His Master's Voice (HMV) was the name of a major British record label created in 1901 by The Gramophone Co. Ltd. The phrase was coined in the late 1890s from the title of a painting by English artist Francis Barraud, which depicted a dog named Nipper listening to a wind-up disc gramophone and tilting his head. In the original, unmodified 1898 painting, the dog was listening to a cylinder phonograph. The painting was also famously used as the trademark and logo of the Victor Talking Machine Company, later known as RCA Victor. The painting was originally offered to James Hough, manager of Edison-Bell in London, but he declined, saying "dogs don't listen to phonographs". Barraud subsequently visited The Gramophone Co. of Maiden Lane in London where the manager William Barry Owen offered to purchase the painting if it were revised to depict their latest Improved Gramophone model. Barraud obliged, and Owen bought the painting from Barraud for £100.
Nipper, also known as the RCA Victor dog, was a dog from Bristol, England, who served as the model for a 1898 painting by British painter Francis Barraud titled His Master's Voice. This image became one of the world's best known trademarks, the famous dog-and-gramophone pairing that was used by several record companies and their associated company brands, including Berliner Gramophone and its various affiliates and successors, among them Berliner's German subsidiary Deutsche Grammophon; Berliner's American successor the Victor Talking Machine Co. ; Zonophone; Berliner's British affiliate the Gramophone Co. Ltd. and its successors EMI and HMV Retail Ltd.; the Gramophone Co.'s German subsidiary Electrola; and onetime Victor subsidiary the Japan Victor Company (JVC).
JVC was a Japanese brand owned by JVCKenwood. Founded in 1927 as the Victor Talking Machine Company of Japan and later as Victor Company of Japan, Ltd., the company was best known for introducing Japan's first televisions and for developing the Video Home System (VHS) video recorder.
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer, incorporated in 1901. The company operated independently until it was purchased by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1929 and subsequently operated as the RCA Victor Division of the Radio Corporation of America.
RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America.
Berliner Gramophone – its discs identified with an etched-in "E. Berliner's Gramophone" as the logo – was the first disc record label in the world. Its records were played on Emile Berliner's invention, the Gramophone, which competed with the wax cylinder–playing phonographs that were more common in the 1890s and could record.
Polydor Limited, also known as Polydor Records, is a German-British record label 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/Schallplatte Grammophon GmbH. It was renamed Polydor Ltd. in 1972. The company is usually mentioned as "Polydor Ltd. (UK)", or a similar form, for holding copyrights.
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of labels in 1999. Deutsche Grammophon is the world's oldest surviving established record company. Presidents of the company are Frank Briegmann, Chairman and CEO Central Europe of Universal Music Group and Clemens Trautmann.
Columbia Graphophone Co. Ltd. was one of the earliest gramophone companies in the United Kingdom.
Zonophone was a record label founded in 1899 in Camden, New Jersey, by Frank Seaman. The Zonophone name was not that of the company but was applied to records and machines sold by Seaman's Universal Talking Machine Company from 1899 to 1903. The name was subsequently acquired by Columbia Records, the Victor Talking Machine Company, and finally the Gramophone Company/EMI Records. It has been used for a number of record publishing labels by these companies.
American Record Corporation (ARC), also referred to as American Record Company, American Recording Corporation, or ARC Records, was an American record company.
Frederick William Gaisberg was an American musician, recording engineer and one of the earliest classical music producers for the gramophone. He himself did not use the term 'producer', and was not an impresario like his protégé Walter Legge of EMI or an innovator like John Culshaw of Decca. Gaisberg concentrated on talent-scouting and persuading performers to make recordings for the newly invented Gramophone.
Angel Records was a record label founded by EMI in 1953. It specialised in classical music, but included an occasional operetta or Broadway score. and one Peter Sellers comedy disc. The famous Recording Angel trademark was used by the Gramophone Company, EMI and its affiliated companies from 1898. The label has been inactive since 2006, when it dissolved and reassigned its active artists and catalogue while retaining its recent catalogue to sister labels EMI Classics, Virgin Classics and Manhattan Records and its musical theatre artists and catalogue to other sister label Capitol Records.
EMI Records is a British multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was originally founded as a British flagship label by the music company of the same name in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the successor to its Columbia and Parlophone record labels. The label was later launched worldwide. It has a branch in India called EMI Records India, run by director Mohit Suri. In 2014, Universal Music Japan revived the label in Japan as the successor to EMI Records Japan. In June 2020, Universal revived the label as the successor to Virgin EMI, with Virgin Records now operating as an imprint of EMI Records.
Eldridge Reeves Johnson was an American businessman and engineer who founded the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1901 and built it into the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. Victor was the corporate predecessor of RCA Records.
Francis James Barraud was an English painter. He is best known for his work His Master's Voice, one of the most famous commercial logos in the world, having inspired a music industry trademark used by corporations including EMI, HMV, RCA Victor and JVC. The image, which depicts a dog named Nipper, ear cocked as he listens to a wind-up disc gramophone helped popularize the nascent field of sound recording and brought Barraud worldwide fame. He subsequently established himself as an artist for corporate clients, spending the rest of his career producing at least two dozen copies of the painting which made his name.
The Nipper Building is a colloquial name for The Victor condominiums, and formerly, Building 17, RCA Victor Company, Camden Plant. The structure is a historical building located in Cooper Grant neighborhood of Camden, Camden County, New Jersey, United States. Since 1901, Camden was the headquarters of the Victor Talking Machine Company, later RCA Victor. Originally a Victrola cabinet factory, the building was converted into luxury apartments and retail space in 2004.
Dan Leno was an English comedian and stage actor, famous for appearing in music hall, comic plays, pantomimes, Victorian burlesques and musical comedies, during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. He originated and popularised many songs, sketches and monologues in his music hall acts and made both sound and visual recordings of some of his work shortly before he died. Although brief, Leno's recording period (1901–1903) produced around thirty recordings on one-sided shellac discs using the early acoustic recording process. They were released by the Gramophone and Typewriter Company, one of the early recording companies, which became the parent organisation for the His Master's Voice (HMV) label.
Alan Kelly was a Scottish physicist who was also considered a pioneer of discographers.
