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When Edison invented his phonograph in 1877, he had no intention of using it to record music. To him, it was useful for making records of another type—voice imprints recording transactions and Dictaphone-type business. The phonograph could do that because it was a relatively simple device that recorded onto a cylinder wrapped in tin foil (Edison had used paper before that) with a recording stylus and it played back with a playback stylus not that unlike the much later tape recorder. Owing to its simplicity, the fidelity of the playback left something to be desired. The Edison Phonograph Company was formed to work on these problems. A distribution company sprang up in 1888 to market the device and the cylinders in the Washington D.C.-Delaware-Maryland area. This company took its name from the District of Columbia—the Columbia Phonograph Company.
An even bigger problem was the fact that the tin foil recording could only be played back once. Chichester A. Bell (Alexander’s cousin) and Charles Tainter introduced their graphophone which played wax cylinders which could be played many times. But each cylinder was a uniquely recorded event forever and all time. There was no way this could be marketable other than as a kind of early tape recorder but with a recording medium that couldn’t be erased or recorded over. It could only be a novelty device the public would quickly tire of. Columbia solved the problem to become the first company to issue pre-recorded cylinders instead of blanks. Tainter and Bell then founded the American Graphophone Company.
Enter German immigrant Emile Berliner (1851-1929).
In his little shop in Washington D.C., Berliner had already invented the carbon microphone transmitter in 1876. He sold the patent to Bell Telephone which enabled the telephone to be mass-produced. Now he wanted to improve on the graphophone. Berliner’s solution was introduced to the world in 1887 as the revolving grooved disc. Berliner initially recorded on an 11-inch glass disc coated with lampblacked paper mixed with a special oil that thickened the lampblack to make it more conducive to being etched upon by a stylus. The disc could hold four minutes at 30 rpm. After the recording is laterally etched into the thickened lampblacked surface of the disc, the spiral groove is photoengraved on a zinc plate that could be played back with another stylus attached to a moveable diaphragm. The vibrations of the diaphragm create soundwaves that mimic the recording. It was crude but it created a medium that could be played countless times and of which hundreds of copies could be made. Below, the oldest record now known, an 1880 electroplated copper 10-inch copper disc.
Berliner dubbed his device the gramophone.
The public only needed a gramophone that played back the discs rather than recording on them so the cost of mass-produced machines could be kept to a minimum but an alternative to zinc plates had to be found because they were expensive (albeit very durable). He tried J. W. Hyatt celluloid discs to replace zinc but they wore down too quickly.
By 1888, Berliner was using 7-inch hard vulcanized rubber discs recorded on one side only and holding about two minutes of music or voice.
The gramophone was crude, its revolving platter had to be turned with a hand crank for the duration of the record. An electrical version was actually manufactured but was expensive (and good luck finding a socket to plug it in). An employee, Eldridge Johnson patented the flower-like horn attachment that served as a speaker.
“Phonograph” was Edison’s cylinder device. It was fundamentally different from the gramophone. The first link below shows Edison’s phonograph. The second link shows a gramophone:
Berliner went to Europe demonstrating his device to potential backers. He obtained patents in Britain and Germany. By July 1890, the first commercial gramophones were manufactured in Germany and sold there. They played 5-inch discs of three types of materials but no one is sure what those materials were although more expensive zinc discs were available. The devices and discs were exported to England and did well. This encouraged the Germans who then founded Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (DDG) which would, in turn, spin off Polydor and PolyGram (DDG still exists also).
Berliner returned to the States in 1891 and founded American Gramophone and attempted to make a spring-loaded motor for his machines via a New York watchmaker. The results were not promising and Berliner dissolved the company in 1892. Then he transferred his patents to a new firm called the United States Gramophone Company.
The Columbia Phonograph Company had been issuing its own cylinders even as it distributed Edison’s and business was so that, in 1894, Columbia Phonograph merged with American Graphophone to form Columbia Graphophone. They were now rivals of the Edison Phonograph Company. Berliner opened a gramophone factory and showroom in Baltimore where he sold electric and manual machines along with 5-inch celluloid discs that held two minutes at 70 rpm. The following year, Berliner would sell hard rubber discs of the same size.
