Darius Rucker

Capitol Records is a major United States–based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but as of 2011 operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine. It is a... wholly owned subsidiary of EMI. The Capitol Records Company was founded by songwriter Johnny Mercer in 1942, with the financial help of fellow songwriter and film producer Buddy DeSylva and the business acumen of Glenn Wallichs , owner of Music City, at the time the biggest record store in Los Angeles. Johnny Mercer first suggested the idea of starting a record company while he was golfing with Harold Arlen and Bobby Sherwood. He told them, "I’ve got this idea of starting a record company. I get so tired of listening to the way everyone treats music. I keep feeling they’re selling out. And I don’t like the way artists are treated either. Bing Crosby isn’t the only one who can make records. I don’t know, I think it would be fun." By 1941, Mercer was not only an experienced songwriter, but a singer with a number of records to his name.
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Hidden Beach is an American independent record label specializing in Urban Alternative, R&B, Soul, Inspirational and Contemporary Jazz music genres. Hidden Beach was formed in 1998 as the vision of its founder and Chief Executive Officer, Steve McKeever and currently holds a distribution deal... with Universal Music Distribution Group. Steve McKeever, CEO, Founder and Chief Creative Officer has spent over 20 years in the music industry. McKeever was born in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from St. Ignatius High School, McKeever attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he graduated in 1982. From there, he attended Harvard Law School and earned his J.D degree in 1985. After graduating from Harvard Law School, McKeever was hired by the law firm of Irell & Manella LLP in Los Angeles as an entertainment lawyer. While there, he discovered comedian Robin Harris, and helped him land a role in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. In 1991, McKeever joined Motown Records as senior vice president of artists and repertoire, where he expanded the label's line-up with people like Queen Latifah, while at the same time managing blockbuster acts like Boyz II Men and Stevie Wonder.
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Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has... its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources. Musically, rock has centered around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music with a 4/4 beat utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
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Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African-American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally... used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. The term has subsequently had a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, the term rhythm and blues was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. By the 1970s, rhythm and blues was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as "Contemporary R&B". Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine coined the term "rhythm and blues" in 1948 as a musical marketing term in the United States. It replaced the term "race music", which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed offensive in the postwar world.
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