Have you seen my cell phone, baby ... (laying around in Berlin)?

uwe · June 20, 2014, 11:46:15 AM

They were a staunchly conservative label, as was EMI, but without the nous of some of their competitors. Yes, Decca was the first major label to even launch a "progressive" sublabel (DERAM) as early as 1966, but EMI with Harvest and Philips with Vertigo did so much better a few years later. By 1970, with the departure of the Stones, the only major rock band with Decca (via Moodies vanity label "Threshold") were the Moody Blues who - for all their musical qualities - were not of the parents-frightening or -enraging type or general headlines-grabbing type.

I took an avid interest in record labels in the seventies, but no label struck me as hopelessly out of fashion even then as Decca (well, Odeon perhaps, but they were at least identified with The Beatles). Warner Brothers (I loved that palm tree avenue logo, coolest one of them all and of course on all US Deep Purple releases once Cosby's Tetragrammaton had gone bust), Chrysalis, Charisma (with that Alice in Wonderland-type figure), EMI/Harvest, Vertigo, CBS/Epic, RCA, Virgin (extremely cool logo!) - every other label had a cooler logo and a more impressive roster of bands. The 70ies releases of Decca of the Stones stuff (Metamorphosis and Rolled Gold) already had the unpleasant whiff of trying to get aboard a train that had already left.

Dave W · June 20, 2014, 09:41:29 PM

I always thought of Decca as more of a country music label. Maybe it's my age. They had more big country stars than anyone else except possibly RCA.

uwe · June 21, 2014, 05:39:42 AM

Not age, location! Though English, Decca had more success as a label in the US and focused there on indeed C&W and Easy Listening. A lot of the labels I mentioned above probably mean nothing to North Americans as the respective bands were signed to different labels for the US market.

westen44 · June 21, 2014, 08:07:07 AM

Quote from: Dave W on June 20, 2014, 09:41:29 PM
I always thought of Decca as more of a country music label. Maybe it's my age. They had more big country stars than anyone else except possibly RCA.

If my father's record collection was any indication, RCA must have signed a ton of country artists through the years. Except for Elvis Presley, I don't know if I can remember anyone I saw on RCA that wasn't country.

FrankieTbird · June 21, 2014, 08:34:19 AM

Quote from: westen44 on June 21, 2014, 08:07:07 AM
If my father's record collection was any indication, RCA must have signed a ton of country artists through the years. Except for Elvis Presley, I don't know if I can remember anyone I saw on RCA that wasn't country.

Iggy Pop was on RCA in the mid-'70s. In a book I read, it claims that sales of Iggy's 1977 "Lust for Life" album were stymied when RCA devoted their entire pressing plant production to Elvis records in the wake of his death.

westen44 · June 21, 2014, 10:55:09 AM

Quote from: FrankieTbird on June 21, 2014, 08:34:19 AM

Iggy Pop was on RCA in the mid-'70s. In a book I read, it claims that sales of Iggy's 1977 "Lust for Life" album were stymied when RCA devoted their entire pressing plant production to Elvis records in the wake of his death.

I'm sure there are many artists I'm not aware of later on. I'm referring to the record collection of my father's, though, mostly from the 60s, and mostly early 60s at that.

Highlander · June 21, 2014, 04:11:05 PM

Decca were always known here for classical recordings here, and letting the Beatles slip through their fingers...

Dave W · June 21, 2014, 10:51:14 PM

Decca blew it with The Beatles, but Capitol -- which was owned by EMI by then -- refused to issue Beatles records. This was early on, 1962 IIRC. So VeeJay records, a small label whose main acts were Frank Ifield and the (early) Four Seasons, picked them up. Please Please Me was the only one (of three or four) that charted, nobody here knew who The Beatles were then.

Once they appeared on film on Jack Paar's prime time show, about a month before Ed Sullivan, all of a sudden there was a buzz here. Capitol got wise and picked them up. Then once there was a full-fledged frenzy. VeeJay reissued all theirs and made a small fortune.

RCA did have a lot of country acts, Chet Atkins headed up their Nashville operation, but they had much more than just country. Decca's Nashville producer was Owen Bradley.

westen44 · June 22, 2014, 09:26:13 AM

Quote from: Dave W on June 21, 2014, 10:51:14 PM
Decca blew it with The Beatles, but Capitol -- which was owned by EMI by then -- refused to issue Beatles records. This was early on, 1962 IIRC. So VeeJay records, a small label whose main acts were Frank Ifield and the (early) Four Seasons, picked them up. Please Please Me was the only one (of three or four) that charted, nobody here knew who The Beatles were then.

Once they appeared on film on Jack Paar's prime time show, about a month before Ed Sullivan, all of a sudden there was a buzz here. Capitol got wise and picked them up. Then once there was a full-fledged frenzy. VeeJay reissued all theirs and made a small fortune.

RCA did have a lot of country acts, Chet Atkins headed up their Nashville operation, but they had much more than just country. Decca's Nashville producer was Owen Bradley.

The way I remember EMI sent someone from the UK to force Capitol in the U.S. to start making Beatles records. For a while, obviously Capitol was clueless.

My father's favorite artists were Chet Atkins, Jim Reeves, and Sons of the Pioneers--all artists that were on RCA at some time or the other. He worked as an engineer in a radio station for a while, played guitar, too, etc. I still agree with the very high opinion he had of Gibson and Gretsch.