Parlophone is a record label, that was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch was formed in 1923 as "Parlophone" which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a leading jazz label. It was acquired in 1927 by the Columbia Graphophone Company which later became EMI. George Martin joined in 1950 as assistant label manager, taking over as manager in 1955. Martin produced and released a mix of product including comedy recordings of The Goons, the pianist Mrs Mills, and teen idol Adam Faith. In 1962 Martin signed rising new Liverpool band The Beatles. With Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer, the Fourmost, and contemporary Mancunian band The Hollies also signed to the label, Parlophone in the sixties became one of the world's most famous and prestigious record labels.
For a long time Parlophone claimed the best selling UK single "She Loves You", and the best selling UK album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The label also achieved placement of seven singles at #1 during 1964, when it also claimed top spot in the album charts for 40 of the 52 weeks during that year.
History
Founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as "Parlophon", Lindstrom initially used the brand name for gramophones before making records. The ₤ trademark is a German L, for Lindström. (Coincidentally it also resembles the British pound sign, £, which itself is derived from the letter L for Libra, meaning pound in Latin.) During the First World War, the Transoceanic Trading Company was set up in the Netherlands to look after its overseas assets. On August 8, 1923, the British branch of "Parlophone" (with the "e" added) was established, led by A&R manager Oscar Preuss. Parlophone established a master leasing arrangement with co-owned United States based Okeh Records, making Parlophone a leading jazz label in the UK.
In 1927 the Columbia Graphophone Company acquired a controlling interest in the Carl Lindström Company and thereby in Parlophone. In 1931 Columbia merged with the Gramophone Company to form Electric & Musical Industries Ltd (EMI). Under EMI the Parlophone company initially maintained its status as a jazz label. In about 1929 or 1930, the "Rhythm Style Series" started: jazz records culled from the OKeh label. Besides the OKeh recordings, Parlophone also issued recordings from US Columbia, Brunswick as well as a few sessions produced at US Decca. As time went on the label also released speciality recordings of spoken-word and comedy recordings, such as the comedy recordings of The Goons and Flanders and Swann.
In 1950, Preuss hired 24-year-old George Martin as his assistant. When Preuss retired in 1955 Martin succeeded him as label manager.
Leading Parlophone artists in the 1950s included Germany's Obernkirchen Children's Choir and Scottish musician Jimmy Shand. At the dawn of the rock era, Parlophone artists such as Humphrey Lyttelton, the Vipers Skiffle Group, the pianist Mrs Mills, Jim Dale, Keith Kelly[disambiguation needed], Peter Sellers, Bernard Cribbins, the Temperance Seven, Laurie London and Shane Fenton would sporadically reach the British Top 20 chart. Their only consistently successful act until the "Beat Boom" was that of teen idol Adam Faith: Faith was assigned to the label in 1959 by Norman Newell, an EMI A&R man "without portfolio". Treading a path similar to other British labels of the era, Parlophone released all manner of domestic and foreign licensed product, including James Brown, but had little success in comparison to EMI siblings HMV and Columbia.
The label's fortunes began to rise in 1962, when Martin signed rising new Liverpool band The Beatles. Along with fellow NEMS stablemates Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer and the Fourmost, and contemporary Mancunian band The Hollies, The Beatles turned Parlophone into one of the world's most famous and prestigious record labels.
After Martin left to form the Associated Independent Recording (AIR) Studios in 1965, the Parlophone Company was absorbed into EMI's Gramophone Company unit (renamed EMI Records in 1973) with the Parlophone label maintaining its identity. For a long time Parlophone claimed the best selling UK single "She Loves You", and the best selling UK album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The label also achieved placement of seven singles at #1 during 1964, when it also claimed top spot in the album charts for 40 of the 52 weeks during that year.
On April 23, 2008 Miles Leonard was confirmed as label president.[1]
Notable releases
Rhythm-Style Series
Beginning in about 1929 or 1930, Parlophone started a series of American jazz records on their "Rhythm Style Series". Edgar Jackson was the director of this series, which was issued within the existing R- series (the first issue was R-448). Culled from the American OKeh label, artists like Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer, Duke Ellington, Miff Mole, and other major artists who recorded for OKeh. These records were usually "split-coupled" (the top and bottom side of each record was usually by different artists and did not correspond with the original American coupling). The "Second New Rhythm-Style" series replaced the first series in about 1931, and there was a separate series for each year from 1934 through 1941, as well as some miscellany series. These 78's were popular and remained in print for years.
Even though these records were never licensed for sale in the U.S., they were heavily imported through jazz shops like Commodore and Liberty in the late 1930s and were sold through the 1940s and into the early 1950s. They are treasured by collectors because they are pressed from the original stampers and usually sound much better than the worn and usually rare U.S. OKeh original records.
In the U.S. in 1929 there was a short-lived Parlophone label made and distributed by OKeh.[2] OKeh started the PNY-34000 series (along with the Odeon ONY-36000 series) lasting until late 1930 or early 1931. No one has been able to determine for whom these two labels were intended for, since many surviving copies are in new condition. Speculation amongst record collectors is that that these records were found uncirculated in a warehouse, and that they were possibly intended to be sold off-shore in U.S. possessions (Guam, Hawaii, etc.).
Parlophone released The Beatles albums up to Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Subsequent releases - The Beatles (The White Album), Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be were issued on their own Apple label, distributed by EMI and bearing Parlophone catalogue numbers.
Parlophone is still an important pop label with artists such as Gorillaz and Kylie Minogue. It is also EMI's oldest active label: its contemporary HMV, was always more of a classical music label and ceased issuing popular music recordings in 1967 (it is now known as EMI Classics); English Columbia has been replaced by the EMI pop label. Parlophone also operates the imprint Regal Recordings, a contemporary revival of the historic Columbia Graphophone budget/reissue label founded in 1914.
An interesting note is that Parlophone's 45 rpm releases continue, as of late 2011, to be numbered using the same "R-xxxx" catalog number series that it has used continuously since 1956 (starting around R-4200 and currently up to the R-6800 range).
The labels shown here include those used for 78s and LPs. The label design for 7" singles had the same standard template as several other EMI labels, with the large "45" insignia to the right. In recent years, design uniformity has relaxed from release to release.
