'Decca Records' is a
British record label established in
1929. Its US label was established in late 1934.
The label
The name "Decca" dates back to a portable
gramophone called the "Decca Dulcephone" patented in 1914 by musical instrument makers Barnett Samuel and Sons. That company was eventually renamed The Decca Gramophone Co. Ltd. and then sold to former stockbroker Edward Lewis in 1929. Within years Decca Records Ltd. was the second largest record label in the world, calling itself "The Supreme Record Company". The name "Decca" was coined by Wilfred S. Samuel by merging the word "
Mecca" with the initial D of their logo "Dulcet" or their trademark "Dulcephone."
[1]
Popular music
US Decca label from 1934 featuring the band of trumpet star
Henry Busse.
''For a list of artists using the Decca records label see
List of Artists under the Decca Records label.''
Decca bought out the bankrupt UK branch of
Brunswick Records in 1932 , which added such stars as
Bing Crosby and
Al Jolson to its roster. Decca also bought out the
Melotone and Edison Bell record companies. By 1939, Decca and
EMI were the only record companies in the UK.
In 1934, a
US branch of Decca was launched with the help of Warner Bros. Pictures, whose
Brunswick label was leased to another company. Decca became a major player in the depressed American record market thanks to its roster of popular artists, particularly Bing Crosby, and the shrewd management of former US Brunswick General Manager
Jack Kapp. The following year, the pressing and Canadian distribution of US Decca records was licensed to Compo Company Ltd. in
Lachine, Quebec, a breakaway and rival of
Berliner Gram-o-phone Co. of
Montreal, Quebec. (Compo was acquired by Decca in 1951 although its Compo and Apex labels continued in production for the next two decades.)
Artists signed to Decca in the
1930s and
1940s included
Louis Armstrong,
Count Basie,
Jimmie Lunceford,
Jane Froman, The
Boswell Sisters,
Billie Holiday, The
Andrews Sisters,
Whoopee John Wilfahrt,
Ted Lewis,
Judy Garland, The
Mills Brothers,
Billy Cotton,
Guy Lombardo,
Chick Webb,
Bob Crosby,
Dorsey Brothers (and subsequenrtly
Jimmy Dorsey after the brothers split,
Connee Boswell and
Jack Hylton,
Victor Young,
Earl Hines and
Claude Hopkins.
In 1942, Decca released the first recording of "
White Christmas" by
Bing Crosby. He recorded another version of the song in 1947 for Decca, which became the best-selling single ever at that time (and remained so until
1997).
In 1943, Decca ushered in the age of the
original cast album in the United States, when they released an album set of nearly all the songs from
Rodgers and Hammerstein's ''
Oklahoma!'', performed by the same cast who appeared in the show on
Broadway, and using the show's orchestra, conductor, chorus, and musical and vocal arrangements. The enormous success of this album was followed by original cast recordings of ''
Carousel'' and
Irving Berlin's ''
Annie Get Your Gun'', both featuring members of the original casts of the shows and utilizing those shows' vocal and choral arrangements. Because of the technical restrictions of recording on 78 rpm records, none of these scores were recorded totally complete; they were shorter than cast albums made after
LPs were introduced. But Decca had made history by recording Broadway
musicals, and the influence of these releases influenced the recording of theatrical shows in U.S continues - in Decca's home country, the
UK original cast albums had been a fixture for years.
Columbia Records followed with theater recording albums, starting with the 1946 revival of ''
Show Boat''. In 1947,
RCA Victor in released an original cast album of ''
Brigadoon''. By the
1950s, many recording companies relased Broadway show albums recorded by their original casts.
In 1954, American Decca released "
Rock Around the Clock" by
Bill Haley & His Comets. Produced by
Milt Gabler, the recording was initially only moderately successful, but when it was used as the theme song for the 1955 film ''
Blackboard Jungle'', it became the first international
rock and roll hit, and the first such recording to go to No. 1 on the American musical charts. According to the ''
Guinness Book of Records'', it went on to sell 25 million copies, returning to the US and UK charts several times between 1955 and 1974 .
During the 1950s, American Decca released a number of soundtrack recordings of popular motion pictures, notably
Michael Todd's production of ''
Around the World in Eighty Days'' (1956) with the music of veteran film composer
Victor Young. Since Decca had access to the stereophonic tracks of the Oscar-winning film, they quickly released a stereo version in 1958.
