Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, 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 co-owned by Vivendi, a media conglomerate headquartered in Paris, and Tencent, a Chinese tech company. 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 on January 15, 1889, 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.
Gerry and the Pacemakers were a British beat group prominent in the 1960s Merseybeat scene. In common with the Beatles, they came from Liverpool, were managed by Brian Epstein, and were recorded by George Martin.
RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Arista Records, and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, classical, rock, hip hop, afrobeat, electronic, R&B, blues, jazz, and country. Its name is derived from the initials of its defunct parent company, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). It was fully acquired by Bertelsmann in 1986, making it a part of Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG). RCA Records became a part of Sony BMG Music Entertainment after Sony and BMG merged in 2004; it was acquired by the latter in 2008, after the dissolution of Sony BMG and the restructuring of Sony Music. It is the second-oldest record label in American history, after sister label Columbia Records.
Coral Records was a subsidiary of Decca Records that was formed in 1949. Coral released music by Patsy Cline, Buddy Holly, the McGuire Sisters and Teresa Brewer.
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 spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Otto K. E. Heinemann but later changed to "OKeh". Since 1926, Okeh has been a subsidiary of Columbia Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music. Okeh is a Jazz imprint distributed by Sony Masterworks, a specialty label of Columbia.
Musicraft Records was a record company and label established in 1937 in New York City.
Bluebird Records is a record label best known for its low-cost releases, primarily of blues and jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. It was founded in 1932 as a lower-priced RCA Victor subsidiary label. Bluebird became known for what came to be known as the "Bluebird sound", which influenced rhythm and blues and early rock and roll.
Checker Records is an inactive record label that was started in 1952 as a subsidiary of Chess Records in Chicago, Illinois. The label was founded by the Chess brothers, Leonard and Phil, who ran the label until they sold it to General Recorded Tape (GRT) in 1969, shortly before Leonard's death.
DreamWorks Records was an American record label founded in 1996 by David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg as a subsidiary of DreamWorks Pictures. The label operated until 2003 when it was sold to Universal Music Group. The label itself also featured a Nashville, Tennessee-based subsidiary, DreamWorks Nashville, which specialized in country music and was shut down in 2006. The company's logo was designed by Roy Lichtenstein and was his last commission before his death in 1997.
The following is a list of notable people who died in March 2005.
Irving Harold Mills was an American music publisher, musician, lyricist, and jazz artist promoter. He sometimes used the pseudonyms Goody Goodwin and Joe Primrose.
Universal Music Group Nashville is Universal Music Group's country music subsidiary. Some of the labels in this group include MCA Nashville Records, Mercury Nashville Records, Lost Highway Records, Capitol Records Nashville and EMI Records Nashville. UMG Nashville not only handles these imprints, but also manages the country music catalogues of record labels Universal Music and predecessor companies acquired over the years including ABC Records, Decca Records, Dot Records, DreamWorks Records, Kapp Records, MGM Records and Polydor Records.
The Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, formerly called the Royale Theatre and the John Golden Theatre, is a Broadway theatre located at 242 West 45th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
VP Records is an independent Caribbean-owned record label in Queens, New York. The label is known for releasing music by notable artists in reggae, dancehall and soca.
John Albert "Johnny" Guarnieri was an American jazz and stride pianist, born in New York City.
Dream Street is a 1921 American silent romantic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith, and starring Carol Dempster, Charles Emmett Mack, and Ralph Graves in a story about a love triangle set in London, and based on two short stories by Thomas Burke, "Gina of Chinatown" and "Song of the Lamp". The cast also features Tyrone Power, Sr.
Majestic Radios was an American radio brand from 1927 to 1955, trademarked as "The Mighty Monarchs of the Air". Noted for their high quality, they were initially manufactured by the Grigsby-Grunow company of Chicago. After Grigsby-Grunow's demise in 1934 during the Depression, the radios were produced by Majestic Radio & Television in the 1930s–1940s. Following Majestic Radio & Television's liquidation in 1949, Majestic-brand radios were made by a division of Wilcox-Gay at their Michigan factory.
Bel-Tone Recording Corporation was a small American independent record label founded in 1944 in Hollywood, California, that recorded and produced artists of the pop, race, and folk genres.
Elliott Everett "Eli" Oberstein was an American record producer and music business executive who was responsible for establishing the influential Bluebird record label in the 1930s, and later owned a succession of small labels in the 1940s and 1950s.
