The World's Best Labels and Studios

During the decade following Columbia’s decision to begin using the ‘double-sided’ disk and to dispense with the traditional vertical cylinders, fortunes began to decline for the Washington company.  In 1923, they finally went into receivership and in 1925 were purchased by their English subsidiary, the Columbia Graphophone Company.

This coincided with Western Electric’s patented electric recording process and Columbia purchased a license to use the system.

Viva-tonal label

The sound quality and clarity of the new ‘Viva-tonal’ 78 rpm records was unparalleled and it helped revive Columbia’s fortunes to the extent that it felt confident in acquiring Okeh Records in 1926.  This brought into Columbia’s stable, jazz and blues artists such as Louis Armstrong and Mamie Smith.

During the remainder of the 1920s, Columbia expanded into the early country music market (known as hillbilly at the time) and interestingly continued to produce non Viva-tonal records for what they regarded as the budget market.  These were still records using the prior acoustic method.  It had three subsidiary labels, Harmony, Velvet Tone and Diva for this purpose.  In 1929, Edison Records finally went bankrupt, meaning Columbia was now the oldest record label.

More acquisitions were in the pipeline as the world moved into the 1930s;  the British Graphophone Company merged with the Gramaphone Company and consequently became Electrical & Musical Industries Ltd, better known now as EMI.  By this time, the British Graphophone Company had bought its former parent company American Columbia in 1929.  American Columbia was split off once more as part of U.S. anti-trust law but was short lived as the company that acquired it, the Grigsby-Grunow Company, had themselves closed down within a couple of years.

Columbia’s relatively brief but eventful early history means that recordings from the era are now sought after items.  In particular, following the formation of EMI, the company’s Royal Blue Record – a laminated blue production – which was produced from 1932 – 1935 is a very desirable product.  Check out casino spielen for another desirable product.

Please see our EMI history for the continuation of the Columbia story.

While many record labels may consider themselves old, perhaps dating back 100 years or so, there are one or two that are really old.  Columbia Records is one such company and can date itself as far back as 1891.  Based in the District of Columbia from where it takes its name, the first company was called the Columbia Phonograph Company and was started by Edward Easton.

Easton originally distributed Edison Phonographs in the local areas and also produced a number of cylinder recordings of its

Columbia Phonograph

own. The manufacturer of the phonographs supplied to Columbia, the North American Phonograph Company, collapsed in 1894 and subsequently Columbia began to manufacture and sell its own product.  This included phonographs and records and Columbia began to sell ‘brown wax’ and then the harder ‘black wax’ which was introduced at around the turn of the century.

At this point, Coumbia was one of the top three manufacturers of phonographs and records, rivalled only by Edison’s Phonograph Company and the Victor Talking Machine Company.  From around the beginning of the 20th century, Columbia began to contract well-known singers of the day (in fact Opera stars), to produce a range of recordings.  It was relatively successful but Columbia’s rivals were still ahead in terms of quality.  It was also shortly after this period that Columbia did devise and introduce a revolutionary idea – the record with the B-side, or as it was known at the time, Double-Faced disks.

Prior to this, recordings had been made on vertical wax cylinders and this practise continued at Columbia until 1908 when the company finally ceased their production.  They did however continue to use celluloid cylinder records after entering into an agreement with the Indestructible Record Company of Albany, New York.  The cylinders used were known as ‘Columbia Indestructible Records’.  Columbia finally stopped manufacturing vertical cylinders in 1912.

Part Two follows…..