VA - That'll Flat ... Git It! Vol. 18: Rockabilly From The Vaults Of Sarg Records (1999)

At the time he wrote the above statement, Charlie Fitch and his Sarg record label of Luling, Texas -- a small town about sixty miles east of San Antonio -- had seemingly lost its battle with the merciless and unforgiving 'record rat race.' Sarg, a subsidiary of Fitch's Luling Phonograph & Record Shop, had started up a mere three years earlier with high hopes and a flurry of releases; by 1957, a mounting debt, distribution worries, public apathy, and changing tastes in popular music all threatened to hasten the demise of yet another once-promising independent label.

No one would have faulted Fitch, a former Air Force Sergeant and WW II veteran, had he discontinued his Sarg imprint and gone back to devoting his full attention to the far more reliable retail record trade and jukebox business.

But Fitch refused to give in, and by adapting to trends and catering to local artists and ethnic styles, Sarg quietly outlived most other independent labels that had their beginnings in the tumultuous 1950s. Charlie viewed Sarg as an 'audition' label -- a testing ground for local artists and their material, granting them an opportunity they likely wouldn't have had otherwise.

If their record proved to have any viability locally, he reasoned, chances were good that a larger company -- one with the means to properly promote and distribute the record on a national level -- would lease the master from him, the artist would go on to better things, and everyone would be happy. It sounded great in theory; in reality, in never quite played out that way for Charlie. Only one Sarg release, Cecil Moore's 1964 instrumental Diamond Back, was picked up by a bigger label (Atco). (Ironically, the record actually sold less on Atco than it did on Sarg.)

Yet Fitch refused to be swayed. "I don't know if I can say that I made money or lost money," he'll tell you today. "What matters is: I gave everybody an equal chance."

(Andrew Brown, Bear Family Records 1999)

Every CD would be for the most part a 30 song jukebox of the finest Rockabilly ever recorded for all the great labels. We sourced the very best sounding tapes and took them to the best mastering engineers, and then we took the packaging to a new level. We adopted the catchphrase of the first Rockabilly dee-jay, Dewey Phillips, 'That'll Flat Git It!'.

We looked for previously unpublished photos, and tried to find all the artists who'd never been found before.
The result is a truly definitive Rockabilly series.