Brunswick
- Categories:
- Northern America
- United States of America
1916 - now
Brunswick Records is a United States based record label est. 1916. The label nowadays is distributed by E1 Entertainment. Records under the Brunswick label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company. The company first began producing phonographs in 1916, then began marketing their own line of records as an after-thought. These first Brunswick Records used the vertical cut system like Edison Disc Records, and were not sold in large numbers. They were recorded in the US but sold only in Canada.
In January 1920, a new line of Brunswick Records were introduced in the US and Canada that employed the lateral cut system that was then becoming the default cut for 78 disc records.
In 1923 Brunswick Records were introduced into Britain under the name Brunswick Cliftophone.
In late 1924, Brunswick acquired the Vocalion Records label.
In April 1930, Brunswick-Balke-Collender sold Brunswick Records to Warner Bros., and the company's headquarters moved to New York.
In November 1930 the new budget line Melotone debuted, entering a field of lower priced electrical records including Columbia's Clarion and the various labels of the Plaza Music Company (such as Perfect, Banner, and Romeo).
December 1931: Warners leased the entire Brunswick record operation to Consolidated Film Industries, the parent company of the American Record Corporation (ARC)
In 1932, the UK branch of Brunswick was acquired by British Decca.
In 1939, the American Record Corp. was bought by the Columbia Broadcasting System for $750,000, which discontinued the Brunswick label in 1940 in favor of reviving the Columbia label (as well as reviving the OKeh label replacing Vocalion).
In 1943, Decca revived the Brunswick label.
By 1952, Brunswick was put under the management of Decca's Coral Records subsidiary. In 1957, Brunswick became a subsidiary label to Coral.
The Decca-era Brunswick jazz catalog is managed by the Verve Music Group(which is also part of Universal). The official Brunswick Records web site has a detailed history of the Tarnopol-era Brunswick Records.
1995 Brunswick was revived by Nat's children Paul and Mara Tarnopol. The Brunswick catalog is distributed by E1 Entertainment. Many of the recordings, supervised by producer Carl Davis in Chicago, which established Brunswick as a major force in R&B/soul music in the 1960s and 1970s have been re-issued in recent years. Davis formed sister label Dakar Records in 1967. Dakar was first distributed by Atlantic Records, then by Brunswick in 1972 after Brunswick became an independent label.
Brunswick started its standard popular series at 2000 and ended up in 1940 at 8517. However, when the series reached 4999, they skipped over the previous allocated 5000's and continued at 6000. Also, when they reached 6999, they continued at 7301 (because the early 7000's had been previously allocated as their Race series).
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