The World's Best Labels and Studios

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…..