Forte Records (2)

Kansas City, Missouri soul and funk label founded by Ellis Taylor (2), active from 1967 to 1980. Also appears as "Forte" only. In 1966 and 1967, Ellis Taylor (2) began the initial work of founding the record label. Five songs were recorded in Chicago's RCA Studios in 1967 by Kansas City group The Rayons and Leroy Harris (4), representing the first two singles (the fifth track went unreleased and the artist is unknown). In 1970, he reissued The Hen , originally released on Marva Whitney's MJC Records (4). Taylor and Whitney soon married and collaborated on recordings over the next seven years. Throughout the late '60s and mid '70s several of his artists and recordings saw issues on bigger labels such as Decca, Swan, Excello, and Paula - but the overall success of the label was debatable, being a constant quest to find a hit. A lot of the cuts throughout the history of the label, were actually composed of rehashed backing tracks from earlier songs by other artists recorded for the label. Forte Records (2) saw its final two 45 releases in 1980, after a young entrepreneur named Jesse Hill experimented with recording with Oliver Sain in St. Louis. Numero Group would release the complete Forte Records (2) collection in 2013 on [m629618].