Thomas Boddie

Co-owner and head engineer of Boddie Recording Co. in Cleveland, Ohio. Born in 1922, died in 2006. Operated the Luau Records (2), Bounty Records, Soul Kitchen, Soul Mine (2), Plaid Records (8), Cookin Records (5), and Caribi Records labels. Began recording radio programs and experimenting with electrical gadgets in the attic, then moved his noisy hobby to the garage. In 1959, Boddie bought an old farmhouse in a neighborhood that still housed Italian field hands. Behind the Dutch colonial was a dirt-floored cinderblock building about the size of a two-car garage. Boddie transformed the former dairy building into a studio. Louise Boddie, a 1953 graduate of Glenville High School, joined his life in 1963, and the Boddie Recording Co. became an everyday operation. Thomas Boddie was still recording music and repairing organs in 2006, when he passed.