The World's Best Labels and Studios

Parlophone can trace is history back almost as far as Columbia Records.  The German Carl Lindström Company established the label as long ago as 1896 although in the early days it was known as Parlophon and stuck to the manufacture of gramaphones. The  record label business started not long afterwards but the onset of the First World War put a brake on overseas operations. For this reason Parlophon established the Transoceanic Trading Company, based in Holland, to watch over it’s non-German operations.

Parlophone Logo

A few years later, in 1923, a U.K. branch was established  to take advantage of the sophisticated and developing market there.  A base in the U.K. also meant access to the British Empire’s vast Commonwealth populations.  The U.K. label added an ‘e’ to the name to make ‘Parlophone’ and the new venture concentrated on jazz, linking with the American Okeh Records to become a major force in the British jazz genre.  Oscar Preuss was the man tasked with establishing the new company and would remain in place until 1955.

In some early consolidation activity, the Columbia Gramophone Company bought a majority stake in the Carl Lindström Company then, following the merger of the Gramophone Company and Columbia in 1931 to create EMI, Parlophone became part of that company.  At this stage Parlophone remained a label dedicated to jazz, using EMI’s various subsidiaries to licence jazz music.

The status quo was largely maintained until the early 1950s when Oscar Preuss hired George Martin as his assistant.  Martin’s influence was obvious from the beginning and Parlophone became a more diverse label as the dawn of rock and roll broke.  Not that Parlophone enjoyed any rock and roll, their roster of artists was a strange one: Jim Dale, Bernard Cribbins, the Vipers Skiffle Group and the Temperance Seven were the type of acts signed up.  James Brown material was licensed from the U.S. label but Parlophone still struggled commercially against other EMI subsidiaries such as HMV and Columbia.  Another genre added to the label’s stable was country music in 1953 when Parlophone signed a ten year leasing agreement with King Records, adding artists such as Bonnie Lou, Boyd Bennett and Ruby Wright.  This was not hugely successful and the strategy appeared to be to try everything until something worked.

Not until the signing of Adam Faith in 1959 did Parlophone begin to experience any rock and roll success and it was still a struggle for the label until 1962 when George Martin signed The Beatles.  Other artists followed and these included such historic names as The Hollies and Billy J. Kramer.  The early 1960s were the beginning of Parlophone’s rise to commercial success in the United Kingdom and indeed globally and even when George Martin left to form his own company (Associated Independent Recording Studios) in 1965.

Martin’s departure was possibly the trigger for EMI to absorb the Parlophone label into it’s Gramophone Company, which became EMI Records in 1973.  The name remained however and Parlophone remains a force to this day, although it’s parent company EMI are struggling financially.

EMI From The 1960s Onwards

The music publishing side of EMI Ltd was remarkably successful from the 1960s onwards; artists such as The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra and Cliff Richard ensured continuing profitability for the company during this period.  EMI owned and ran a number of subsidiary labels which are themselves a roll call of famous name – Parlophone, HMV, Columbia and Capitol to name a few.  In 1967 HMV was made into an exclusively classical label and to accommodate progressive rock bands such as Pink Floyd, a new label, Harvest Records, was created.

A period of amalgamation and renaming began to occur in the early 1970s, beginning in 1971 with the alteration of Electrical & Musical Industries to EMI Ltd.  In 1972, Columbia became EMI Records and in 1974 The Gramophone Company also took that name.  In 1979, United Artists Records and their subsidiaries, Liberty Records and Imperial Records, were scooped up by EMI Ltd. The really big merger came towards the end of 1979 when EMI Ltd joined with THORN Electrical Industries to become Thorn EMI.

Thorn EMI

Thorn EMI was an enormous company, big enough to have a presence on the FTSE 100 and listed on the London Stock

Thorn EMI Logo

Exchange.  The company’s various arms were prolific in several industries – television and video broadcasting, computer software, consumer electronics – but it’s main focus remained on the music industry and (from THORN) the defence industry, in which it was one of the biggest players.  Communications, radar and electronic warfare  were it’s specialities.

