| Vocalion Records | |
|---|---|
 1921 Vocalion label | |
| Parent company | MCA Records, PolyGram, Universal Music |
| Founded | 1916 |
| Founder | Aeolian Piano Company |
| Distributor(s) | MCA Inc., Geffen Records, Universal Music |
| Genre | Jazz |
| Country of origin | US, UK |
Vocalion Records is an American record label, originally founded by the Aeolian Company, a piano and organ manufacturer before being bought out by Brunswick in 1924.
The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was later dropped from the label's name. In late 1924, the label was acquired by Brunswick Records. During the 1920s, Vocalion also began the 1000 race series, records recorded by and marketed to African Americans. [1] Jim Jackson recorded "Jim Jackson's Kansas City Blues" for Vocalion in 1927. [2] It sold exceptionally well, and the song became a blues standard for musicians from Memphis and Mississippi. [2] The label issued Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues" [3]
Vocalion was one of the most popular labels in the late 1930s. However, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) bought American Record Corporation (which operated the Vocalion label) in 1938, and in July 1940 they discontinued Vocalion, replacing it with the Okeh label. [4]
The City of London Phonograph & Gramophone Society CLPGS published a comprehensive database of British and Australian Vocalion records, including Broadcast, World Records and other labels used by the company in the 1920s and 1930s. [5]
The name Vocalion was resurrected in the late 1950s by American Decca as a budget label for back-catalog reissues. This incarnation of Vocalion ceased operations in 1973; however, its replacement as MCA's budget imprint, Coral Records, kept many Vocalion titles in print. In 1975, MCA reissued five albums on the Vocalion label. [6]
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its US label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president too. In 1937, anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca, and the link between the UK and US Decca label 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.
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of multinational conglomerate Sony. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1991, its 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: Epic Records, and former longtime rivals, RCA Records and Arista Records as the latter two were originally owned by BMG before its 2008 relaunch after Sony's acquisition alongside other BMG labels.
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer, incorporated in 1901. Victor was an independent enterprise until 1929 when it was purchased by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and became the RCA Victor Division of the Radio Corporation of America until late 1968, when it was renamed RCA Records.
Black Swan Records was an American jazz and blues record label founded in 1921 in Harlem, New York. It was the first widely distributed label to be owned, operated, and marketed to African Americans. Founded by Harry Pace with W.C. Handy, Black Swan Records was established to give African Americans more creative liberties. Eighteen months earlier, in 1919, the Broome Special Phonograph Records was the earliest label owned and operated by African American George W. Broome in Medford, Massachusetts, featuring Black classical musicians including Harry T. Burleigh and Edward Boatner. Black Swan was revived in the 1990s for CD reissues of its historic jazz and blues recordings.
Brunswick Records is an American record label founded in 1916.
Gennett Records was an American record company and label in Richmond, Indiana, United States, which flourished in the 1920s and produced the Gennett, Starr, Champion, Superior, and Van Speaking labels. The company also produced some Supertone, Silvertone, and Challenge records under contract. The firm also pressed, under contract, records for record labels such as Autograph, Rainbow, Hitch, Our Song, and Vaughn. Gennett produced some of the earliest recordings by Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, and Hoagy Carmichael. Its roster also included Jelly Roll Morton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, and Gene Autry.
James Price Johnson was an American pianist and composer. A pioneer of stride piano, he was one of the most important pianists in the early era of recording, and like Jelly Roll Morton, one of the key figures in the evolution of ragtime into what was eventually called jazz. Johnson was a major influence on Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, and Fats Waller, who was his student.
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". In 1965, OKeh became a subsidiary of Epic Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music. OKeh has since become a jazz imprint, distributed by Sony Masterworks.
Paramount Records was an American record label known for its recordings of jazz and blues in the 1920s and early 1930s, including such artists as Ma Rainey, Tommy Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson.
American Record Corporation (ARC), also referred to as American Record Company, American Recording Corporation, or ARC Records, was an American record company in operation from 1929 to 1938, and again from 1978 to 1982.
A cast recording is a recording of a stage musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. An original cast recording or OCR, as the name implies, features the voices of the show's original cast. A cast recording featuring the first cast to perform a musical in a particular venue is known, for example, as an "original Broadway cast recording" (OBCR) or an "original London cast recording" (OLCR).
