Columbia Records
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| Columbia Records | |
|---|---|
| Image:ColumbiaRec.png | |
| Parent company | Sony BMG |
| Founded | 1888 |
| Distributing label | Columbia Records (In the U.S.)</td></tr> |
| Genre(s) | Various |
| Country of Origin | U.S. |
| Website | Official site of Columbia Records |
Columbia Records is the oldest brand name in recorded sound, dating back to 1888, and was the first record company to produce pre-recorded records as opposed to blank cylinders. Today it is a premier subsidiary label of Sony BMG.
Contents |
[edit] History
Columbia was originally the local company distributing and selling Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington, DC, Maryland and Delaware, and derives its name from the District of Columbia, which was its headquarters. As was the custom of some of the regional phonograph companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own, and its catalogue of musical records in 1891 was 10 pages long. Columbia severed its ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company in 1893, and thereafter sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture.
Columbia began selling disc records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901. For a decade Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in recorded sound. In 1908 Columbia introduced mass production of "Double Sided" disc records, with recordings stamped into both sides of the disc.
During this early period, Columbia used the famous "Magic Notes" logo--a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle--both in the United States and overseas (where this logo would never substantially change).
In July 1912, Columbia decided to concentrate exclusively on disc records and stopped recording new cylinder records and manufacturing cylinder phonographs although they continued pressing and selling cylinder records from their back catalogue for a year or two more.
On February 25, 1925 Columbia began recording with the new electric recording process licensed from Western Electric. The first electrical recordings were made by Art Gillham. In a secret agreement with Victor, both companies did not make the new recording technology public knowledge for some months, in order not to hurt sales of their existing acoustically recorded catalogue while a new electrically recorded catalogue was being built. In 1926, Columbia acquired Okeh Records. In October 1928, Columbia executive Frank Buckley Walker pioneered some of the first country music or "hillbilly" genre recordings in Johnson City, Tennessee including artists such as Clarence Green and the legendary fiddler and entertainer, Charlie Bowman.
In 1931, the English Columbia Graphophone Company merged with the Gramophone Company to form Electric & Musical Industries Ltd. (EMI). EMI was forced to sell its American Columbia operations because of anti-trust concerns to the American Record Corporation (ARC).
In 1938 ARC, including the Columbia label in the USA, was bought by William S. Paley of Columbia Broadcasting System, headed for US$700,000. CBS was originally co-founded by Columbia Records. The Columbia trademark from this point until the late 1950s was two overlapping circles with the Magic Notes in the left circle and a CBS microphone in the right circle.
[edit] The LP Record
At this time, Columbia's president, Edward Wallerstein, instrumental in steering Paley to the ARC purchase, set his talents to the goal (as he saw it) of hearing an entire movement of a symphony on one side of an album. Ward Botsford writing for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Issue of "High Fidelity Magazine", relates, "He was no inventor—he was simply a man who seized an idea whose time was ripe and begged, ordered, and cajoled a thousand men into bringing into being the now accepted medium of the record business."<references/> Resulting from Wallerstein's brief and stormy tenure, in 1948 Columbia introduced the Long Playing microgroove (LP) record (sometimes in early advertisements Lp) format, which rotated at 33⅓ revolutions per minute, which became the standard for the gramophone record for half a century. Peter Goldmark played a managerial role in the collaborative effort, but Wallerstein credits Bill Savory with the technical prowess that brought the long-playing disc to the public....
[edit] The 1950s
In 1951, Columbia USA severed its decades-long distribution arrangement with EMI and signed a distribution deal with Philips Records to market Columbia recordings outside North America. EMI continued to distribute Okeh and later Epic label recordings for several years into the 1960s.
Columbia became the most successful record company in the 1950s when they hired impresario Mitch Miller away from the Mercury label. Miller quickly signed on Mercury's biggest artist at the time, Frankie Laine, and discovered several of the decade's biggest recording stars including Tony Bennett, Guy Mitchell, Johnnie Ray, The Four Lads, Rosemary Clooney and Johnny Mathis. In 1953, CBS formed Columbia's sister label Epic Records.
