Tortuga Music - A Brief History

by Colin Kennedy

The story told here may be brief, but Tortuga Music actually had its beginnings in 1975, in Houston.  At that time it was called Sunrise Music Publishing and Recording Company, as registered with the bureau of assumed names in Harris County. Plans also were made to add a Sunrise Records label at some future point.  The first design sketches for this label were made in 1978.  Then nearly ten years had passed when it was discovered that a Sunrise Records label had been launched elsewhere in the interim.  A new name would be needed.  Tortuga was chosen in honor of the most endangered sea turtle in the world, the Kemps Ridley species, which is usually found in the Gulf Of Mexico.  Design of the new label was turned over to artist John Bockelman and, thanks in large part to his work, the Tortuga Records Label was first launched in 1988.  When the Compact Disc began making major headway as a music industry medium, the company name was changed to Tortuga Music and the design of the label itself was altered to fit the larger hole found in CD's.  At long last, the first Tortuga Music CD's appeared in 1998.  The following five pages trace the evolution of the Tortuga Label design from its roots in the Seventies to the present.