The Memphis Jug Band was an American musical group active from the mid-1920s to the late-1950s. The band featured harmonica, kazoo, fiddle and mandolin or banjolin, backed by guitar, piano, washboard, washtub bass and jug. They played slow blues, pop songs, humorous songs and upbeat dance numbers with jazz and string band flavors. The band made the first commercial recordings in Memphis, Tennessee, and recorded more sides than any other prewar jug band.
Victoria Regina Spivey, sometimes known as Queen Victoria, was an American blues singer, songwriter, and record company founder. During a recording career that spanned 40 years, from 1926 to the mid-1960s, she worked with Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Clarence Williams, Luis Russell, Lonnie Johnson, and Bob Dylan. She also performed in vaudeville and clubs, sometimes with her sister Addie "Sweet Peas" Spivey, also known as the Za Zu Girl. Among her compositions are "Black Snake Blues" (1926), "Dope Head Blues" (1927), and "Organ Grinder Blues" (1928). In 1961, she co-founded Spivey Records with one of her husbands, Len Kunstadt.
16 Greatest Hits is a compilation album by Steppenwolf, released in 1973. It features some of their most famous songs, including "Born to Be Wild", "The Pusher", and "Magic Carpet Ride", and "Hey Lawdy Mama." The album consisted of the 11 tracks from the previous Gold: Their Great Hits album, in the same order as on the two sides of that earlier album, with the addition of the final two tracks on side 1, and the final three tracks on side 2.
Space Wrangler is the first studio album by the Athens, Georgia-based band Widespread Panic. It was first released by a small Atlanta label, Landslide Records, on February 4, 1988. It was later reissued four times, the first two times by Capricorn Records/Warner Bros. Records, and, in 2001, by Zomba Music Group. Space Wrangler was reissued for the fourth time on vinyl for one day — July 15, 2014 — as a special reissue through Think Indie distribution, that was sold only at independent record stores.
Wind on the Water is the second album by Crosby & Nash, released on ABC Records in 1975. Cassette and 8-track tape versions of the album were distributed by Atlantic Records, to which Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were signed. It peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 album chart and was certified gold by the RIAA. Three singles were released from the album, "Carry Me", "Take the Money and Run", and "Love Work Out", of which only the first charted, peaking at No. 52 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
The Aeolian Company was a musical-instrument making firm whose products included player organs, pianos, sheet music, records and phonographs. Founded in 1887, it was at one point the world's largest such firm. During the mid 20th century, it surpassed Kimball to become the largest supplier of pianos in the United States, having contracts with Steinway & Sons to provide its Duo-Art system for installation in Steinway pianos. It went out of business in 1985.
Dinah Sings Bessie Smith is the ninth studio album by blues, R&B and jazz singer Dinah Washington released on the Emarcy label, and reissued by Verve Records in 1999 as The Bessie Smith Songbook. The album arrangements are headed by Robare Edmondson and Ernie Wilkins, and the songs are associated with American blues singer Bessie Smith. AllMusic details the album in its review as saying: "It was only natural that the "Queen of the Blues" should record songs associated with the "Empress of the Blues." The performances by the septet/octet do not sound like the 1920s and the purposely ricky-tick drumming is insulting, but Dinah Washington sounds quite at home on this music".
American blues musician Robert Johnson (1911–1938) recorded 29 songs during his brief career. A total of 59 performances, including alternate takes, were recorded over a period of five days at two makeshift recording studios in Texas. Producers selected 25, which Vocalion Records issued on 12 two-sided 78 rpm record singles between 1937 and 1939. These went out-of-print, but were the only source of Johnson's work until his recordings were eventually issued on albums beginning in 1959. In addition to those on the original singles, another 17 recordings have been released.
The Starr Piano Company was an American manufacturer of pianos from the late 1800s to the middle 1900s. Founded by James Starr, the company also made phonographs and records and was the parent company of the jazz label Gennett. The company is known for manufacturing pianos under the brand names of Starr, Trayser, Duchess, Richmond, Remington, and Royal.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
