Solar

Solar (an acronym of Sound Of Los Angeles Records) was founded in 1977 by Soul Train booking agent/talent supervisor Soul Train Gang (2)), Griffey and Cornelius decided to shut down the label as Cornelius wanted to focus his energies on the TV show, which was a monster hit in first-run syndication and required his complete attention to keep it so.

Legalities taken care of, Soul Train Records closed down and Griffey reorganized the company as SOLAR in late 1977, which quickly became one of the most important and influential Urban Funk/Disco & Soul imprints of the late Seventies to mid-Eighties, and even spawned a subsidiary label Klymaxx).

Griffey and Cornelius remained good friends, and as a result, the new Solar label maintained close ties to the show. Not surprisingly, Soul Train favourites Howard Hewett. Shalamar was in fact Solar's biggest-selling and most influential act - scoring nearly 20 hit singles and classics such as: "Right in the Socket", "Make that Move", "A Night to " and "Dead Giveaway".

The Solar success story was by no means confined to one act, several other artists enjoyed success, including: Leon Sylvers was the producer behind the trademark Solar sound: funky, progressive dance music infused with soul and disco.

The late 1980s saw the label's fortunes decline: the reasons for which are many, but include A & R problems with Shalamar (primarily maintaining the group's identity while former Hewett and Watley were having successful solo careers on other labels) and the shifting musical directions of R&B, dance and popular music in general in the late Eighties and early 1990s.

Throughout the label's lifetime, Solar was distributed by EMI, which had bought it from Griffey after the label's 1995 closure.

Dick Griffey died on September 24, 2010 at age 71 from complications of quadruple-by heart surgery.

Labelcode: LC 5755
.