Down East (Label)

LaMont Johnson and his brother Keith established a record company (funded by MBA, a midtown production company) on the Lower East Side in New York City in 1966. It was located on 53 Pitt Street, in a former seltzer factory, and was named Down East Records. The site housed the offices for Down East along with a small recording studio in the back of the building. The label released an R&B single by Justin entitled "Right Now". This became one of the first R&B records to utilize a fusion of Latin, jazz, and R&B music in commercial music. The same studio was also the site of demo recordings for Cat Mother (a rock group associated with Jimi Hendrix) as well as recording sessions for an Ornette Coleman album.