V.A. Boddie Acetate Box

From 1965 until 1987, husband and wife Thomas and Louise Boddie provided the greater Cleveland, Ohio, area with custom recording and affordable record manufacturing. The Boddie Recording Company operated out of the African-American couple’s house on the east side of Cleveland, complete with a fullservice, hand-wired analog recording studio and a busy pressing plant steaming around the clock in a converted dairy barn at the back of the estate. A kaleidoscope of northern Ohio musical acts used the Boddie services in one way or another, booking time in the tracking room, cutting reference acetates, or pressing a couple hundred 45s for local distribution. Selecting from the reliable parade of musicians crossing paths with his enterprise, Thomas found time to curate his own stable of talent through his Soul Kitchen, Luau, Caribi, Plaid, and Bounty labels. But by and large, Boddie Recording Company was not a creative endeavor for Thomas or Louise. Instead, it made the Boddies an honest living by providing teenage bands and aspiring gospel ensembles an inexpensive shot at having their own creations laid to wax. Of these hundreds of groups, we’ve selected three that were found in unmarked boxes, never picked up, certainly never released. The labels are a facsimile of the Boddie’s custom acetate sticker, pressed on 48 gram vinyl, housed in a tape box, and sealed with Boddie Recording kraft tape. Great lo fi soul, limited to 1000 boxes!