Berlin was finally granted a patent for his stylus in 1895 (he had filed it 1892) and this enabled him to seek out more investors. In an agreement with William C. Jones, Berliner incorporated his new company as The Berliner Gramophone Company. But territorial licenses were granted to Frank Seaman for the New York Gramophone Company which served New York and New Jersey. The rest of New England was supplied machines and discs by the New England Gramophone Company.
In 1896, Berliner began experimenting with shellac-based compounds obtained from the Duranoid Company to make discs. These were far superior to vulcanite discs and so went into permanent production. The rotational speed for the shellac disc is 78 rpm. Which would eventually become an industry standard.
That same year, a German gramophone label was founded by Carl Lindström A.G. which specialized in parlor music and so was dubbed Parlophon, after a German brand of gramophone also made by Lindström. Many think the label to be British since the label’s logo appeared to be a British pound symbol and since the label made its name recording many of the early British invasion acts including, of course, the Beatles. Nevertheless, Parlophon is German and its logo a German “L” standing, of course, for “Lindström.” Below, the first link shows a Parlophon label and the second shows a Parlophon gramophone.
Also in 1896, Eldridge Johnson was contracted by Berliner to develop a spring-driven motor for the gramophone’s platter and Johnson settled on a design by Levi Montross. Now, one need only wind the gramophone with the crank and allows the spring tension to release while turning the platter at a uniform speed.
By October, Frank Seaman had founded the National Gramophone Company so he could distribute Berliner’s machines and discs nationally and moved over 700,000 discs in 1898 as a result. His 2nd-in-command was William Barry Owen in New York.
That same year, Johnson received the patent for his spring-driven motor filed two years earlier. He promptly founded his own company, Consolidated Talking Machine Company, Johnson also began experimenting with wax discs because shellac discs were so brittle.
William Barry Owen quit his position at National Gramophone and was granted a license to distribute gramophones and discs in England though his own firm the Gramophone Company Ltd. in 1897. He pulled up stakes in New York and moved to the U.K. The company would release its first discs recorded in Britain the following year. Meanwhile a gramophone war was being fought in the U.S. courts.
For the next few years, Berliner, Consolidated and National battled for supremacy and public acceptance of their products over the others. By 1900, the public had made its choice: they like Consolidated’s spring-loaded gramophone the best. It was cheap, it was easy to operate and it was reliable.
Frank Seaman hauled Johnson into court over a patent dispute from which Johnson emerged the winner. Johnson now had legal control over patents Berliner needed and vice-versa. The best thing for all involved was to combine resources. Berliner sold the gramophone patent to Johnson. Consolidated absorbed Berliner Gramophone and incorporated as the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1901 (why Johnson chose the name Victor was is not known by me, perhaps because he was the victor of the gramophone war). Below, a Victor gramophone a.k.a. victrola.
Johnson founded Victor Records in March of that year. And thus began America’s love affair with records and music.
Sometime in 1883 or 4, a mixed bull terrier was born somewhere around Bristol, England. He was a plucky little stray when scenic artist Mark Barraud encountered him in 1884 while out on a jaunt. He took the dog home to his wife and they found him a faithful companion with the tendency to nip at backs of visitors’ legs so they named the dog Nipper. For three years, Barraud and Nipper were man and man’s best friend. Poverty and ill health, however, caught up with Barraud and he died in Bristol in 1887. Nipper was taken to Liverpool, Lancashire where Barraud’s brother, Francis, also an artist, lived.
Francis Barraud quickly became fond of Nipper whom he found amiable, curious and intelligent. He would take Nipper to the Richmond Park and the dog would frolic and chase other animals, once killing a pheasant that Barraud had not the chutzpah to tuck under his arm.
While Barraud was in his studio working on a painting, he would play his phonograph, a cylinder machine. Nipper’s natural curiosity got the best of him and he would sit close to the horn speaker ticking his head from side to side as he listened to the mysterious sounds and voices issue forth from the bell. To Barraud, it seemed as though the dog might have thought the voice coming from the horn was that of his dead master, Mark Barraud. The image stayed with him.
