Curtom Records

Curtom Records was a record label founded by Curtis Mayfield and Eddie Thomas in March 1968 as an independently distributed music label. It was located at 8541 South Stony Island Boulevard. The name of the label came from a hybrid of the names "Curtis" and "Thomas". Prior to Curtom, Mayfield had started two other labels: Windy C and Mayfield which both had closed down. The company's motto was "We're a Winner", taken from one the hit songs from Mayfield's group The Impressions released by ABC Records. At the inception, Mayfield was the company principal producer and A&R person. Other staff included Johnny Pate and Donny Hathaway. Pate left in 1972. Most of the artists on Curtom did not write their own music, which lead to the studio producers such as LeRoy Hutson, Lowrell Simon, Ed Townsend, Gil Askey and Marvin Yanch and Chuck Jackson to produce and write music. The first release on Curtom was This Is My Country released in 1968.

Mayfield was not involved on the business aspects of… More