On the music front, the company continued to expand, adding Chrysalis Records in two stages between 1989 and 1991 and in 1992 it purchased Richard Branson’s Virgin Records for an estimated $1 billion – a huge purchase at the time.

In 1996, aware of the diversification of various parts of the business, the decision was made by Thorn EMI shareholders to demerge.  What resulted on the music and entertainment side was EMI Group PLC, still an extremely large music label which, with the acquisition of Virgin, had maintained it’s position at the pinnacle of the music industry.  It is now one of the ‘big four’ record labels, the others being Warner Music Group, Sony BMG, and Universal Music Group.

Robbie Williams

Like most record labels, EMI Group was a little slow recognising the importance of the online music revolution but in 2000 it signed a deal with Streamwaves, a relatively new digital streaming service, to licence it’s catalogue onto a digital format.  Not long after this, EMI Group also signed the biggest ever record deal in the U.K. with Robbie Williams and the second in the world after Michael Jackson’s record deal.  It was worth an incredible $160 million.

Robbie Williams - massive EMI deal

Events since 2007 have hit EMI Group’s fortunes sharply and a drop in profits led to a £4 billion takeover by venture capitalists Terra Firma Capital Partners.  It was forced to cut back in various markets, particularly Asia, and various high profile artists began to leave the label.  Citigroup acquired EMI from Terra Firma early in 2011 and it has recently been reported that Warner Music Group are a possible buyer, a purchase which would reduce the ‘big four’ to the ‘big three’.

Electrical and Muscical Industries Ltd is one of the ‘big four’ record labels in the industry today and subsequently a major player in the global music business.  It has a long and interesting history of mergers and acquisitions and in fact it’s founding can be traced to a merger back in 1931.

That’s a good place to start then and if you’ve read our Columbia Records history, you’ll know that the story of Columbia Records largely ends when that of EMI begins.  In March 1931, the Columbia Graphophone Company and the Gramophone Company merged, forming a company called Electrical and Musical Industries Ltd that contained Columbia’s knowledge of recording technology and roster of artists and the Gramophone Company’s experience with recording equipment.  This was an acquisition made in London and the headquarters of the new company was based there.

EMI & Music

The new company continued Columbia’s track record of innovative music creation and the British Empire’s vast territory provided an enormous market for the releases.  All the larger Commonwealth countries such as Canada, Australia and India were targeted and subsidiary record labels were established in these areas to promote EMI there.  The legendary Abbey Road Studios in London were opened by EMI in 1931, playing host to classical recording artists in the early years and in the 1940s recruiting George Martin, the future Beatles manager, to work there.

EMI enjoyed four decades of almost complete dominance in these markets and it wasn’t until the 1960s that local labels began to provide some competition.  From the 1930s to the 1950s, EMI featured some of the most famous names in the history of popular music on it’s various subsidiaries, as you would expect from a company with such market dominance.  A few example are Elvis Presley (HMV), Gene Vincent (Capitol), The Goons (Parlophone) and Frank Sinatra (Capitol).

The 1960s were no different although this was a period in which EMI was beginning to face competition from other labels;  The Beatles (Parlophone/EMI/Capitol/Apple), Gerry & The Pacemakers (Columbia Graphophone) and Pink Floyd (Tower/Harvest/EMI/Capitol/Columbia).  Post-1960s, the artists number in the many hundreds but suffice to say the roster still includes many of the world’s biggest recording artists; other music genres were not neglected and classical music in particular has always been championed by EMI.

EMI & Technology

The two companies which formed the original merger brought with them a wealth of technology which enabled them to remain in the forefront of recording and playback research.  Alan Blumlein, one of the pioneers of stereo recording, was unfortunately killed in the British war effort when working on experimental radar technology.  EMI continued to produce radar and guided missile technology until well after the end of the Second World War.

EMIDEC 1100 Computer

EMI’s laboratory in Hayes continued to branch of into interesting directions in the subsequent decades under the leadership of Godfrey Hounfield, developing a colour camera (EMI 2001) for the BBC and ITV, Britain’s first transistorised computer in 1958 (the EMIDEC 1100) and  the first CAT scanner for medical imaging.