In 1895, Nipper went to Kingston-upon-Thames in Surrey to keep company to Mark Barraud’s widow but, alas, he died in September of that year. He was buried in Kingston-upon-Thames.
Three years later, Francis Barraud was back in his studio listening to his phonograph when he thought of Nipper staring intently into the bell of the speaker horn. He remembered how he fancied that Nipper might have thought he was hearing his dead master’s voice. He began to work on a new painting depicting that scene. He painted Nipper seat before a cylinder-player staring into the bell.
Barraud titled the work “Dog Looking at and Listening to a Phonograph” and registered the painting under that title in February of 1898. Going with his original impression of the dog hearing his dead master’s voice, Barraud retitled the painting “His Master’s Voice.” If this was in hopes that the Royal Academy would exhibit the work, Barraud was sadly mistaken. They turned him away. Barraud hoped to get “His Master’s Voice” published in a few magazines but they said the painting did not make sense. Barraud went to the Edison Bell Company who made the phonograph seen in the painting. They were not interested in purchasing it because, they told him, dogs don’t listen to phonographs (weird reasoning when they could have easily told customers as a sales gimmick that if the machine can fool a dog’s sharp ears imagine how real it must sound).
A friend of Barraud’s told him the horn was too dark to be properly seen and a nice golden brass one might spice up the picture. Barraud saw the logic and called on the Gramophone Company and spoke to William Barry Owen requesting a golden horn attachment for loan. Barraud showed Owen the painting and what changes he wanted to do. He recalled years later that Owen asked him if the painting was for sale and if he would mind changing the phonograph to a gramophone. Barraud said the painting was indeed for sale and immediately set to work the revising the picture as requested having secured a gramophone from the company to employ as a model.
A letter arrived from the Gramophone Company offices on the 15th of September 1899 offering Barraud £50 for reproduction rights and another £50 for the artist’s copyright. In short, they offered him £100 for the work. Not at all a bad sum in those days and Barraud happily and gratefully accepted. The Gramophone Company were now the legal owners of the painting and the image on it and Barraud no doubt did a bit of celebrating with his £100. Did he ever dare to guess how famous that painting would become?
Btw, a few sources say that Nipper and gramophone are poised atop a coffin and that is why he thinks he hears his master’s voice coming from the horn. Other sources say that this is not true, both subjects are depicted seated on a tabletop in Barraud’s studio. I’ll leave that to the reader to decide which sounds better.
“His Master’s Voice” turned up on the cover of a Victor catalog dated January 1900. There were a few promotional items that also bore the image such as needle tins. That year, Berliner came to Britain and requested that American and Canadian rights to the painting be granted to him as the inventor of the disc. Owen sold Berliner the rights. The next year, Berliner requested the copyright go to the Victor Talking Machine Company. Owen obliged. Victor began putting “His Master’s Voice” on their record labels by 1902. With Victor owning copyrights on “His Master’s Voice,” Victor of Japan requested Japanese rights to the painting be granted to Victor’s Japanese subsidiary in 1904. Owen sold Victor of Japan those rights. Latin America would also request its rights to the picture. The Gramophone Company letterhead began featuring “His Master’s Voice” in 1907. By 1909, the commonwealth nations of Britain starting using “His Master’s Voice” as a label. The following year, the image and title were registered as trademarks by the Gramophone Company which then changed its name to His Master’s Voice or just HMV. Below, an early and rare example of an HMV label:
By this time, Columbia Graphophone had entered the European market offering a very good product and HMV had competition. For instance, in 1908, Columbia began issuing discs recorded on both sides. Something never done before (in fact, one-sided discs were being made by Victor into the 1920s). Columbia first sold Edison’s cylinders and then, by 1893, competed against Edison with its own cylinders (while also competing with HMV and Victor in disc market) but Edison dropped out of the cylinder business by 1912 and so Columbia switched over strictly to discs. Before long, Columbia and HMV were fierce competitors battling for control of the European market.
