S.O. Resident Starts Record Label in Attic

It was while leafing through a Fortune magazine at Maplewood's Village Coffee in late 2007 and reading a story about the founders of Downtown Records that Joe Rosenthal—a South Orange resident since 2004—had the idea to start his own record label.

"I literally left Village Coffee and starting e-mailing some of my friends and asking, 'Do you know of any great singers?'" recalled Rosenthal, 38, who's a director of digital content at Entercom Radio and works from home.

Less than two years later, Rosenthal's Wing Court Records released its debut album, "This Side of Morning" by Philadelphia native Ali Hoffman, who came recommended by a friend who was her professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and who Rosenthal compares to Janis Joplin, but "with a little more R&B."

"I auditioned her as well as half a dozen other artists, and she really just blew me away," said Rosenthal, who runs the label out of his attic, which has the feel of a recording studio with its boxes of CDs and mailing materials.

Four writers also worked on the album—which was released in late February and was added to Pandora last month—and Rosenthal also assembled a band, including a Maplewood-based horn player. But finding talent was the least challenging aspect of releasing the record, according to Rosenthal, who says negotiating with the other people involved in production was the most difficult.

"You've got to kind of figure out how this beast of a business works," he said.

While he's received some interesting inquiries from artists, he's focused on promoting Hoffman and setting up live performance dates for her for the time being. He's ultimately interested in pairing singer-songwriters with writers who complement them.

"I think I'd be kind of too diffuse if I try to take on anybody right now," said Rosenthal, who also says he loves his day job.

As for the provenance of the name Wing Court Records? It's the name of the street where he grew up in the Washington, D.C. area, and where he found an album with a Barbara Lynn single in 1974. He listened to it obsessively, and Hoffman performs a version of the song on her record.