The repercussions of the stock market Crash of 1929 led to huge losses in the recording industry and, in March 1931, J.P Morgan, the major shareholder, steered the Columbia Graphophone Company (along with Odeon records and Parlophone, which it had owned since 1926) into a merger with the Gramophone Company ( ("His Master's Voice") to form Electric and Musical Industries Ltd (EMI).
[10] To avoid antitrust legislation, EMI had to sell off its US Columbia operation, which continued to release pressings of matrices made in the UK.
Many suspect that it was a shell corporation set up by ARC's parent, Consolidated Films Industries, Inc. to hold the Columbia stock.
"[15] WB wanted to withdraw from the record business, but economic conditions had deteriorated to the point where no buyer would offer anything close to the $10,000,000 they'd paid for Brunswick just the year before.
On April 4, 1939 CBS filed an amendment in New York for Columbia Phonograph Company, Inc. Columbia Phonograph Company, Inc., has been chartered to conduct a business in the recording of voices, sounds, etc., in New York, with Frank K. White and Adrian Murphy (employees of CBS), among the directors.
The American Record Co. tag is discarded and instead of three corporations embracing the ARC'S various operations there will be one, the Columbia Phonograph Co., Inc.
The latter label was taken over by Herbert J. Yates, former head of the American Record Co. several years ago and made file insignia of the combine's classical catelog.
[This quote needs a citation] On May 22, 1939, Columbia Recording Corporation, Inc., was incorporated with the State of Delaware,[1] and became the CBS phonograph subsidiary.
"It is understood that CBS and the Levys are not interested in retaining American Record's hillbilly department, and that Art Satherly, who has been running this section for many years, will take it out of the company with him".
"[This quote needs a citation] As sales of Brunswick records declined, a minimum threshold required by the 1931 Warner Bros. lease agreement was going unmet, which obliged Columbia to also discontinue Vocalion.
Okeh Records was revived in June 1940, acquired in the same 1934 bankruptcy sale whereby ARC obtained its Columbia trademarks.
By July, it was releasing new Hillbilly platters by Gene Autry and Bob Wills, and re-issuing past Vocalion discs, using the same catalogue numbers with a leading zero added.
Brunswick masters included Isham Jones, Al Jolson, early Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Marion Harris, but it was obscure Jacques Rennard and His Orchestra that had recorded "As Time Goes By" in 1931.
Both finished in the top 25 of 1943, with Renard's version selling over 250,000 copies, making Decca management so happy, they gave him a $1,000 bonus, even though he hadn't recorded for years.
Acts such as Earth, Wind & Fire, Weather Report, Deniece Williams, Pockets, and The Emotions were signed to the label.