Word Records

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Word Records's Logo, until 1995.

Word Records is a Christian record label based in Nashville, Tennessee which was founded in Waco, TX in 1951 by Jarrell McCracken.

The label's name is based on a recording by McCracken, the first recording by the label, of a fictitious American football match held at the "Great Stadium of Life," known as the Game of Life. The 23-year old KWTX sportscaster in Waco, TX, read an article by Jimmy Allen, a former athlete who became a Baptist preacher, and based his recording on the article which also is called "The Game of Life". The event is based on a full length match between the forces of Good and Evil with Jesus Christ and Satan coaching the two teams. McCracken was familiar with play-by-play broadcasting, having created virtual baseball games for radio broadcast based on wire reports. McCracken originally presented his "The Game of Life" presentation on Sunday nights at various churches around the central Texas area. Everywhere he presented "The Game," he got requests for copies. Eventually, he had a short run of records pressed to offer at the churches that he visited. The fictional radio station in the recording has the call letters "WORD," so that was printed on the label of the custom record. Several months after he had begun distributing his record, a friend asked, "so when are you going to have your next release on your WORD record label?" It hadn't occurred to Jarrell that he had created a label, but he had.^[1]

Subsequent records focused on other spoken word recordings, but he soon branched out into gospel music, including George Beverly Shea and Baylor Religious Hour Choir. Early employees included Kurt Kaiser. The label struggled initially, and Marvin Norcross became an equity partner early in the label's beginnings. Word was both a publishing house and a record label by the end of the 1950's.

Several subsidiary labels were started over the years: Canaan Records in the sixties, Myrrh Records and DaySpring Records in the seventies, Home Sweet Home Records and Rejoice Records in the eighties. None of these labels exist today in their original form. The Myrrh Label has been resurrected as a praise and worship record label: Myrrh Worship

In the mid-1970s, McCracken sold part interest in his label to the American Broadcasting Company.

From 1984 until 1990 Word Records was distributed in the general market by A&M Records, afterwards distribution switched to Epic Records until 2002.

In 1992, Capital Cities ABC sold Word to Thomas Nelson (publisher), and Nelson made two major changes -- developing the present swirling W logo for book products which was unveiled in 1995, and also moving its headquarters from Waco, Texas, to its present headquarters in Nashville. Nelson split the record label and book publishing arms in 1996 when the labels were sold to Gaylord Entertainment. In an agreement with Gaylord, Thomas Nelson continued to use the "Word Publishing" name for its book imprint until 2002, at which time it became "W Publishing Group" and retained the swirling W logo. A highly controversial ad campaign introduced at the CBA convention in 2002 created litigation, settled later.

When Colin Reed took over Gaylord Entertainment in 2001, the hotelier sold off the Word Entertainment group to Time Warner in 2002. In 2004, the label was sold again, as Time Warner divested itself of its music division, selling it to Edgar Bronfman Jr and other interests, forming the Warner Music Group.