2020 marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Declaration of Independents, a compilation of independent label rock music that I co-executive produced with Steve Leeds, who since 2004 has been Vice President of Talent and Industry Affairs at SiriusXM. Given the album’s title, the fitting release date was July 4, 1980.
Declaration was one of the first compilations of its type, and the only album on the short-lived label Steve and I co-owned, Ambition Records. We have known each other since 1969, when we both worked as American University students at the available-only-on-campus, student-run radio station, WAMU-AM.
Ambition licensed 13 songs from small labels nationwide, by such artists as SVT (from San Francisco, with Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna), Bubba Lou and the Highballs (also from San Francisco), Robin Lane and the Chartbusters (Boston); Kevin Dunn (Atlanta; with a highly original electronic version of Chuck Berry’s “Nadine”); Pylon (Athens, Ga.; their cut “Cool” was co-produced by the band and Dunn); The News (led by Eddy Delbridge, of Rock Springs, Wyoming), Luxury (Des Moines) and Ragnar Kvaran (Ann Arbor). There were also several cuts from Washington, D.C., area artists: Razz (with the late Tommy Keene), Tex Rubinowitz and the late Root Boy Slim; and two from Springfield, Missouri, the late Jim Wunderle, and D. Clinton (Donnie) Thompson, one of the most phenomenal roots-rock guitarists, then and now.
The album was licensed in the UK to Stiff Records, then at or near the height of its fame. It was also licensed in Canada to Basement Records. The amazing cover art (you can get a basic idea of it from a 2008 Wilfully Obscure blog post) was by two artists who went on to become highly successful (later designing the cover to the Beastie Boys LP Licensed to Ill, among others), Steve Byram and David Gambale.
The musician associated with the LP who arguably became most successful, Ben Vaughn, didn’t even play on it. He designed Ambition Records’ logo, in his other capacity at the time as a graphic designer. In 2016, I wrote about Ben’s wonderful podcast, The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn, and I interviewed him about his multi-faceted career as a musician/songwriter/producer/composer/deejay in 2013.
I had the opportunity to look back at the production and release of the album earlier this year, when I was interviewed by Springfield, Missouri’s Dale Wiley, for his podcast. As noted above, Springfield was a key part of the album. Among considerable additional coverage of Springfield’s music scene, Dale recently interviewed Donnie Thompson. (Earlier in the year Dale interviewed Ben Vaughn.) Donnie and bassist-producer-bandleader Lou Whitney played together in a number of bands, most crucially The Morells, The Skeletons, and The Symptoms. Ambition also released a 45 by the latter (under the name The Original Symptoms, with cover art by Ben Vaughn), of “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)”. In 2012, I wrote about their classic sound in a post for Americana One (then called Sun209). Lou, who was a revered, multitalented musician, business owner, mentor, (and somewhat of a philosopher), passed away in 2014. His death reverberated well beyond his home town.
Declaration was released as vinyl-only; as far as I know, it’s become a (relatively) rare record. But the music on it is timeless, as vibrant as it was on release 40 years ago.