American Record Corporation

Not to be confused with another American Record Company (1904-1908, reactivated 1979).

American Record Corporation (ARC),[1] also referred to as American Record Company, American Recording Corporation,[2] or (erroneously) as ARC Records,[3] was a United States based record company. It resulted from the merger in July 1929 of the Cameo Record Corporation (Cameo, Lincoln and Romeo labels), the Pathé Phonograph and Radio Corporation (the US branch of the Pathé and Perfect labels), the Plaza Music Company's group of labels (Banner, Domino, Jewel, Oriole, and Regal labels) (although Plaza's assets were included in the merger, the Plaza company itself was excluded and they subsequently formed the Crown label in 1930),[4] and the Scranton Button Company, the parent company of Emerson Records (and the company who pressed most of the above labels).

Louis G. Sylvester (former head of Scranton) became president of the new company located at 1776 Broadway in Manhattan, New York City. In October 1929, Herbert Yates, head of Consolidated Film Industries, took control of ARC. In the following years, the company was very involved in a depressed market, buying failing labels at bargain prices to exploit their catalogue.

In December 1931 Warner Bros. leased Brunswick, Vocalion and associated companies to ARC. By 1932, ARC was king of the "3 records for a dollar" market, selling 6 million units in that year, twice as much as RCA Victor. In an effort to get back on top, RCA created its "Timely Tunes" label in 1931, and the Bluebird and Electradisk labels in 1932. ARC bought out the Columbia catalogue in 1934, including OKeh. As the Depression began, ARC began discontinuing some of the slower selling labels (including Domino, Regal, Jewel, see below). ARC started a theater-only label using instrumental versions of their standard 35c recordings. In the 1930s ARC produced Brunswick and (after 1934) Columbia at 75c and Oriole (sold at McCrory), Romeo (sold at Kress), as well as Melotone, Vocalion, Banner and Perfect (which were general purpose labels) at 35c. Also for a time in 1933-34, ARC revived the Domino label exclusively as a client label for John Gabel company in Pennsylvania (they were a jukebox distributor).

As with the companies that they bought, some of the labels were client labels created exclusively for specific stores: Conqueror (Sears, Roebuck), Oriole (McCrory), Romeo (Kress) and when the contracts ended, the labels ended too. Other labels (Banner, Perfect, Melotone) were known to have been sold at enough varied businesses that they are considered "general purpose labels". Many of the remaining labels have not been attributed with a specific store contract, but it's likely that the smaller and shorter-lived labels were exclusive to some business or another.

In April 1938, ARC discontinued Melotone, Banner, Romeo, Oriole and Perfect. In December 1938, the entire ARC complex was purchased from Consolidated Film for $700,000 by the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).[5] The record company was renamed Columbia Recording Corporation,[6] which revived the Columbia imprint as its flagship label with Okeh as a subsidiary label. This allowed the rights to the Brunswick and Vocalion labels (and pre-December 1931 Brunswick/Vocalion masters) to revert to Warner Bros., who sold the labels to Decca Records. The ARC legacy is otherwise now part of Sony Music Entertainment.

Labels ARC issued or pressed (1929-1938)

+ labels that existed prior to the formation of ARC

References

  1. ↑ "The 78rpm Home Page - Label Pictures". 78rpmrecord.com. Retrieved 2013-07-06.
  2. ↑ American Radio Networks: A History - Jim Cox - Google Books. Books.google.com. Retrieved on 2012-08-11.
  3. ↑ Charles Wolf and Kip Lornell, The Life and Legend of Leadbelly (New York: Da Capo Press, [1992] 1999, pp. 178, 198; Sing Out! 21 (1971), p. 44
  4. ↑ Komara, Edward (ed.) (2006), Encyclopedia of the Blues, Routledge
  5. ↑ LPs historic. Musicinthemail.com. Retrieved on 2012-08-11.
  6. ↑ "King of the Cowboys, Queen of the West: Roy Rogers And Dale Evans - Raymond E. White - Google Books". Books.google.com. Retrieved 2013-07-06.

See also

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