Parlophone Records
History
Founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company, the brand name Parlophon was initially used for gramophones before the company began making records. The ₤ trademark is a German L, for Lindström. (Coincidentally it 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, 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.
Parlophone is still an important pop label with artists such as Coldplay, Gorillaz, and Kylie Minogue among others. 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.