Over the course of its nine-year history, before its sale to Rounder Records in 1982, Philo produced roughly 100 albums of folk, traditional, and later, jazz, world, and new music from a converted barn-studio in North Ferrisburg, Vermont.
[2] The two brothers shared a love of eclectic music and Couture was himself a performing musician, while Schubart had long dabbled in recording various folk and classical groups.
Schubart bought a vacant dairy barn on eight acres in 1969 that had been recently used to raise pigs, steam-cleaned it and elicited the help of an architect friend, Arthur Norcross, to create a home recording studio.
The prevailing industry employment of sA&R (artists & repertoire) executives who choose material, hire arrangers and sidemen, and then oversee the production of market-ready music was never adopted at Philo.
They often opted to record unknown artists whose work they respected and gave them full control over their own production and choice of sidemen.
It also led to considerable success and the debut of a number of new faces in the folk, traditional and, later, new music fields such as: Tom Mitchell, Kilimanjaro, Mary McCaslin and Jim Ringer Resident engineers included co-founders Michael Couture and Bill Schubart, and also Chas Eller[3] and David Green.
Philo’s better known artists included Mary McCaslin, Jim Ringer, Jean Carignan (Canada), Dave van Ronk, Rosalie Sorrels, Jean Redpath, The Boys of the Lough, Utah Phillips, The New Black Eagle Jazz Band, Bill Staines, Kilimanjaro, Patty Larkin, Martin Grosswendt, and Nanci Griffith.
Rounder added other well-known artists to the roster including: Ray Wylie Hubbard, Ellis Paul, Bill Morrissey, Iris Dement, Carrie Newcomer, Christine Lavin, Vance Gilbert and Cliff Eberhardt.