Sonny Lester (born November 15, 1924) became a very successful producer and A&R man (talent scout) in the late 1950s. Working primarily for Time and Roulette Records, he produced a variety of recordings in the popular, jazz, blues and easy listening fields and even scored a couple of "lounge-core" hits under his own name with 1963's HOW TO BELLY DANCE FOR YOUR HUSBAND and HOW TO STRIP FOR YOUR HUSBAND.

In 1966, he partnered with engineer Phil Ramone and arranger Manny Albam to form Solid State Records, a jazz division of the large United Artists corporation. Using advanced techniques to achieve the best sound and fancy pop-art covers similar to Enoch Light's Command label, Solid State issued several very worthy jazz and easy listening projects.

Lester was at the helm of some of the period's most significant music (Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, Chick Corea, Duke Ellington's 70th birthday concert) and also some of the genre's biggest hits (mostly from organist Jimmy McGriff). Solid State gradually folded when United Artists purchased the Liberty catalog and all its jazz was consolidated to the Blue Note label.

During this period, Lester helmed productions for the Minit, UA, Blue Note and Capitol labels. In 1971, he formed the appropriately designated Groove Merchant label (named after the tune Jerome Richardson wrote for the Jones-Lewis orchestra) and quickly produced some of the period's most notable soul jazz from McGriff, Groove Holmes, O'Donel Levy, Reuben Wilson, Dakota Staton and Carmen McRae.

His distribution arrangement with Pickwick Records ended in 1976, whereupon he formed the "LRC" label. Originally LRC stood for the "Lester Radio Corporation" and by the CD age, the name had evolved to mean the "Lester Recording Catalog." The few records released during this period (1977-79), all seemed to reflect the disco agenda of LRC's distributor, Florida's T.K. Records (which had disco's biggest hit makers: K.C. & The Sunshine Band, T-Connection, Foxy, Peter Brown and many others). Several LRC songs did, however, emerge as dance floor hits.

Lester also had arrangements with independent companies like Chiaroscuro and America Records to release his productions. By 1980, Lester was issuing compilations of his Groove Merchant and LRC work on the Columbia-distributed 51 West label.

He seemed to be out of business until the CD age brought him back issuing budget-priced compilations (with terrible cover art and missing or altogether inaccurate credits) available through Denon (1989-1995), Delta/LaserLight (1995-present), Beast Retro and Lester's own Groove Jams label. Lester, now a resident of Florida, has also been sporadically active as a producer during the 1990s, overseeing solid but insubstantial recordings by McCoy Tyner, Jay Leonhart, Bucky Pizzarelli and Benny Golson with Freddie Hubbard. 

Thanks to Antonio Ferrarese and Francois Ziegler for assistance.

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