During World War I, radio in America was declared to be for the military only. The Italian-owned portion of Marconi of America was seized by the U.S. Navy. General Electric, Westinghouse Electric and United Fruit had all been merged with the Navy in order to speed up production and research of radio equipment which was strictly for military use. The Navy tried to gain total control of radio but, after the war, General Electric convinced Congress to give them joint custody of international radio with American Telephone & Telegraph. Congress reciprocated and the Radio Corporation of America was formed in 1919 as a publicly-held company. David Sarnoff was named general manager. RCA would go on buy commercial radio stations in order to dominate commercial radio. Sarnoff would later more or less discover FM radio.
In 1918, two labels were founded that had proven that “minority music” was a viable product—Paramount Records, which was a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company and Okeh Records founded by Otto K.E. Heinneman (the label’s name is his initials) in New York.
In 1920, A&R man, Ralph Peer signed Mamie Smith, a black blues singer, to Okeh and her records became surprise bestsellers convincing Okeh that such a market was worth tapping (although her songs were not really blues). In 1922, Okeh hired Clarence Williams to run the label and he promptly signed and recorded a number of blues and jazz artists including King Oliver, Oliver’s protégé Louis Armstrong and the great Creole clarinetist, Sidney Bechet. That same year, Okeh became the first label to send out mobile field recording units to scout talent.
Paramount signed the first true blues artists in 1926 with Blind Lemon Jefferson of Texas and piedmont ragtime picker Blind Blake said to be from Florida. In 1930, Paramount signed the greatest of the Mississippi delta bluesmen, Charlie Patton.
Victor took notice of the success of these labels and recorded Jelly Roll Morton in 1926 and hired Ralph Peer as their A&R man who promptly signed the hillbilly artists that founded country music—Fiddlin’ John Carson (whom Peer considered “pluperfect awful”), Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. Victor had recorded the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917, the first jazz band to record, but this was more a novelty venture (most Americans had not heard jazz music) than any attempt to sell minority records.
Electrical recording techniques became available early in the 20s thanks to Western Electric. In 1923, Oscar Preuss established a British division of Parlophon which was anglicized by adding an “e” on the end—Parlophone. In 1925, Columbia and Victor immediately began using electrical recording techniques. Okeh Records needed Parlophone to distribute their recordings in England and so Parlophone became England’s largest jazz label. In 1927, Columbia purchased controlling interest in Carl Lindström A.G. and so took over Parlophone Records.
In 1927, Columbia Graphophone, now simply Columbia Records, got together with a New York entrepreneur and bought up 47 commercial radio stations. They went on the air September 18, 1927 as the Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting system. Unable to turn a profit from the venture, Columbia Records sold its share of its radio conglomerate to a group headed by William Paley and it was renamed simply Columbia Broadcasting System or CBS.
That same year saw the incorporation of the Victor Company of Japan. They would be making televisions within a decade.
In 1929, with the crash of Wall Street, Edison Records folded and RCA bought the Victor Talking Machine Company and became RCA Victor. They also bought the right to use Nipper as a trademark and his “His Master’s Voice” was synonymous with RCA Victor and one of the most recognized trademarks in America up to the 70s when Nipper was dropped. Below, the first link shows the standard black RCA-Victor label while the second shows the “Red Seal,” RCA Victor’s classical music label.
1931 was a bleak year when bad economic times across the globe caught up with both Columbia Graphophone and HMV. They merged and incorporated as Electrical and Musical Industries Ltd a.k.a EMI. They built the first true dedicated recording studio that year now known as the Abbey Road studio.
In 1932, Victor founded its own race label—Bluebird. Bluebird recorded such great bluesmen as Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Bill Broonzy and Tampa Red but also Rudy Vallee and Ted Weems.
Meanwhile, souring relations between Japan and the United States caused Victor Company of Japan to break off ties to its parent, RCA Victor, in 1935. It went by and is still known by its initials for Japanese Victor Company or JVC (who went on to invent the VHS format in 1976). In 1953, JVC was bought up by electronics giant Matsushita.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebet/135206198/
CBS and Columbia Records were completely separate companies until in 1938 when CBS bought up Columbia Records for $70,000 forming CBS/Columbia. The child bought the parent.
