If Intersound of Roswell, Ga., had a motto it would be: "Intersound: the record company that picks you up when the others let you down."
From classical to country and rap to rock, Intersound comes to center stage to answer the question of what happened to the favorite singer you don't hear on radio anymore.Chances are he's gone to Intersound along with Jefferson Starship, Kansas, Roy Clark, Crystal Gayle, the Gatlin Brothers, Tony Orlando, etc.
In more recent signings, Paulette Carlson, the flamboyant blonde who sang Highway 101 to the top of the hit charts in the late '80s, is back in record stores again with "Reunited," an album from a reformed Highway 101.
By picking up singers when other labels drop them, Intersound has exceeded yearly sales of $30 million, according to Billboard Magazine.
"We deal with established artists who definitely have a market for recordings even though they may no longer be `in' with Top 40 radio," said George Collier, 52, head of the country division.
Collier, who's based in Nashville, said he approaches fired artists after learning about them through the grapevine. Then Intersound offers the standard basic 25-75 royalty split in favor of the company. Country was added in 1992 to the mix, which includes classical, rock, jazz, gospel, rap and nostalgia.
He added, "The trend among the big record companies is that a lot of one-song wonders may sell a million copies of a song, but are soon passed over to make room for another one-song wonder if they don't get a second hit.
"The established acts we pick up may no longer sell millions of copies of records, but people still want to hear them, and there's a reasonably good market for their recordings."
Another boost for Intersound's success is distribution to main retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, Sam Goody and Camelot.
"We're a full-service record company, not what the trade calls an independent," said CEO Don Johnson, 56. "The independents distribute through someone else, but we do the whole thing - record, produce, promote, distribute. So, actually we're not an indy, but somewhere between an indy and a big record company."
The company began with Johnson's efforts to save his own job when American Can Co. decided to discontinue its record division, Pickwick International, which Johnson headed.
"It was a case of buy the operation or be out of a job. So I bought it," he said.
Johnson, who began his career with Capitol during the Beatles explosion, started Intersound in 1982 as a budget classical label in Minneapolis, but moved to Roswell seven years later, all the time expanding.
Now there are offices in Atlanta, Nashville, Minneapolis, Dallas, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal, Winnepeg and Vancouver.
And with the coming of new artists Patricia Conroy and Joe Nichols, Intersound chances a departure from the formula of re-selling established stars.
Conroy never was a star in the United States, but is big in Canadian country music. And Nichols, 19, of Rogers, Ark., is an outright newcomer.
Collier said, "They're great singers, and we think this is going to work. ... We're not afraid to expand if the market proves it's there."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)