Part Two follows….

Olympic Studios is one of those names which doesn’t conjure up images of a famous recording history in the same way that Abbey Road does, for example. However, for forty or so years before it finally closed in 2009, Olympic Studios was one of the most prolific and successful production facilities in the UK.

The studios location in Barnes, South West London, has been the best known home of Olympic, but for several years prior to that it had been located in a disused synagogue in the West End.  Angus McKenzie was the owner and driving force behind the project and together with Richard Swettenham and Keith Grant, ensured that the studio equipment was top notch.  Much of it they hand built themselves and the in 1960 the studio featured the world’s first transistorised music desk.

During the period between 1960 and the move to Barnes in 1965, the list artists who recorded at the facility reads like a roll call of all the most famous contemporary figures.  The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds and The Jimi Hendrix Experience all recorded here during this period,as did The Troggs with Wild Thing.

With the expiration of the lease in 1965, McKenzie’s involvement with the studio ended after he was bought out by Keith Grant and Cliff Adams. Everything was moved  to the new location at Barnes and recording recommenced with an equally impressive list of performers.  The Rolling Stones continued to record there. producing their next six albums at the facility. the Beatles also made an appearance during a break from Abbey Road.  From the late sixties into the seventies, some of the artists working there included The Small Faces, The Who, Led Zeppelin and Queen.  Scores were also recorded for The Italian Job and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, amongst others.

Virgin Media acquired the studio in 1987 and refitted the out-dated venue with a new setup.  Throughout the 1980s, many if the new romantic bands recorded there as well as other contemporary artists such as Fine Young Cannibals and The Cult.  The 1990s and 2000s continued in much the same way, featuring artists such as Transvision Vamp, Simple Minds and INXS.

In 2008, following the merger of EMI and Virgin, the studio announced it was shutting down and in February 2009, it locked its doors for the last time, marking the end of piece of UK recording history.

In Part One we explained how former Public Image Ltd member Jeanette Lee joined the Rough Trade effort in 1987.  Jeanette had also been an employee at renowned punk clothing retailer Acme Attractions.

Jeanette Lee

Jeanette brought her own brand of marketing innovation to the record label and the late 1980s saw an influx of guitar driven bands which, in the era of Britpop, appeared the way forward. Unfortunately this was also the very point at which a number of bad decisions and an adverse credit climate caught up with the label.  The company’s unwise move to a Finsbury Park premises in 1991 appeared to be the catalyst for the decline of Rough Trade.  The parent company Rough Trade International went into liquidation and everything connected to Rough Trade was sold off in an effort to pay creditors.  For the next ten years the story of Rough Trade was over.

In 2001, Travis and Lee, partnering with Sanctuary Records, reacquired the Rough Trade name and, testing the water in several small ways, decided that it was the right time to step back into the business.

The decision proved to be the correct one and one of the first releases on the reformed label was The Strokes The Modern Age.  The signing of The Strokes proved a masterstroke and the band became the most successful Rough Trade signing since The Smiths.

The 2000s proved to be a vintage decade for Rough Trade as a number of influential, innovative artists were signed.  The Libertines, British Sea Power, Arcade Fire and Belle and Sebastian were all added to the roster, meaning that Rough Trade managed that most difficult of tasks for any record label – being relevant, credible and successful at the same time.

Rough Trade and Sanctuary Records parted company in 2007 with Sanctuary’s share being sold to the Beggars Group.  Although Sanctuary’s influence was a loss, the deal with Beggars Group allowed Rough Trade a more robust presence in the U.S.  This is one independent British label that it would be sad to lose again.

Rough Trade is one of those enterprises that seems to have happened almost by accident.  Now a well established label with a history of more than 30 years activity behind it (with a few bumps and gaps), it has even been the subject of a BBC documentary titled Do It Yourself: The Story of Rough Trade.

