Liberty Records
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| Liberty Records | |
|---|---|
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| Parent company | EMI |
| Founded | 1955 |
| Founder(s) | Simon Waronker |
| Distributing label | EMI (In the UK) |
| Genre(s) | various |
| Country of Origin | UK |
| Website | Official site of Liberty Records |
Liberty Records was a United States-based record label. It was started by chairman Simon Waronker in 1955 with Alvin Bennett as president, and Theodore Keep as chief engineer.
In 1957, Liberty acquired the jazz label Pacific Jazz Records. In 1963, the Liberty Records label was sold to Avnet (an electronics corporation) for $12 million. Avnet also bought Blue Note Records, Imperial Records, Dolton Records, Aladdin Records and Minit Records. After 2 years of losses, Avnet sold the labels back to Al Bennett for $8 million. In 1966, a reissue label Sunset Records was started to deal with previously issued records from the new labels. Liberty recordings were first distributed in England by Decca Records on London Records, then by EMI which released the recordings on the Liberty label. Liberty established a branch office in London which signed acts such as the Bonzo Dog Band. Ron Kass, onetime president of Liberty Records, later became the head of the Beatles' record label, Apple Records.
In 1968, Liberty was bought for $38 million by Transamerica Corporation (an insurance company) and combined with their other label United Artists Records. Transamerica was unfamiliar with the recording industry; Alvin Bennett was fired after six months and things evolved from bad to worse. The company shut down Dolton and transferred Dolton's artists to Liberty; later they shut down Imperial and Minit and transferred their artists to Liberty. Finally in 1971, all releases were shifted to United Artists Records and Liberty Records was no more.
In 1978, Artie Mogull and Jerry Rubinstein acquired United Artists and Liberty Records (with money they borrowed from Capitol Records). In February of 1979, EMI foreclosed on them and has owned the rights of the Liberty labels since then.
Initially, EMI used Liberty to reissue the United Artists, Liberty and Imperial catalogues. From 1980 until 1984, Capitol used Liberty as a country label, featuring such artists as Kenny Rogers. In 1992, EMI renamed its Capitol-Nashville label to Liberty Records (featuring Garth Brooks) before switching back to the Capitol Nashville name three years later.
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[edit] Liberty Records in the 2000s United Kingdom
After releasing many late-1990s Europop records like the Hermes House Band, EMI reformatted the label in 2001 to focus on 'heritage acts'. The label, now operating in a similar sphere to that of rival Sanctuary, signed a number of acts such as The Alarm MMVI and Prefab Sprout.
[edit] Trivia
- Ross Bagdasarian (also known as David Seville), named his Chipmunks characters after Liberty Records executives; Alvin Bennett (president), Simon Waronker (founder/owner), and Theodore Keep (chief engineer).
