Tommy Couch (born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on November 12, 1942) and Gerald “Wolf” Stephenson (born in Columbia, Mississippi, on August 24, 1943) built Malaco Records, the premier label for Southern soul, soul-blues and gospel music, out of a booking partnership they started to bring rhythm & blues acts to their fraternity while they were pharmacy students at Ole Miss in the 1960s. Their bookings extended to other colleges and then to R&B and pop concerts in Jackson. Couch co-founded Malaco, Inc. in 1968 with his brother-in-law Mitch Malouf and was soon joined by Stephenson and later by business manager Stewart Madison. The operation expanded to include a recording studio where Stephenson engineered along with production and publishing companies and several record labels.
The first big hit on the Malaco label was Dorothy Moore’s “Misty Blue,” in 1976, but it was the unexpected success of Z.Z. Hill’s LP Down Home in 1982-83 that launched Malaco on a trajectory to become the dominant label in its field. That album stayed on Billboard‘s Black LPs charts for an incredible 93 weeks, thanks in large part to the work of Malaco’s promotional director, Dave Clark. (Clark and the album are both already in the Blues Hall of Fame.) Malaco became the label of choice for a select crop of leading stars on the soul and blues circuit, including Bobby Bland, Little Milton, Denise LaSalle, Latimore, Johnnie Taylor, Tyrone Davis, and others whose records, co-produced by Couch and Stephenson, continued to sell to a large African American audience. Malaco’s gospel division likewise rose to the top of its genre, too, especially after the acquisition of the historic Savoy Records catalog, and business at Malaco boomed under the helm of Couch, Stephenson, and Stewart as directors and majority shareholders in the corporation. Tommy Couch, Jr., followed his father’s lead as a booking agent and label owner/producer, founding the Waldoxy label and eventually taking over as president of Malaco in 2013, overseeing the company’s myriad of business interests from its longtime headquarters in Jackson.