An Independent Story: 75 Years of Song
In 1949, Howie Richmond, the son of a Tin Pan Alley sheet music distributor, created a music publishing company that would bridge the post World War II standards with early rock and roll and American folk music. TRO Essex Music Group would eventually house some of the greatest songs and songwriters in American Popular Music. This story is dedicated to the composers, lyricists, singer-songwriters, publishers, artists, producers, pluggers, arrangers, accountants, managers, printers, engineers and everyone else that helped create and curate these incredible songs and bring them to life.
Words From Howie Richmond
"In the beginning, it was about songwriters, singers, musicians and arrangers- that’s where the songs began, with those origins. And if somebody wrote a song, either the words or music or both, in the end for all the people who might be on my side of the fence, the songs started to come to exist. It didn’t have to be a song that you wrote or published because we were all a part of it. We all admired what was happening. The whole music business...we all rooted for it at the time. So, when somebody tells you how they remember it their memory of it is correct. And I remember it was a happy time. I really was, in a sense, just a messenger. There was no connection in those days between writers and singers except through a publisher. It was just a great thrill to be carrying this valuable product that we had heard and wanted to share. I mean, how could you not go where those songs would take you?"