Liberty Records
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Liberty Records was a United States-based record label. It was started by chairman Simon Waronker in 1955 with Alvin Bennett as president and Theodore Keep as chief engineer. It was reactivated in 2001 in the United Kingdom and had two previous revivals.
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History
In 1957, Liberty acquired the jazz label, Pacific Jazz Records. In 1963, the Liberty Records label was sold to Avnet (an electronics corporation) for $12 million. Avnet also bought Blue Note Records, Imperial Records, Dolton Records, Aladdin Records and Minit Records. After two years of losses, Avnet sold the labels back to Al Bennett for $8 million. In 1966, a reissue label, Sunset Records, was started to deal with previously issued records from the new labels. Liberty recordings were first distributed in England by Decca Records on London Records, then by EMI, which released the recordings on the Liberty label. Liberty established a branch office in London, which signed acts such as the Bonzo Dog Band, Idle Race and The Anysley Dunbar Retaliation. Liberty also signed The Searchers for a short time in 1968 and in 1967 they issued the first single by Family. Ron Kass, onetime president of Liberty Records, later became the head of the Beatles' record label, Apple Records.
In 1968, Liberty was bought for $38 million by Transamerica Corporation (an insurance company) and combined with their other label United Artists Records. The company shut down Dolton and transferred Dolton's artists to Liberty; later they shut down Imperial and Minit and transferred their artists to Liberty. Finally, in 1971, all releases were shifted to United Artists Records and Liberty Records was no more.
In 1978, Artie Mogull and Jerry Rubinstein acquired United Artists and Liberty Records (with money they borrowed from Capitol Records, which ironically was originally going to be named Liberty Records before changing names prior to incorporation). In February 1979, Capitol's parent company EMI foreclosed on them and has owned the rights of the Liberty labels since then.
1980s
In 1980, EMI dropped the United Artists name and revived the Liberty name. Initially, EMI used Liberty to reissue the United Artists, Liberty and Imperial catalogues. From 1980 until 1984, Capitol used Liberty as a country label, featuring such artists as Kenny Rogers. In 1992, EMI renamed its Capitol Nashville Records label to Liberty Records, before switching back to the Capitol Nashville name three years later. In 1994, Liberty Records president Jimmy Bowen also founded a separate country music sister label, Patriot Records, whose roster included Bryan Austin, Lisa Brokop, John Berry and Noah Gordon. This sister label was largely unsuccessful, however, and closed in 1995.
Liberty Records in the 2000s in the United Kingdom
After releasing many late-1990s Europop records like the Hermes House Band, EMI reformatted the label in 2001 to focus on 'heritage acts'. The label, now operating in a similar sphere to that of rival Sanctuary, signed a number of acts, such as The Alarm MMVI and Prefab Sprout.
See also
