Rounder Records Vinyl, CDs & Cassettes

Three friends who met as students in Cambridge, Massachusetts, started Rounder Records in 1970 without music degrees, business degrees, or any background as musicians. What they had was a genuine passion for American roots music at a time when most of the industry wasn't paying attention to it, and the willingness to build a catalog around what they loved rather than what was commercially obvious. By their own telling, they were doing roots music before anyone called it that, and Americana before the word existed.

The early catalog ranged from bluegrass to blues to Cajun to folk, always with the same underlying commitment: document the music that mattered, treat the artists right, and let the records find their audience at whatever pace that took. J.D. Crowe and the New South's 1975 release on Rounder is one of the records credited with revitalizing bluegrass as a living tradition, featuring a band that included Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, and Tony Rice, names that would define the genre for the next four decades.

Alison Krauss came to Rounder as a teenager and built her entire career here, becoming the most Grammy-decorated female artist in the award's history. Her 2007 collaboration with Robert Plant, Raising Sand, won five Grammys and introduced the label to a whole new audience. Béla Fleck. George Thorogood. The SteelDrivers. Mary Chapin Carpenter. Doc Watson. Irma Thomas. More than 3,000 titles across fifty-plus years, 54 Grammy Awards, and a founders' trio that was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2016.

Now part of Concord and based in Nashville, Rounder remains the most important dedicated home for American roots music on record.