During the 1990s, Black Top was one of New Orleans’ most prominent and busiest record labels. But for the past year and a half, it’s been uncharacteristically quiet over on Camp Street-at least on the recording and release front. That has changed though, as the label recently inked a production/distribution deal with Chicago-based Alligator Records. “It’s a deal that makes sense in several ways,” said Black Top’s Nauman Scott. “Alligator and Black Top are pretty similar labels. We’re both blues labels that record the same kind of artists so we pretty much have the same audience. Their focus might be a little stronger in the Northern market while ours is stronger in the South.

“Alligator will be in charge of our manufacturing, marketing and merchandising. They’ve got a great staff so we can benefit from their expertise and input. From Alligator’s point of view, we’ll be helping them spread the cost of their staff.

“We’ll be going back to regional distribution like we used to have. We prefer that because we won’t have all our eggs in one basket and I think the regional distributors are better at getting into the specialty shops where our records sell best.

“There will be a lot of direct contact between the two labels. There won’t be any decisions concerning Black Top that we won’t’ have the final say in.”

Black Top also had discussions with Time/Warner, Koch, Fantasy and Malaco before signing with Alligator. While going with Alligator might have made the most sense, an old friendship helped cement the deal.

“I first met Bruce (Bruce Iglauer, Alligator’s owner) in the early 1970s when he was promoting his first Fenton Robinson LP,” said Hammond Scott, who produces most Black Top releases. “He used to fill the trunk of his car with records and travel around the country visiting radio stations, record stores and distributors.

“Bruce was down here and he stayed at my house for a few days. Later I helped him find a studio for the Professor Longhair album (Crawfish Fiesta) that he recorded here. After Nauman and I starred Black Top, we’d periodically run into Bruce at conventions and talk on the phone. We kept up with one another.

“When we actually sat down and starred to discuss this deal, it was pretty evident that we both had the same goals and philosophies. I think it’s going to be pretty easy for both labels to work together.”

The Black Top/Alligator agreement supplants a production/distribution agreement Black Top had with the Cambridge, MA based Rounder label. Black Top became one of Rounder’s first nationally distributed labels in 1981.

“The Rounder deal was good when we first got into it,” said Nauman. “At first we were their only blues label but that all changed when they started Bullseye (1990). They kept picking up other labels and we were starring to get lost in the shuffle. We were paying them a fee and getting less and less for it. As they grew, there was more bureaucracy which made it harder to get things accomplished.

“We didn’t have a lot of say in a lot of the things that concerned Black Top. Sometimes we were just told there was a change and not asked our opinion.”

Nauman Scott traces a lot of Black Top woes back to 1993 when Rounder began getting away from regional distribution. That year they became partners in REP, which became their national distributor.

“REP didn’t do nearly the volume with our label that the eight or nine regional distributors did. We never could get an accurate accounting from them on what was bought or sold. As a result we were running out of some tides and over pressing others. On top of that we had to absorb returns from the regional distributors all at once.”

Just when business started to stabilize, in 1995 Rounder pulled out of REP and became partners in another national distribution company, D.N.A. According to Nauman, Black Top was again hit with a major return from REP and sales suddenly plummeted.

“We put out 11 CDs at the beginning of 1996 which did pitifully, » continued Nauman. “By May, we had to shut down productions and start trying to get out of -the Rounder deal.”

Black Top eventually did get out of the Rounder deal earlier this year, but not without a good bit of wrangling in cover over who owed who what. Black Top cranked up productions again last February and signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Passport Music Distribution, a division of Alliance Entertainment. Unfortunately for Black Top, the move turned into a leap from the frying pan into the fire.

“We talked to other distributors but at the time Passport presented us the best deal,” said Nauman. “We put out four full line CDs, five reissued compilations and we had new projects ready to go. Then I couldn’t get anybody on the phone at Passport and I started getting bad vibes. The next thing I knew, Alliance Entertainment shut down the Passport division and amid alarming industry rumors, Alliance filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Just like that we were back at square one and had to look for another way to go.”

With the ink dry on the Alligator agreement, this month Black Top will re-release CDs by Snooks Eaglin, Gary Primich, Robert Ealey and Johnny Copeland, CDs that got overlooked in the Passport debacle. October will see releases by Sam My.ers with Anson Funderburgh and Bobby Radcliff. Black Top will also re-introduce EconoIine, their mid-line label. The entire Black Top catalog will become available again in January of 1998.

“We didn’t want to spread ourselves too thin by doing too many things at once,” said Nauman. “We don’t have any new releases planned for November or December because that’s the period when retailers don’t want to hear about new releases. We let about 25 titles run out in the past year but we’ll be repressing them in January. We’ll probably put out 10 to 12 tides next year. That will give us the right amount of time to promote each one properly.”

Nauman points out that Black Top-and for that matter, any label that records regional or genre music-is facing an uphill battle in the 1990s. “Music retail is presenting a problem for a label like ours,” said Nauman. “The chains and the super stores have put a lot of the independent shops out-of-business. Generally, the independent stores do best with our releases. “However, now even the major record store chains have also experienced severe problems through an industry-wide recession with many retailers in or near bankruptcy.

“Even Tower, which has been really been good about stocking specialty music, doesn’t seem as motivated as it once was in carrying that kind of music. It’s getting harder just getting our CDs into stores.” Nevertheless, Hammond Scott doesn’t foresee a change in the direction of Black Top. “We want to continue to record veteran artists like Earl King and. Snooks Eaglin, but also younger players like James Harman and Anson Funderburgh. Of course, our focus will remain on the blues.”