James Stroud

James Stroud (born July 4, 1949 in Shreveport, Louisiana) is an American musician and record producer who works in pop, rock, R&B, soul, disco, and country music. He played with Malaco Rhythm Section for Malaco Records .^[2] In the 1990s he was the president of Giant Records (a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Records) and held several credits as a session drummer. He later worked for DreamWorks Records Nashville and in 2008 founded his own label, Stroudavarious Records.

Biography

Stroud was born in Louisiana, one of five children. He began playing drums at local bar bands in Texas and Louisiana. Stroud worked with musician such as Paul Davis in the 1960s. He and Davis also took on songwriting duties for Mississippi-based Malaco Records which was an R&B label. He played with and produced many acts throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He was a standalone session musician working with the band Sparks which he provided guitar drum and keyboards for. He also started playing drums and synthesizer with Paul Davis,^[3] taking influences from rock and R&B artists. In the early-1980s he began playing for Eddie Rabbitt.^[4] From there, Stroud had become a prolific session drummer in Nashville, Tennessee, backing Ronnie Milsap, K.T. Oslin and others. He was also a member of the Marshall Tucker Band. He worked with R&B musician such as Dorothy Moore, King Floyd, Frederic Knight, Jackie Moore, The Controllers, Fern Kenney, and Anita Word^[2] too.

In the late-1980s, Stroud founded The Writers' Group, a publishing company. He also took up producing, and in 1989 was named by the Academy of Country Music as Producer of the Year.^[4] When Warner Bros. Records founded the Giant Records branch, Stroud became president of the new label and produced several of its acts, including Carlene Carter, Tracy Lawrence, Daryle Singletary and Clay Walker.^[4] At the same time, he produced acts not signed to the label. Between 1993 and 1994, twenty-one singles produced by Stroud reached the top of the country charts.^[4]

After Giant Records closed in 2000, Stroud moved to DreamWorks Records Nashville, where he worked as a producer for several artists including Darryl Worley. After the label closed down in 2005, Stroud joined Universal Music Group (DreamWorks' parent company) and served as co-CEO alongside Luke Lewis until 2007.^[5] In July 2008 he founded a new label, Stroudavarious Records, to which he signed Worley as the flagship artist.^[6]

See also

• Malaco Records
• Country music
• Blues
• R&B
• Disco

References