In 1955, Columbia USA decisively broke with its past when it replaced the microphone/"Magic Notes" logo with a new, modernist-style "Walking Eye" logo. This logo actually depicts a stylus (the legs) on a record (the eye); however, the "eye" also subtly refers to CBS's main business in television, and that division's iconic Eye logo. The original Walking Eye was tall and solid; it was modified in 1960 to the familiar one still used today (pictured on this page).
[edit] The 1960s
In 1961, CBS ended its arrangement with Philips Records and formed its own international organization, CBS Records, which released Columbia recordings outside the USA and Canada on the CBS label. When Epic's distribution deal with EMI expired, CBS Records distributed Epic recordings on the Epic label outside North America as well. Epic distributed Ode Records between 1967-1969 and between 1976-1979
In 1966, another Columbia subsidiary label, Date, was created mainly for the soul music outlet. This label released the first string of hits for Peaches & Herb. Date's biggest success was Time Of The Season by The Zombies, peaking at #2 in 1969. The label was discontinued in 1971.
The Columbia label became more of a rock music label following the appointment of Clive Davis as president in 1967.
[edit] Michael Jackson and the sale to Sony
In 1982, CBS Records (through Epic) manufactured Michael Jackson's Thriller, the biggest-selling album ever. In the U.S., The Eagles' Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 surpassed it. Both albums have sold over 26 million copies.
In 1988 CBS Records, including the Columbia Records unit, was acquired by Sony, who re-christened the parent division Sony Music Entertainment in 1991. As Sony only had a temporary license on the CBS Records name, it then acquired the rights to the Columbia trademarks outside the U.S., Canada and Japan (Columbia Graphophone) from EMI, which generally had not been used by them since the 1960s.
In 1997, Columbia made an affiliation with unsigned artist promotion label Aware Records to distribute Aware's artists music. Through this venture, Columbia has had success finding highly successful artists. In 2002, Columbia and Aware accepted the option to continue this relationship.
[edit] Sony BMG consolidation
Sony merged its music division with Bertelsmann AG's BMG unit in 2004; the combined company, Sony BMG, continues to use the Columbia Records name and Walking Eye logo in all markets except Japan (where that division is called Sony Records and is still fully owned by Sony). In Japan, the trademark (Magic Notes) is still held by the former Nippon Columbia, now called Columbia Music Entertainment. Sony Music uses a modified version of the Magic Notes trademark for the logo of its Sony Classical label.
Currently, Legacy Recordings Sony BMG's catalog division, reissues classic albums for Columbia.
[edit] Further reading
- Revolution in Sound: A Biography of the Recording Industry. Little, Brown and Company, 1974. ISBN 0316773336.
- High Fidelity Magazine, ABC, Inc. April, 1976, "Creating the LP Record."
- The Columbia Master Book Discography, compiled by Brian Rust. Greenwood Press, 1999.
[edit] Previously affiliated labels
- Def Jam Recordings (1985-1993) (under Columbia Records)
- Tabu Records (1980-1990) (under Epic Associated Labels)
- So So Def Recordings (1993-2003) (under Columbia Records)
- Jet Records (under Epic Records)
- Loud Records (1999–2002) (under Columbia Records)
- 550 Music (under Epic Records)
- Legacy Recordings (1990-present) (Distributes classic albums)
- Private-I Records
[edit] See also
- List of record labels
- Columbia Records artists
- Sony Music Entertainment
- Sony BMG Music Entertainmentde:Columbia Records
es:Columbia Records fr:Sony Music Entertainment it:Columbia Records he:קולומביה רקורדס nl:Columbia Records ja:コロムビア・レコード pl:Columbia Records pt:Columbia Records ru:Columbia Records fi:Columbia Records sv:Columbia (skivbolag)