Decca was also the first record label for which
Gary Glitter recorded, under the name Paul Raven.
The American
RCA label severed its longtime affiliation with
EMI's
His Master's Voice (
HMV) label in 1957, which allowed British Decca to market and distribute
Elvis Presley's recordings in the UK on the
RCA and RCA Victor labels
British Decca had several missed opportunities. In 1960, they refused to release "
Tell Laura I Love Her" by
Ray Peterson and even destroyed thousands of copies of the single. A
cover version by
Ricky Valance was released by EMI on the
Columbia label, and it went to #1 on the British charts for three weeks. In 1962 , British Decca executive
Dick Rowe turned down a chance to record
The Beatles in favour of local beat combo
Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. Dick Rowe, head of the pop division, said of the Beatles, “We don’t like their sound, and ‘guitar music’ is on the way out” (see
The Decca audition). In retrospect this was a historic mistake. Later refusals of note include
The Yardbirds and
Manfred Mann. However they earlier accepted another Merseyside singer,
Billy Fury.
Ironically, the turning down of The Beatles led indirectly to the signing of one of Decca's biggest 1960s artists,
The Rolling Stones. Dick Rowe was judging a talent contest with
George Harrison, and Harrison mentioned to him that he should take a look at The Stones, whom he had just seen live for the first time a couple of weeks before. Rowe saw the Stones, and quickly signed them to a contract.
British Decca lost a key source for American records when
Atlantic Records switched British distribution to
Polydor Records in 1966 in order for Atlantic to gain access to British recording artists which they didn't have under Decca distribution.
The
1970s were disastrous for Decca. The Rolling Stones left the label in 1970 , and other artists followed. Decca's deals with numerous other record labels began to fall apart;
RCA Records, for instance, abandoned Decca to set up its own UK office in 1971 .
The Moody Blues were the only international rock act that remained on the label. Although Decca had set up the first of the British "progressive" labels,
Deram Records, in 1966 , by the time the punk era set in 1977 , Decca had become known primarily as a classical label which had only sporadic pop success with such acts as
John Miles, novelty creation
Father Abraham and the Smurfs, and productions by longtime Decca associate
Jonathan King. Decca sadly became a label of last resort, dependent on re-release of its back catalogue. Contemporary signings such as the pre-stardom
Adam Ant and
Slaughter & The Dogs were firmly second division and second rate when compared to likes of
PolyGram,
CBS, EMI, and newcomer
Virgin's rosters of hitmakers.
Country music
From the late 1940s on, the US arm of Decca had a sizable roster of
Country artists, including
Kitty Wells,
Johnny Wright,
Ernest Tubb,
Webb Pierce,
Wilburn Brothers,
Bobbejaan Schoepen, and
Red Foley. In the late 1950s,
Patsy Cline was signed to the US Decca label from
4 Star Records. As part of a leasing deal, Patsy’s contract was owned by 4 Star; though she recorded for Decca as part of this deal, she recorded an album but saw little money. In 1960 , she signed with Decca outright and released two more albums and numerous singles while she was alive and several more albums and singles produced after her untimely death in a 1963 plane crash.
The Wilburn Brothers were ultimately signed to a lifetime contract with Decca. Doyle Wilburn of the Wilburn Brothers obtained a recording contract for
Loretta Lynn who signed to Decca in the early
1960s and remained with the label for the next several decades.
Owen Bradley was the A&R man for all of these artists. Decca quickly became
RCA Records main rival as the top label for American country music by the early 1950's and remained so for decades.
Classical music
Decca logo used for classical music releases.
In classical music, Decca had a long way to go from its modest beginnings to catching up with the established
HMV and
Columbia labels (later merged as
EMI). Decca’s emergence as a major classical label may be attributed to three concurrent events: the emphasis on technical innovation (first the development of the FFRR technique, then the early use of stereophonic recording), the introduction of the
long-playing record, and the recruitment of
John Culshaw to Decca’s London office.
For many years, Decca's British classical recordings were issued in the U.S. under the
London Records label; with the advent of compact discs, the practice was gradually eliminated. American Decca made a modest number of classical recordings, primarily with the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Max Rudolf.
Decca recorded high fidelity versions of all the symphonies of
Ralph Vaughn Williams except for the ninth, under the personal supervision of the composer, with
Sir Adrian Boult and the
London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Benjamin Britten conducted recordings of many of his compositions for Decca, from the 1940s through the 1970s; some of these recordings have been reissued on CD.
