Bootlegging...

Some of the most expensive records today are bootlegs from the glory days of the boot in the early to mid 70s. They had started earlier with Bob Dylan’s 1969's Great White Wonder. This is technically the first Dylan bootleg album with unofficially released tracks from 1967's The Basement Tapes, songs recorded in a Minnesota hotel room in 1961.
The Rolling Stones and the Beatles were also early bootlegs of live shows and outtakes, but by the early 70s, unless you’d been bootlegged, you weren’t trying. There were great labels that produced them like The Amazing Kornyfone Record Label. It was one of the first bootlegging record labels in America. Kornyfone was based in Southern California in the 1970s. The label released albums from such artists as The Beatles, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Pink Floyd, Genesis, and others. Kornyfone was known for its packaging, with interesting artwork and informative covers. In some cases they were better products than the official releases.
They started in 1974 and between 1974 and the end of 1976, one hundred-plus titles from the flagship label, The Amazing Kornyfone Record Label, were supplemented by represses of Smokin' Pig titles, thirty-two titles on TKRWM (The Kornyfone Records for the Working Man), a dozen double-albums on Singer's Original Double Discs (SODD), 20 releases on the Phonygraf label (Phonygraf), and sixteen releases on Highway High Fi Collector's Edition Records (HHCER) (which regularly appeared with TAKRL or Smokin' Pig labels - just to add to the confusion). The TAKRL label was active between 1974 and 1977. In 1978 they re-pressed some of their titles with black and white covers and they were all sold them via mail order in the music press, if you remember those elicit ads. I’d like to reproduce those if anyone has a picture?
Every major act was represented and as taping shows became more sophisticated, more labels emerged like Rubber Dubber. Ironically, these recordings became official releases in the last 10 -20 years, by long gone artists on labels getting hold of the rights where possible. If you taped a show off FM radio in the 70s, chances are it has since been released as classic rock continues to archive itself. The amount of radio shows released on vinyl is huge
Nowadays if you have got original 70s bootlegs, often on coloured or splatter vinyl, they can be valuable, especially triple or more box sets. They provide insights as to the quality of bands live. I always wanted early Steve Miller Band live recordings and although I never bought any boots, a long time ago, a customer sent me a CD of some. They were brilliant and should really find an official release, but because they’re from ‘68/69 and don't obviously have any hits on, I suspect they won’t.
It's ironic that they started out as illegal and expensive and only of interest to fans with deep pockets and have become expensive collectables often relied on by the artists themselves for their own retrospective collections. They have only ever been a positive thing and have provided fans with more of their favourite bands.
I love the artwork, pasted to the sleeves, often hand-drawn, they had a style all their own and they have become part of rock’s culture, which can’t really be reproduced and along the way, documented performances by great groups which would have been forgotten long ago, especially those that loved to improvise, from a time when demand for rock music outstripped the ability to record new material.

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