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| Pitchfork |
 Do a quick Google search for 12202 Union Avenue, Cleveland, OH. The top result is a Google map that still shows a Boddie Recording label at the address. Switch to Street View, and there's an attractive red two-story house with yellow trim and a sign out front that says "Boddie," with eighth notes standing in for the Ds. Down the driveway, a garage is visible, but it's not an ordinary garage. It's the remains of Boddie Recording Company, the long-lived but never well-known recording concern of Thomas and Louise Boddie. The outbuildings behind the house still contain the ephemera of record labels that long ago faded to silence, a studio that hosted its last session decades ago, and a pressing plant that has sat idle since the mid-1980s, some of the components of the pressing line long since sold off.In this space, a few hundred 45s and LPs were prepared for a world that never bothered to hear them. Though this release doesn't strictly fall under the banner of Numero Group's long-running soul archeology project Eccentric Soul, it fits with the spirit of the project, unearthing not just the music made at Boddie but also the history and personalities surrounding it-- the old, grainy photographs and detailed histories contained in the two liner-note booklets place the music on these three CDs in the context of the people that made it and the place where it was made. Boddie Recording Company was born out of Thomas Boddie's passion for electronics, a passion he acquired when very young. He built his own radios and speaker systems in junior high, went to tech school (the only black student in his class), served in the Army Air Force during World War II. He got himself a job repairing organs after his discharge and apprenticed at a local Cleveland studio while amassing a collection of studio gear in the basement of the house he shared with his brother. Boddie's fledgling company cut its first sides in 1959, the same year Berry Gordy founded Motown on the other side of Lake Erie, but the two companies' arcs could not have been more different. Where Gordy assembled a brilliant core of creative people who built long-lasting working relationships and devised processes of production and quality control that turned his company into a powerhouse, Boddie and his wife worked day and night with very limited resources to build a studio behind their new house that wasn't ready for business until 1964....full text |
| Popmatters |
| The lovable lot at the Numero Group is at it again with another layer of American obscurity that will leave your jaw dropped and your ears hungry for more. The time is 1958 to 1993, the place is 12202 Union Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, home of the Boddie Recording Company, which issued nearly 300 LPs and 45s in its impressive run. Additionally there were more than a million hand-pressed records, 10,000 hours of tape and a whole lot of blood, sweat, and grooves. The fine peeps at the Numero Group remind us that DIY is not now nor was it ever merely the province of punk and indie rawk. Thomas and Louise Boddie were the owners who spent virtually every waking moment churning out more homemade product for a small but respectable public. This three-disc collection is the result of a covenant ‘twixt Louise Boddie and the Numero Group. The collection focuses on three imprints—Thomas Boddie’s Soul Kitchen, Luau, and Bounty, and the variety of artists who graced their recordings. As with past Numero releases, including Smart’s Palace, commemorating a Wichita, Kansas label and boutique, as well as a collection for the Tragar and Note labels, this package is as memorable for the unbridled works of genius it brings to light as for the sheer oddities, eccentricities and impressive flops. As you might expect, the Boddie collection demonstrates that despite having emerged from a secondary market the music from Cleveland—regardless of genre—retained a distinctive and remarkable flavor. “World of Soul” from Chantells comes off as the closest thing to a Motown ripoff—the Gordy-esque drums and rubbery reverb are the key indicators, while the canned audience noises mark it as a decidedly independent production. But even that offers something more than average, a decidedly ragged but determined character that makes this box—and that tune in particular—a real joy to find....full text |
| Elbo |
| The Numero Group goes to Cleveland, finds true DIY gems. The lovable lot at the Numero Group is at it again with another layer of American obscurity that will leave your jaw dropped and your ears hungry for more. The time is 1958 to 1993, the place is 12202 Union Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, home of the Boddie Recording Company, which issued nearly 300 LPs and 45s in its impressive run. Additionally there were more than a million hand-pressed records, 10,000 hours of tape and......full text |
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