FFRR
FFRR (full frequency range recording) was a spin-off of Decca’s development during the
Second World War of a
high fidelity hydrophone capable of detecting and cataloging individual German submarines by each one's signature engine noise, and enabled a greatly enhanced frequency range (high and low notes) to be captured on recordings. Critics regularly commented on the startling realism of the new Decca recordings. The dynamic range of FFRR was 80-15000 Hz, with a signal-to-noise ratio of 60dB. While Decca's early FFRR releases on 78-rpm discs had some noticeable surface noise, which diminished the effects of the high fidelity sound, the switch to long-playing records in 1949 made better use of the new technology and set an industry standard that was quickly imitated by Decca's competitors.
Stereo
The Decca recording engineers Arthur Haddy and
Kenneth Wilkinson developed in 1954 the famous
Decca tree, a
stereo main microphone recording system for big orchestras. Decca started recording in stereo on 14-28 May 1954, in
Victoria Hall in
Geneva, the first European record company to do so, only three months after
RCA Victor began recording in stereo in the U.S. Decca archives show that
Ernest Ansermet and the
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande recorded ''
Thamar'' by
Mily Balakirev; the overture to ''
Benvenuto Cellini'' by
Hector Berlioz; ''
Stenka Razin'' by
Alexander Glazunov; and
Anatoly Liadov's ''
Baba-Yaga'', ''
Eight Russian Folksongs'', and ''
Kikimora.'' These performance were initially issued only in monaural sound; the stereo versions were finally issued in the 1960s as part of the "Stereo Treasury" series.
[2] With most competitors not using stereo until 1957, the new technique was a distinctive feature of Decca's. Even after stereo became standard and into the 1970s, Decca boasted a special, spectacular sound quality. In the 1960s and 1970s, the company developed its "Phase 4" process which produced greater sonic realism that rivaled the
quadraphonic recordings introduced by other companies in the early 1970s.
Digital recording & mastering
Starting in the late 1970s, Decca developed their own
digital audio recorders used in-house for recording, mixing, editing, and mastering albums. Each recorder consisted of a modified
IVC model 826P open-reel 1-inch
VTR, connected to a custom "codec" unit with time code capability (using a proprietary
time code developed by Decca), as well as outboard
DAC and
ADC units connected to the codec unit. The codec recorded audio to tape in 16 bits (although later versions of the system used 20 bits). With the exception of the IVC VTRs (which were modified to Decca's specifications by IVC's UK division in
Reading), all the electronics for these systems were developed and manufactured in-house by Decca (and by contractors to them as well). These digital systems were used for mastering most of Decca's classical music releases to both LP and CD, and were used well into the late 1990s.
The LP
The Long-Playing record was launched in the USA in 1948 by
Columbia Records (not connected with the British company of the same name at the time). It enabled recordings to play for up to half an hour without a break, compared with the three minutes playing time of the existing records. The new records were made of vinyl (the old discs were made of shellac), which enabled the FFRR recordings to be transferred to disc very realistically. In the UK Decca took up the LP promptly and enthusiastically, in 1949, giving the company an enormous advantage over EMI, which for some years tried to stick exclusively to the old format, thereby forfeiting competitive advantage to Decca, both artistically and financally.
Decca Special Products
Decca Special Products developed a number of ground-breaking products for the audio marketplace. These included:
★ The Decca
Ribbon Tweeter
★ A series of Decca London
phonograph cartridges
★ The Decca International
tone arm
★ The Decca Record Brush
The Decca phono cartridges were a unique design, with fixed magnets and coils. The stylus shaft was composed of the diamond tip, a short piece of soft iron, and an L-shaped
cantilever made of non-magnetic steel. Since the iron was placed very close to the tip (within 1 mm), the motions of the tip could be tracked very accurately. Decca engineers called this "positive scanning". Vertical and lateral compliance was controlled by the shape and thickness of the cantilever. Decca cartidges had a reputation for being very musical; however early versions required more tracking force than competitive designs - making record wear a concern.
The Decca International tone arms were
fluid-damped unipivot designs. They were designed to complement the Decca phono cartridges.
Decca Special Products was spun off, and is now known as
London Decca.
