Sound Asleep Records was started back in 1994 when Jerker Emanuelson from small-town Vara, Sweden, decided that there was way too much great American music that was being heard by too few. The result of this, was the release of the first Hit The Hay compilation CD. The mix of pop and more roots oriented stuff on the same compilation was something new and turned out to be a great success. This CD set the standards for everything else we´ve released after that.

When we got a chance to release a CDEP with Nashville pop master Bill Lloyd, we jumped at it right away. Bill examplifies the music that this label represents, with his involvement in both pop and country music.

The next thing we put out was our second compilation called, you guessed it, Hit The Hay Vol.2 including the same mix of pop and roots as the first one.
North Carolina popgod Jamie Hoover, from The Spongetones, was the next one to be included in the labels roster with the release of the 7" vinyl single "Nobody Wins This Time"

A new band from Detroit called The Phenomenal Cats caught Jerkers attention and their debut CD EP "Seagirl and 5 other Dogs" was the next outing.
Great country-rocker Tim Carrol, formely of the Blue Chieftains, had a track already on the first "Hit The Hay", but now it was time for his debut CD EP called "Good Rock From Bad".

A new concept in the compilation department appeared with "Fireworks".

Taking the same mix of pop and country-rock as the "Hit The Hay" compilations, but offering two songs by most artists instead of just one. This turned out to be a smash hit, so soon to follow was "Fireworks Vol. 2" in the same style.

The next release was the debut CD by Robert Crenshaw called "Full Length Stereo Recordings" Oh yes, Robert is Marshall's brother and former drummer.

The Fall of 1999 saw the 5th Anniversary for the label, and to celebrate that, "Hit The Hay Vol. 3" was released. The new Millennium has seen two new releases so far. First out was the Mark Brine CD "Back In The Country" soon followed by "Hit The Hay Vol.4", this time being a double CD.

The original idea with Sound Asleep Records was to release compilations with great, and mostly unknown, pop from the mid 70's to the mid 80's. Now, we've started a series of compilations called "Home Runs" that compiles just that. Each volumes will be strictly limited to 200 copies. The Home Runs series is put together by Jerker and Christer Strömberg

More and more great music comes out all the time, so "Hit The Hay Vol 5" turned out to be a double CD with 46 artists.

In December of 2002, a second volume of Home Runs was released including more great and mostly obscure pop.

Early 2003 "Hit The Hay Vol. 6" saw the light of the day and once more it's a double CD.

2004 - So, now ten years has gone since the start of the label. Time really flies. To celebrate this anniversary, we released Hit The Hay Vol. 7 including 47 great songs by 47 great artists.

We are also proud to announce that we have started to work with the great band The Accelerators from Raleigh, North Carolina. We are distrubuting their rocking CD "Nearer" that came out a few years ago. We are also working together on a compilation of stuff from their three great hard-to-find earlier CD's.

"It was said from the start of the "Home Runs" series that it should only be three volumes, and in 2005, the third and final volume of this series was released. It was sort of sad to put an end to it here with so much more great American pop from 1975-85 still to release, but I guess three volumes is enough and then people hopefully have been inspired enough to seek out more great pop from this era themselves."

"I´ve had a plan for several years to put out a compilation with my friends and favorites in Nashville, and now that it was exaclty 20 years since I first came to Nashville on a tennis scholarship, I thought it was a great time to do it. "Between Goodlettsville And Murfreesboro" is a compilation including, except for a Webb Wilder track, only previously unreleased tracks by a lot of the great musicians that live and work in Nashville.

The name of the compilation comes from the fact that Goodlettsville is a small city just north of Nashville, and I always stay with friends there when I´m in town. Murfreesboro is a small town just south of Nashville, and Trevecca College that I went to in Nashville is on Murfreesboro Road.

In the summer of 2007, the "Road Chill" CD by Raleigh, North Carolina band The Accelerators was released. The CD includes the 19 best tracks from their first three LP´s

- Jerker October 2007