Malaco Records

Jackson, Mississippi-based black gospel / Southern R&B label started by Tommy Couch and Mitchell Malouf (the company name is a combination of founders Malouf and Couch's last names = Malaco) in 1966. Label Code: LC 4496 / LC 04496. The Malaco Music Group, as the company is known today, is active in gospel, blues, R&B and dance music.

Malaco first success in the US nationally was King Floyd's Groove Me on its Chimneyville label (which was distributed by Atlantic Records subsidiary Cotillion) in 1970 and Jean Knight's Mr. Big Stuff (produced by Couch, Malouf and partner Wolf Stephenson but released on Stax). The label eventually signed a national distribution deal under its own name in 1975 with Henry Stone's T.K. Records, also migrating its Chimneyville Records label from Atlantic. It had a monster pop and R&B hit with the classic Southern soul ballad Misty Blue by Dorothy Moore a year later. It later signed Johnnie Taylor, Bobby Bland, Little Milton, Z.Z. Hill and Denise LaSalle to the label.

Malaco became a major force in black gospel music when The Jackson Southernaires left ABC Songbird and signed with the label in 1975 with the group's second lead singer artist eventually becoming their chief Gospel Music A&R executive, a post he would hold until his death in 1993. Malaco distributes recordings on the Melendo and Blackberry labels formed by Williams' brothers Melvin, Leonard and Doug of artist. The director of their Gospel Music division was artist and ran their Gospel Promotions & Video.