John Culshaw
John Culshaw, who joined Decca in 1946 in a junior post, rapidly became a senior producer of classical recordings. He revolutionised recording – of opera, in particular. Hitherto, the practice had been to put microphones in front of the performers and simply record what they performed. Culshaw was determined to make recordings that would be ‘a theatre of the mind’, making the listener’s experience at home not second best to being in the opera house, but a wholly different experience. To that end he got the singers to move about in the studio as they would onstage, used discreet sound effects and different acoustics, and recorded in long continuous takes. His skill, coupled with the incomparable Decca engineering, took Decca into the first flight of recording companies. His pioneering recording (begun in 1958) of
Wagner’s ''
Der Ring des Nibelungen'' conducted by
Georg Solti was a huge artistic and commercial success (to the chagrin of other companies). In the wake of Decca’s lead, artists such as
Herbert von Karajan,
Joan Sutherland and later
Luciano Pavarotti were keen to join the company’s roster.
In the 1970s, after Culshaw had left the company, the classical division began to lose its way, rather as the popular music side of the company did at the same time. By the start of the present century, Decca was making comparatively few major classical recordings, and its roster of stars was much diminished, with
Cecilia Bartoli being perhaps the best-known. Its back catalogue, however, remains one of the glories of classical music. The Solti ''Ring'' was voted best recording of all time by readers of the influential magazine ''
The Gramophone''.
Later history
PolyGram acquired the remains of Decca UK within days of Sir Edward Lewis's death in January 1980. British Decca's pop catalogue was taken over by
Polydor Records.
The American branch of Decca functioned separately for many years as it was sold off during
World War II; it bought
Universal Pictures in 1952, and eventually merged with
MCA in 1962, becoming a subsidiary company under MCA. Dissatisfied with American Decca's promotion of British Decca recordings and because American Decca held the rights to the name Decca in the US and Canada, British Decca sold its records in the United States and Canada under the label '
London Records' beginning in 1947. In Britain, London Records became a mighty catch-all licensing label for foreign recordings from the nascent post-WW II American independent and semi-major labels such as Cadence, ABC-Paramount, Atlantic, Imperial and Liberty.
Conversely, British Decca retained a non-reciprocal right to license and issue American Decca recordings in the UK on their
Brunswick Records (US Decca recordings) and
Coral Records (US Brunswick and Coral recordings) labels; this arrangement continued through 1968 when a UK branch of MCA was established utilizing the '
MCA Records' imprint, with distribution fluctuating between British Decca and other English companies over time.
The Decca name was dropped by MCA in America in 1973 in favour of the 'MCA Records' label. The first-run American Decca label went out with a big bang with its final release, "
Drift Away" by
Dobie Gray in
1973 (label #33057), reaching #5 on the
Billboard chart and receiving gold record status. In the mid-1990s,
MCA Nashville Records revived Decca in the US as a country music label. The Decca label is currently in use by
Universal Music Group worldwide; this is possible because
Universal Studios (which officially dropped the MCA name after the
Seagram buyout in 1997) acquired PolyGram, British Decca's parent company in 1998, thus consolidating Decca trademark ownership. In the US, the Decca country music label was shut down and the London classical label was renamed Decca. In 1999, Decca was merged with
Philips Records to create the Decca Music Group (known as
Universal Music Classics Group in the USA).
Short-lived Decca Records country music label logo.
Today, Decca is a leading label for both classical music and Broadway scores; its most recent hit was ''
Wicked'' (2003), which reached #140 on the
Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, although its most recent charting album by
Paula Cole titled
Courage reached #163 on the Billboard Top 200 chart.
It is also the parent label of
Point Music, a
progressive music label. Ironically, the American Decca classical music catalogue is managed by co-owned
Deutsche Grammophon. They include the recordings of guitarist
Andres Segovia.
[2] Before Deutsche Grammophon founded its own American branch in 1969, it had a distribution deal with American Decca. American Decca's
jazz catalogue is managed by
Verve Records.
See also
★
Decca Studios,
London,
England.
★
The Decca audition by
The Beatles in 1962.
★
Point Music.
★
MCA Records
★
List of Artists under the Decca Records label.
★
★
List of record labels
Notes
1. Shepherd
2. www.charm.kcl.ac.uk/content/gray_disco/british/deccalp_2.html
References
Explanation of the Word "Decca"
External links
★
Official site
★
Decca Records - art label & artists at www.collectable-records.ru
★
A page about Decca's digital audio recording system
★
Decca's classical discography from 1951
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