Be With Records

Ten years of choice reissues with Be With Records founder Rob Butler

I reached out to Rob Butler back in 2015 as his reissue label Be With Records had come strong out of the gates, reissuing the likes of Leon Ware, Ned Doheny, and the like. He dropped a dizzying array of Balearic fare, but also R&B bangers and hard-to-score boogie b-sides. I reviewed a few of his reissues for Pitchfork, but more importantly, I still play out some of the tunes in DJ sets, like this masterclass in smooth ‘80s boogie-soul:

It’s nearly ten years on and Butler celebrated with a lavish book and rarities set that beggars belief. You should grip a copy for yourself. I reached out to ask a few questions about where Be With has been and where it might be going next.

Was there an album that made you want to start the label?

Not one single album. It was more a combination of factors. Right from the get-go, I knew what I wanted Be With to be: a label to reflect the “all over the place” diversity of my taste, but also that of all my friends who were amazing DJs or just amazing people with great record collections. I didn't ever want to be known as a hip-hop reissue label or soul/funk reissue label or even a “Balearic” label, or whatever generic limitations people often place on these endeavors. Rather than honing in on certain aesthetics, territories or eras, it's music I’ve connected with on a personal level. I think every record we put out is exceptional. And that’s perhaps the only element that ever links one release to the next. It really was –and continues to be– that simple.

I’ve been a record lover and buyer for over 30 years so records are my biggest passion, without question. I’ve DJ’d since I was 15 and worked in record shops from the age of 16. Upon moving to Manchester for my degree, in 2002, I started working at the legendary Piccadilly Records and ended up staying for the best part of my 20s. Starting a label was just one of those things that I’ve had in my head since the late 90s and being obsessed with the output of Stones Throw and Rawkus at the time. I started working in earnest on the ideas around a reissue label in the background of my day job in 2012. My job was in arts & culture marketing – the ‘marketing’ side of which I really didn’t like, the subject matter and long lunches I did like – and I’d been working there for a couple of years. However, I wasn’t happy and I knew I needed a career change. Yet, this time, I wanted to do something I was genuinely passionate about.

So, I suppose the label was borne out of twin frustrations; on a personal / work level but also the ongoing annoyance that my wantlist was so full of rare, prohibitively expensive records and my favorite reissue labels weren’t addressing this. For a while it had been apparent to my friends and I that someone really should be doing more high quality reissues of in demand vinyl records. There were a lot of reissue labels that we always looked to but they were still missing a lot. I thought to myself, ‘there’s room for another label to do all the records that I want to own’. So it definitely started out as something deeply personal – I wanted these records so I thought ‘why don’t I research how to license records and see if I can put them out myself?’ I thought that, if I want them, chances are there’ll be another 500-1000 people around the world who’ll also want those records.

I researched licensing repertoire to release and spoke to some contacts in the industry and everyone seemed to be cautiously optimistic. Seeing as my list of records I consider ripe for reissue stood in the 1000s, I figured my chances of getting a few out seemed to be not that slim.

Leon Ware was your first reissue. What was his reaction when you first contacted him?

His people could not have been cooler. So so helpful, and we're still in touch to this day with his widow, Carol, who helped us with all the subsequent Leon record we did (including the 2019 release of Rainbow Deux) and also his lovely manager, Matt Moses. Look out for more Leon x Be With releases in the coming year or two. Rumour has it there’s a raft of private home-recorded instrumentals that nobody but Leon has ever heard...wink wink. When we first reissued Leon Ware, we had a very entertaining Skype chat with him (documented here) and also re-produced in our 10 Year Anniversary Book, Labour Of Love.

Is there a particular artist where your reissues helped start a re-appreciation of their work?

I’d argue there's been more than one! Steve Hiett for sure (with great help from our co-producers on that reissues campaign, Efficient Space. Ned Doheny, I guess, has benefitted from both Be With and Numero's championing of him at the same time, on both sides of the Atlantic. Remarkably, there's still thousands of people coming across him for the first time with each passing year. That continues to amaze me. Superstar Quamallah, more recently, with the first time vinyl issue of his jazz-rap classic, Invisible Man. There's a good example of a bunch of pre-disposed people, having never heard of him or that album, suddenly discovering him and realizing his output is solid gold. I'm pretty certain our Bahamadia reissue got her in front of a whole new generation of fans, too. The KPM/Tele Music/De Wolfe/Sonoton reissue campaigns have definitely exposed pre-disposed people to the whole library funk/breaks scene, as well. So I'm pretty proud of all that. Lewis Taylor for sure. Thomas Almqvist, Nucleus, the list goes on!

What was the most difficult reissue to get across the finish line?

Bobby Caldwell, for sure, We went back and forth with his people for over 3 years before we got the green light to go ahead. Lewis Taylor also a toughie. Took a long time to gain his trust as he'd been burnt many times over by shady individuals and companies in the music industry.

I also know you were an early champion of the Cassie album and wonder how the recent news of all that she endured landed for you.

The Cassie case? Man, hard to know what even to say. As you suggest, it's beyond horrific. Who knew Diddy was a wrong'un?

You recently reissued one of the rarest Arthur Russell records, a 12” of “In the Light of the Miracle” that only ever got to the test pressing stage back in 1996.

The Arthur one is funny. I had long assumed that the rights behind this would be extremely murky – to the point of it never getting a proper release at any point in the future. However, a good friend, Tim Hayter (Lou's brother) suggested I try Universal for it and, lo and behold, they owned the rights to both, had super beautiful transfers of the tracks for us to use and off we went! So so happy we got to do it, an absolute solid gold treasure.

At what point did you decide to start looking back with the ten year anniversary and put this book/ comp together?

For the 10 Year book/comp, it's funny. It was on my mind throughout 2023 that the following year could be a landmark worth celebrating. I asked my two brothers in a text exchange around this time last year what things they might like to see and my brother Jim, who is himself a veteran music journalist, suggested we do a book. I thought he was joking! He is very much in the mode of books at the moment though, and he was dead serious. He'd just done the Daft Punk one for his publication, Disco Pogo. And he'd previously done the Andy Weatherall one. And they're just about to do an Aphex Twin one (it's finished, shipping soon).

So, I knew I'd be in good hands in terms of the writing and the design work. But I was unsure who would want to read a book about Be With. I'm quite nervous about being too "out there" or making too much of this about "me" so I was fearful that it could be interpreted as a very self-indulgent exercise. However, something was nagging away at me that was basically saying "go on, it'll be fun!" and, eventually, we hit upon a way to do it that was not about me at all but, rather, about all the very cool artists we've had the good fortune to work with over the past decade and all the people that help me to get these records sounding great, looking great and out in the all the shops they need to be.

Of the unreleased tracks compiled, was there anything that just stunned you in that it had never been released before?

I'm probably most floored by the tracks made exclusively for the comp, such as Maston's library G-funk or Kenny Dickenson's ambient-Balearic chug. Andre Cymone's contribution is unbelievably catchy and –in an alternative reality where we could actually get some radio play– it'd be all over the daytime playlists. It's that good. The 52nd Street track which has sat there for 40 years because it was originally meant for Phylis Hyman is a monster and the story behind that is really great. But people are going to have to cop the boxset to read all about that!

After the jump, more albums that Be With still hopes to reissue one day and a few that got away…