The Miami Sound
lt is called that in the Consumer press out he music record business knows that what it really means the music. the artists. and the musicians that have evolved from T.K. Productions. T.K. Productions was formed by Henry Stone, record man, distributor turned manufacturer and the controller of the success story of 1975 . . / story that looks like repeating itself in 1976 It’s a warehouse and offices in an industrial part of Miami called Hialeah…previously known only to racehorse
freaks – that has signs posted outside saying T.K. Productions and Tone Distributors. It is a crossroad in the area for the black and Cuban populations. But it is more than that. The block-long -warehouse with its modest sign claiming its musical heritage is known in Japan, Germany, Britain, Scandinavia, Canada and right
across the United States. They may not actually know T.K. Productions by name. Tone Distributors or Henry Stone the bossman. But what the world literally, knows is Betty Wright, Clarence Reid, KC and the Sunshine Band, Latimore, George McCrae, Timmy Thomas, Gwen McCrae, Beaver and Jimmy ‘Bo’ Horne. R&B and soul artists that are making the impact of their power music felt around the world, across America. And Betty Wright and her companions at T.K. Productions know that the company is a label, a family, friends, a home for their talents. People may call it the Miami Sound, but the artist know-it’s the place to be – under one roof a few miles west of Miami is a simple complex that gives recording, promotion, dislribution, press, publicity, and guidance. It started when Henry Stone moved from California to Miami. Not long out of the armed forces in 1946 and not quite sure where he wanted to be in the music business. He moved from distribution to manufacturing back to distribution but always keeping, as he puts it, “A studio in my back pocket.” It was in this studio in the middle of his other careers that he recorded, for the first time. Ray Charles and James Brown. But it really started in 1970 when the actual T.K. Productions got underway – when Stone moved more into making records than distributing them and people listening to his product started talking about “The real funk.” Steve Alaimo was there then, and a long time before. Alaimo is Vice President and creative director of T.K. Productions, and goes back a long way. It was 1963, to be exact, when Alaimo was signed by Stone along with Brad Shapiro, to be producers for his recording operation. His personal relationship with Stone started around 1958 when Alaimo had a band…”