What’s the story behind Salsoul Records?
Salsoul was founded in 1973 by the Cayre brothers, combining the Salsa and Latino sounds of artists like Joe Bataan and the Soul records coming out of Philadelphia. The list of artists on the label is pretty phenomenal really – Loleatta Holloway, Double Exposure, and Skyy to name just a few. Not forgetting the production & remix talents of Tom Moulton, Shep Pettibone, and, Vince Montana Jr. Most of our records have been sampled to create some of House Music’s most famous tracks.
Your tees to date have all been a simple monochrome design. Is your new multi-coloured logo tee a mark of something special?
There’s a lot of bootleg Salsoul tees available online already. I wanted to launch some official ones to work alongside the back catalogue and new release activity we’re doing. The first set of tees were a test to see whether there was much of a market for them, so we trialled a lower cost design – black and white. They sold really well, considering we had very little marketing. In the process of the first campaign fans kept on commenting on our Facebook posts saying that they wanted a rainbow design so, we listened & voila. As we progress we may look at a variety of designs but we’ll always offer a logo based tee.
Who designed the famous Salsoul logo?
The original logo was designed by Johnny Crespo back in the early 1970’s. Salsoul is inclusive, it’s for all people regardless of race or origin so we wanted a logo to reflect that and to appeal to all ethnicities. Johnny came up with the rainbow and the clouds to symbolise that.
What was the draw to use the Everpress platform?
I noticed a number of artists, designers, and labels that I liked starting to promote t-shirts on Facebook when I didn’t know they had a store, people like Trevor Jackson. It was just a process of navigating backwards online before I ended up at Everpress. I met with Dan & Alex who explained how it works, I was shocked at how simple it was and we went from there. It’s been a very easy way of working.
What does the future hold for Salsoul?
We’re working with Dimitri From Paris on a compilation of his fave Salsoul tracks mixed together alongside his own very special re-edits – there may be a limited edition Tshirt for this too! We have re-edits from Dr. Packer, which have been received really well, Marquis Hawkes has done two edits, we have lots of vinyl coming and we’re working with the Sounds Familiar crew on a collab release. There’s a lot happening, so watch this space.
Get your hands on an original Salsoul Records rainbow tee today.
