by Record-changer »
Thu Jan 04, 2007 1:03 am
That's right. Capitol had the Beatles contracted in the US until 1967. This is typical with most EMI releases. US releases of EMI products were usually on American labels.
Most UK releases are on different labels for several reasons:
- As a result of changing trade laws in different countries (mostly trade barriers enacted in the early 20th century), several companies were forced to divest their foreign holdings in these countries. Thus, the following original companies were each involuntarily split into at least three totally independent companies: The Victor Talking Machine Company, Columbia Records, and Decca.
- As a result of these splits, each of the "child" companies formed continued to use their own names within the borders of the countries they operate in, but are banned by trademark laws from using the trademark in the other countries, because the other company so formed has trademark rights to the same name. Thus, each of the "Decca" companies could not use the name "Decca" in areas where the other "Decca" companies have trademark rights.
- Because of these restrictions, many of the companies have special labels they use only outside their own countries:
English Decca uses the London label for sales to other countries.
English Victor uses several labels, including EMI and Odeon.
German Victor uses Angel and Deutch Grammophon.
Dutch Decca uses Philips.
French Decca used Polydor, later merged with other companies under that name.
American RCA Victor used RCA Camden.
American Columbia used Eagle, Okeh and several other small labels.
American Decca has used over 30 different labels for this purpose, also using the same labels in the US.
The most well-known example of this is The Rolling Stones on London.
- Other companies farmed out their foreign production to companies in the countries produced for. Thus, the following well known UK groups appeared on American labels:
- The Beatles on Capitol
- The Who on Decca (American)
- The Dave Clark Five on Capitol
- Herman's Hermits on MGM
And don't forget that groups often change labels.
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I have Beatles records on all three versions of the Capitol label in use during the time the Beatles released records: solid purple label, orange and yellow swirl, black with rainbow ring.