Norton Records co-founder Billy Miller has died following a battle with multiple myeloma, according to the label. He was 62.
Miller, alongside his wife Miriam Linna, launched and ran the fan zine Kicks Magazine in 1978, and formed Norton Records nearly a decade later, with its first release Hasil Adkins' 1986 collection Out To Hunch. Over the years, the label became a home for rockabilly, roots music, rare indie records and soul releases, often mining the obscure to shine a light on unheralded genres and artists. In addition to Adkins, the label's web site calls Norton the home for artists such as Link Wray, the Pretty Things, the Sonics, Daddy Long Legs and the Flaming Groovies, alongside a slew of others.
While this year Norton Records celebrated its 30th anniversary, it had experienced an up-and-down recent past; the Brooklyn-based label's Red Hook warehouse flooded during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, destroying the majority of its CD inventory and back catalog and prompting, among other things, a Wash-a-Thon held at Brooklyn Bowl where volunteers gathered to help wash, re-sleeve and restore its vinyl collection.