The first Notting Hill shop

In 1978, Londoner Geoff Travis was criss-crossing the United States, buying up prodigious amounts of vinyl and shipping them back to the U.K.  These acquisitions headed straight for the record shop that Travis had opened in West London in 1976.  The shop was (as described by the official website) was “….trailblazing, farsighted, welcoming, radical – even revolutionary”. They didn’t just sell records, they sold all the paraphernalia associated with bands and the record industry and were in the right place at the right time to witness the emergence of various genres such as punk and reggae.

The Rough Trade shop soon became a venue for local bands to sell and distribute their wares and the next logical step for Travis was to set up as a fully fledged record label.  As with the early days of Virgin Records, this seems to have been a period when talented bands just turned up on your doorstep – Rough Trade soon had on its roster bands such as Scritti Politti, Stiff Little Fingers and The Raincoats.  The South Bank Show, an influential arts programme in the U.K, even featured the label in 1979.  In that year also Stiff little Fingers produced Inflammable Material, the first independent album to sell more than 100,000 copies.

By 1980, the venture desperately needed new premises and the record label was relocated to Blenheim Cresent.  In 1982, Rough Trade Records became an independent entity, splitting from the record shop.  It was in the early 1980s that The Smiths signed onto the label – possibly the biggest band ever to feature on the roster.  For several years they took the independent music scene by storm, adding to Rough Trades success.  Another addition to the behind-the-scenes effort was former Public Image Ltd member Jeanette Lee who would go on to become a partner.

Next – Downfall and Rebirth

Throughout the 1950s, Decca continued its successful production and release of soundtracks from popular films.  Licensing agreements with American Decca allowed them to continue in this vein and likewise an agreement with RCA in America allowed them to enhance their finances further by distributing Elvis Presley releases in the U.K.

In the 1960s, Decca was as famous for those it didn’t sign as much as for those it did – added to the roster were Billy Fury, Brain Poole and the Tremeloes and The Rolling Stones but refused by the label were The Beatles (head of pop Dick Rowe though guitar music was “on the way out”), The Yardbirds and Manfred Mann.  In Decca’s defense it would be surprising if major labels made the right choices all the time.

Decca continued to be a progressive producer of contemporary music until the 1970s.  One of the driving forces behind this progressiveness was Hugh

Hugh Mendl

Mendl, a pioneering character credited with, among other things, popularising The Moody Blues and producing more unusual LP’s from crossover acts such as skiffle player Lonnie Donegan, actor Frankie Howerd and actor-singer Tommy Steele.

It was during the mid to late 1970s that things began to go wrong for Decca.  Lucrative licensing and distribution deals with American labels began to dry up and gradually the main artists began to drift away, not replaced by others of a similar standing.  Decca became reliant on re-releases of back catalogue material and occasional successes such as Dana’s All Kinds of Everything in 1970 and the odd novelty recording such as The Smurfs.

Finally in 1980 Decca U.K. was bought by Polygram and the recordings and back catalogue were acquired by Polydor Records.  Decca was absorbed into the parent company but for fans of sentimentality the Decca name lives on in America where it operates under the umbrella of the Universal Music Group (who subsequently bought Polygram).  It’s now enjoying something of a new lease of life as a country music label and still remains a major producer of Broadway soundtracks and film scores.

Now this is an old one.  Decca Records actually dates back to 1929 when Edward Lewis, a wealthy former stockbroker, bought the The Decca Gramophone Co. Ltd from the original owners – Barnett Samuel & Sons.  The origins of the name  ‘Decca’ are a little mysterious.  The most likely explanation is that it’s a combination of the words ‘Mecca’ and ‘Dulcet’ – the name of the Samuel’s gramophone, although another theory suggests it’s a derivation of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka (previously called Dacca) which was an early source of shellac, a substance used in the production of 78 rpm records.

Back to the story of Decca Records however and within a few years Lewis had turned the company into the second biggest record label in the world.  It opened a U.S. branch in 1934 but Lewis sold his stake in this company at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.  The U.S. offshoot became Decca Records Inc.  The U.K. company used its great success in the 1930s to acquire various other record labels of the period and these included Brunswick Records (which added Bing Crosby to the list of artists), Melotone and Edison Bell.

