Nick Perls

J. Nicholas "Nick" Perls (4 April 1942 – 22 July 1987) was an American audio engineer and the founder and owner of Yazoo Records and Blue Goose Records.

Perls was one of a handful of serious East Coast collectors of 78-rpm country blues recordings during the 1960s. As a young man, he made two trips through the Deep South, where he knocked on doors seeking to acquire old blues records. He also was a frequent patron of antique shops in the New York area, always searching for rare blues records.

In 1968, Perls began re-recording the sides in his collection, using high-tech equipment in his home, and issuing 33-rpm record albums. These releases generally contained 14 blues tunes each and often included informative liner notes by another blues collector, Steve Calt. This enterprise was Yazoo Records. (The catalogue was later acquired by Shanachie Records.) Perls operated Yazoo out of his home in the West Village in New York City until just before his death, in the 1980s, from AIDS.

As a recording engineer, Perls's most renowned talent was his ability to ride a phonograph needle along the grooves of an old record much like a bobsled through an obstacle course, moving left, right, up or down to avoid as many scratches and gouges as possible. Yazoo releases were always derived directly from 78-rpm shellac originals. By collecting and re-releasing such forgotten blues recordings, Perls preserved many classic blues performances (and. later, those in related musical forms like ragtime) that otherwise might have been lost to the ages.

In 1970, Perls started Blue Goose Records as a side project, using that label to release music by a variety of live performers that he recorded himself, often in his West Village living room. He was also a finger-pick guitarist but would only play the guitar socially, and strictly in imitation of one or another 1930s blues master. Stylistically, his playing ethos was summed up when he stated that the phrase "too choppy" is a contradiction in terms. His one foray as a recording artist can be heard as a duet on the song "My Game Blues", on the first Blue Goose release, Fast & Funky, by bluesman Larry Johnson. Perls is pictured (in blackface) on the cover of the Yazoo recording Mr. Charlie's Blues.

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