By 1942, the mainstream labels were releasing Tin Pan Alley artists and big band music. Bluebird ceased to release blues recordings and became defunct by war’s end. Most of these labels wanted nothing to do with less popular forms called by such names as minority, specialty, novelty. These recordings consisted mostly of black blues acts and hillbilly acts. Jazz artist, composer and LA entrepreneur Johnny Mercer, saw an opportunity to steal some fire from the East Coast record labels as RCA Victor, Columbia and Decca (actually British). Instead of trying to muscle in on their market, he provided a West Coast balance by recording mainly specialty music.
Mercer got together with record store owner, Glenn Wallichs, and together they founded a label financed by Tin Pan Alley composer Buddy DeSylva for $15,000. Mercer was to be A&R man and Wallichs the businessman. Mercer and Wallichs incorporated their company as Liberty Records but changed it to Capitol. They signed such acts as T-Bone Walker, Merle Travis and Ella Mae Morse whose 1942 hit “Cow Cow Boogie” was Capitol’s first million-seller as well as the first million-selling R&B record.
The same year Capitol was formed, the Japanese seized control of Southeast Asia and cut off all lacquer shipments to the West. Without lacquer, shellac could not be made and without shellac, records could not be made. The govt promptly hoarded stores of shellac for wartime use. So Capitol went out and bought old records from people by going door-to-door. Whatever old records they could get, they took. Capitol also bought up stocks of defective records and records that had not sold well from other companies. They crushed up the records and re-pressed new recordings (a lot of old recordings were lost because of this). By 1947, Capitol managed to sell 40 million records—something considered impossible for even the biggest labels even without a shellac shortage to contend with. Capitol had proven minority music had become mainstream. Another minority label called Atlantic also went on to become a giant in the recording industry. Other minority labels that had a huge influence on musical direction were Specialty founded by Art Rupe in LA and Sun founded by Sam Phillips in Memphis.
In 1950, Oscar Preuss of Parlophone hired a 24-year-old record producer named George Martin to manage the label’s fare of jazz, spoken word and comedy records. By the late 50s, Martin was itching to find rocknroll acts for the label.
In 1955, Oscar Preuss retired and George Martin took over Parlophone. Meanwhile EMI bought up Capitol and built the famous tower in Hollywood in order to have an American version of Abbey Road. The following year, Capitol-EMI signed Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps—considered to be the first true rock band. They would have a tremendous influence on the Beatles who would be signed to Parlophone by Martin in 1962. Their U.S. releases would be distributed by Capitol-EMI although the British releases of Beatles albums were still on Parlophone.
His Master’s Voice is a trademark nightmare today. RCA Victor uses it throughout most of the world except HMV uses it in Britain and the commonwealth nations. There are HMV stores in Britain which still use Nipper. Meanwhile JVC in Japan uses Nipper but not outside the country. But there are also HMV stores in Japan but since HMV and JVC are separate companies and JVC gets dibs on Nipper, HMV stores in Japan do not use Nipper even though he is still the trademark for all HMV in England. In Japan, HMV stores only use the gramophone but leave Nipper off. Yet, EMI cannot release on CD its material recorded while still HMV with Nipper so they had to create EMI Classics – a whole new company.
Today CBS no longer own Columbia Records. Sony bought Columbia Records and it is now called Sony Music Entertainment. CBS does own Fender instruments, however. RCA Victor is today owned by BMG—a German media giant that started off as a print shop in Germany in 1835. RCA electronics is owned by Thomson, formerly Thomson Multimedia, which is now French and the world’s largest manufacturer of television and radio electronics.
The original “His Master’s Voice” bought from Barraud by Owen hangs at the Gloucester Place HQ of EMI. Nipper’s burial place is now part of a bank parking lot in Kingston-upon-Thames and a plaque on one wall of the bank commemorates Nipper’s burial. A similar plaque was to be placed on the house where Nipper grew up but the owner won’t allow it unless EMI buys the house.
