, recently bought the rights to the Family Dog archive, a collection of psychedelic concert posters from the San Francisco scene, and has begun selling reprints of 17 of them. "We'd been looking for ways to expand our core businesses," says Rhino executive vice president Gregg Goldman. "It's partially to offset the challenges in the physical market with the expertise we have."
Selling artwork will never be a primary business for the labels — Ingrassia hopes Icon Collectibles will reach $1 million in revenue in the next year or two — but in a struggling industry, duplicating archived photos can produce solid revenue without any expense. "Given the fact that the retail prices on the photographs are high, there is enough margin there for a record company — if they're careful in how they choose and how they market the photographs — to make money," says Peter Blachley, owner of New York gallery Morrison Hotel, which kicked off an exhibit of the Sony BMG photos in July. "There is a business there."
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Rhino's Family Dog Collection
Signed and numbered prints of 17 classic Sixties concert posters for the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Bo Diddley and many others, created by San Francisco collective Family Dog Presents are available for between $600 and $1,900 jackgallery.com.
Prints of the above Grateful Dead poster from the Sixties are
currently on sale from San Francisco collective Family Dog
Presents
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Prints of the above Bo Diddley poster from the Sixties are currently on sale from San Francisco collective Family Dog Presents
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Prints of the above Doors poster from the Sixties are currently on sale from San Francisco collective Family Dog Presents
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Sony BMG's Icon Collectibles
Dozens of limited-edition prints of vintage photos from the label's archives are available, including pics of Sly Stone, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, for between $300 and $1,700 depending on the size and quality of the print. Click below for a sampling of photos available and visit the collection's website at icon-collectibles.com for more info.
• Columbia's 30th Street Studio: Photos of Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin Come to Morrison Hotel Gallery
[From Issue 1058 — August 7, 2008]