London-based British record label, started in 1978 as
a division of Chiswick Records, founded in 1975 by
Ted Carroll and Roger Armstrong, as the imprint for
the company’s reissue catalog. Ace soon became the
principal label and grew into one of the most important sources of reissues of blues and R&B recordings from the 1940s onward. A&R consultants
prominent in programming blues and R&B releases
have included John Broven, Ray Topping, and Tony
Rounce.
Striking licensing deals with American labels, Ace
was prominent in the LP era both for high-quality
reissues of mainstream blues artists such as B. B.
King, Elmore James, and Smokey Hogg and for
systematic reissues of many R&B artists including
Maxwell Davis, Floyd Dixon, Gene Phillips, Pee
Wee Crayton, Jimmy McCracklin, Joe Houston,
Saunders King, Little Willie Littlefield, Jimmy
Nelson, and Joe Lutcher. In pursuit of this endeavor,
the company briefly revived the long-defunct ten-inch
LP and further pursued the idea in 2003 by issuing a
series of CDs called ‘‘The Ace 1000 Series,’’ that
catered to situations in which the intended program
made for a short CD. The Modern and associated
labels, whose masters Ace acquired in the CD era,
have figured largely among the sources drawn on for
reissues and have been repackaged systematically on
CDs in the twenty-first century. Such CDs include
lavishly annotated boxed sets by B. B. King and
Elmore James. Similar access to Detroit’s Sensation
label has allowed releases by John Lee Hooker and
Todd Rhodes.
Significant blues releases have been licensed from
Excello and from Specialty, including releases from
Joe and Jimmy Liggins, Roy Milton and Camille
Howard. These releases were unusual in that they
used American-compiled packages; most Ace issues
are assembled in house. Other labels that have
been drawn on include Decca, Combo, Bandera,
Bobbin, Peacock, King/Federal, Old Town, Goldband, Stax, Dig, and other labels associated with
Johnny Otis. In 1995 the catalog included eleven
CDs by John Lee Hooker, six CDs and a sevenCD boxed set by Sam ‘‘Lightnin’ ’’ Hopkins, and
ten CDs by B. B. King. In 2003 there were twenty
CDs in the catalog by Albert King alone. These
statistics exemplify the lavish scale of Ace’s
operations.
HOWARD RYE