United Artists Records

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United Artists Records was a record label founded by United Artists in 1958 to distribute soundtracks from its movies.

The label's releases became very popular in the 1960s, with the albums from the James Bond and Beatles movies. United Artists also had a few subsidiary labels: Ascot, Musicor, Unart (for budget albums), and Veep. Gordon Lightfoot recorded his first major label albums with United Artists from 1966-1969. In 1969, United Artists acquired Liberty Records and its subsidiary Imperial Records.

United Artists involvement with jazz was significant, including albums by Duke Ellington and Art Farmer, although there were only a few jazz titles after about 1963. Around 1966 a subsidiary jazz label Solid State was founded, which lasted until 1969, on which recordings by the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra and Chick Corea, among others, were issued. Liberty's ownership of Blue Note resulted in Solid State's artists being transferred to the more prestigious label, and Solid State itself being wound up.

Mainstream pop acts continued to be signed to the label, among them being Traffic, the Spencer Davis Group, Peter Sarstedt, Shirley Bassey, War, and Hawkwind. After UA bought the small Mediarts Records label, their roster grew to include Don McLean, Paul Anka, Bill Conti, and Gerry Rafferty. Later, through a distribution deal with Jet Records, Electric Light Orchestra, Dr. Feelgood, The Buzzcocks and The Stranglers recordings were released by the label.

The label's most successful artist was Kenny Rogers who signed to UA in the mid-1970s, enjoying a long string of hit singles and albums.

EMI purchased United Artists in 1979 and absorbed its artists into EMI's worldwide operations, returning the name of the record label to the film company. The Liberty label was briefly revived before the company was absorbed into EMI. Liberty Records operated between late 1980 and approximately 1986. Many albums from the United Artists Records catalog were reissued on Liberty during these years. Two notable exceptions were a couple of Beatles albums not previously controlled by EMI in the United States: The A Hard Day's Night soundtrack album, and Let It Be. (Let It Be was actually released by Apple Records in both the UK and the US but the movie had been distributed by United Artists Pictures in the USA.) Both Beatles albums were reissued on the Capitol label, which already controlled the rest of the Beatles catalog. The primary artist on Liberty was Kenny Rogers.

United Artists released many other movie soundtrack albums, including those of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,The Karate Kid Part II and The Greatest Story Ever Told, and of the film versions of the musicals A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, Fiddler on the Roof and Man of La Mancha (film). The movie soundtrack album of United Artists' most critically acclaimed and financially successful film musical, West Side Story, was, however, released by Columbia Records, which had also released the Broadway cast album. The label's final release was the Who Framed Roger Rabbit soundtrack album.