Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, along with American Decca's first president Jack Kapp and later American Decca president Milton Rackmil. In 1937, anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca and the link between the UK and U.S. Decca labels was broken for several decades. The British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre. Both wings are now part of the Universal Music Group, which is owned by Vivendi, a media conglomerate headquartered in Paris, France. The US Decca label was the foundation company that evolved into UMG.
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded in 1887, evolving from the American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1990, Columbia recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records.
MCA Records was an American major record label owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group, which the label was part of until its dissolution in 2003. The label's country division MCA Nashville is a still active imprint of Universal Music Group Nashville.
Polydor is a British record label and company, that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. In turn, Polydor distributes Interscope releases in the United Kingdom. Polydor Records Ltd. was established in London in 1954 as a British subsidiary of German company Deutsche Grammophon GmbH. It was renamed Polydor Ltd. in 1972.
Okeh Records is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was originally spelled "OkeH", formed from the initials of Otto K. E. Heinemann, but later changed to "OKeh".
ABC Records was an American record label founded in New York City in 1955. It originated as the main popular music label operated by the Am-Par Record Corporation. Am-Par also created the Impulse! jazz label in 1960. It acquired many labels before ABC was sold to MCA Records in 1979. ABC produced music in a variety of genres: pop, rock, jazz, country, rhythm and blues, soundtrack, gospel, and polka. In addition to producing records, ABC licensed masters from independent record producers, and purchased regionally released records for national distribution.
Laurie Records was a record label started in 1958 by brothers Robert and Gene Schwartz, and Allan I. Sussel. Sussel's earlier record company, Jamie Records, had been unsuccessful, and as a result, Sussel joined forces with Schwartz to found Laurie Records, this time named after his other daughter, Laura Sue Sussel. By the early 1960s, Elliot Greenberg, an arranger and friend of Schwartz's, had gained a 12% ownership of the company. In addition, Gene's brother Bob Schwartz also became involved in the company. The company eventually grew to include a number of subsidiary labels, most notably Andie Records, named after Sussel's youngest daughter, Andrea Jo Sussel.
LHI Records was an American record label founded by Lee Hazlewood. LHI stood for Lee Hazlewood Industries. The label was first distributed by Decca Records then by ABC Records. By 1969, LHI was distributed independently with tape distribution by Ampex. The label lasted until 1971.
Bang Records was created by Bert Berns in 1965 together with his partners from Atlantic Records: Ahmet Ertegün, Nesuhi Ertegün and Jerry Wexler. The first letters of their names formed the label's name.
Walt Disney Records is an American record label of the Disney Music Group. The label releases soundtrack albums from Disney's motion pictures, television series, theme parks, and traditional studio albums produced by its roster of pop, teen pop, and country artists.
United Artists Records was a record label founded by Max E. Youngstein of United Artists in 1957 to issue movie soundtracks. The label expanded into other genres, such as easy listening, jazz, pop, and R&B.
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), commonly known as Sony Music, is an American global music conglomerate owned by Sony and incorporated as a general partnership of Sony Music Holdings Inc. through Sony Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, which in turn is a subsidiary of the Japanese Sony Corporation. It was originally founded in 1929 as American Record Corporation and renamed as Columbia Recording Corporation in 1938, following its acquisition by the Columbia Broadcasting System. In 1966, the company was reorganized to become CBS Records, and Sony Corporation bought the company in 1988, renaming it under its current name in 1991. In 2004, Sony and Bertelsmann established a 50-50 joint venture known as Sony BMG Music Entertainment, which transferred the businesses of Sony Music and Bertelsmann Music Group into one entity. However, in 2008, Sony acquired Bertelsmann's stake, and the company reverted to the SME name shortly after; the buyout allowed Sony to acquire all of BMG's labels, and led to the dissolution of BMG, which instead relaunched as BMG Rights Management.
Aquarius Records is an independent record label based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
E.G. Records was a British artist management company and independent record label, mostly active during the 1970s and 1980s. The initials stood for its founders, David Enthoven and John Gaydon.
Quality Records was a Canadian entertainment company which released music albums in Canada on behalf of American record labels, and also released recordings by Canadian artists. The company operated between 1950 and 1985 with offices in Toronto, and from 1990 to 1997.
Diamond Records was a record label, based in New York City, which was founded in 1961 by former Roulette Records executive Joe Kolsky. Another Roulette exec, Kolsky's brother Phil Kahl, joined Kolsky in the venture the following year.
CBS Records International was the international arm of the Columbia Records unit of Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. (CBS) that was formed in 1961 and launched in 1962. Previously Columbia Records had been using other record companies to distribute Columbia recordings outside North America, such as Philips Records and its subsidiary Fontana in Europe.
Codiscos is a record label headquartered in Medellín, Colombia. It was founded in 1950 by Alfredo Díez Montoya with the name Zeida Ltd, which is today the name of its popular label dedicated to tropical music. Along with Discos Fuentes, it is one of the oldest and largest record labels of Colombia.
Freedom Records was a jazz record label headed by Shel Safran and founded by Alan Bates as a division of Black Lion Records.