In this early period, Decca’s line up included a number of artists we are still familiar with today – Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Count Basie and The Andrews Sisters to name a few.  In 1942 Bing Crosby recorded ‘White Christmas’, still the biggest selling single of all time, while still finding time to visit the RoxyPalace Casino.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raFZBjSsZiY

In the 1940s, Decca also became a leading light in the recording and distribution of cast albums from popular West End and Broadway musicals.  Early examples from the U.S. were Oklahoma, Carousel and Roulette while in the U.K. Showboat and Brigadoon were big sellers.  During the next decade, the U.S. Decca actually began to outshine the U.K. company and in 1954 Bill Haley and The Comets release Rock Around The Clock, a single who’s sales were boosted by its subsequent inclusion in the film Blackboard Jungle.  It sold millions in America and internationally and rates as one of the very first rock and roll songs. pre-dating Casinos im Internet by years.

Part Two follows…..

From 1969 until 1973 Allen Klein had been running Apple Records with quiet efficiency but he had never agreed to stay long term.  EMI’s distribution contract with Apple ended in 1975 and to all intents and purposes that was the end of Apple Records which was wound up in 1976.  George Harrison’s ‘This Guitar (can’t keep from crying’ was the last single released in February 1976.

In 1984 John Lennon and Ringo Starr each released a single and in the late 1980s Parlophone (The Beatles original label) begun to release old Beatles albums not featuring the Apple logo but it was during the 1990s and the heyday of the Compact Disc (CD) that the decision to re-release old Apple Records material was made at a level agreed by all concerned parties – Apple Records, The Beatles and EMI.  1995 also the release of ‘Free As A Bird’, an original, unreleased Beatles track which was relatively commercially successful.

Neil Aspinall had by this time taken over as Chief Executive and with subsequent re-release and successful marketing, the label began to be profitable once more.  There was no new material during this period but it had been twenty years since the original productions and there was now a whole new market out there.

The next big occurrence in the life of the label started off as a dispute and ended with another whole new marketing opportunity.  In 2006 a long-running dispute which had started in 1978 between Apple Records and Apple Computers finally entered the last leg.  Over the years the companies had argued about all manner of things related to logos, the music business, the similar names and computers.  In 2007 the matter was finally resolved to everyone’s satisfaction and now the opportunity arose to release The Beatles entire discography on the Apple’s iTunes platform.

So ended the thirty year feud and both companies emerged with new marketing opportunities to look forward.  The back catalogue was finally available in 2010.

It’s very hard to write a brief history of Apple Records without the post becoming dominated by The Beatles, but that’s what I’m going to try to do.  The Beatles are going to be mentioned all over the place but that’s how it has to be.

1968 was the year in which The Beatles began to take control of their own destiny and to market themselves.  Apple Corps Ltd was formed in this year as an umbrella company for several different Apple companies, including Apple Electronics, Apple Boutique and Apple Films, some of which came later.  Apple Records was the main component of this project though and it’s the one which still generates the income and publicity today.

In the early years of Apple Records,  The Beatles were still under contract to Parlophone in the U.K. and Capitol Records in the U.S.  This was not an issue because Apple Records was originally conceived to record and produce for new artists and these included contempories such as Mary Hopkin, Ravi Shankar and James Taylor.  The various members of the band discovered these artists themselves and quite often participated in recording.  The records produced by the label all featured the familiar half-apple logo in the centre.

By the second year of operation, it was clear that Apple Corps Ltd required some professional guidance and so began the involvement of Allen Klein, then the manager of The Rolling Stones.  Many of the side businesses were shut down and the label’s roster of artists was ‘streamlined’.  With Klein in charge the business was much more efficiently run and it was on much firmer ground by the time he left in 1973.

1973 was also the same year that EMI took over Parlophone and with it came the entire Beatles back catalogue although film and video clips were the property of Apple Records.  Until 1975 Apple Records also had a distribution deal with both EMI and Capitol Records for the United States.

Enjoy this early James Taylor….

Part Two follows….