15 Facts About Brunswick Records

Brunswick Records is an American record label founded in 1916.

Records under the Brunswick label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, a company based in Dubuque, Iowa which had been manufacturing products ranging from pianos to sporting equipment since 1845.

In January 1920, a new line of Brunswick Records was introduced in the U S and Canada that employed the lateral cut system which was becoming the default cut for 78 discs.

Brunswick Records started its standard popular series at 2000 and ended up in 1940 at 8517.

The parent company marketed them extensively, and within a few years Brunswick became a competitor to America's "big three" record companies, Edison Records, Victor, and Columbia Records.

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Once Brunswick Records's engineers had tentative control of their new equipment, the company expanded its popular music recording activities, exploiting its roster of stars: the dance bands of Bob Haring, Isham Jones, Ben Bernie, Abe Lyman, Earl Burtnett, and banjoist Harry Reser and his various ensembles, and Al Jolson .

Brunswick Records initiated a 7000 race series as well as the Vocalion 1000 race series.

Brunswick Records had a very successful business supplying radio with sponsored transcriptions of popular music, comedy and personalities.

Brunswick Records embarked on an ambitious domestic classical recording program, recording the New York String Quartet, the Cleveland Orchestra under Nikolai Sokoloff, and in a tremendous steal from Victor, the New York Philharmonic with conductors Willem Mengelberg and Arturo Toscanini.

Brunswick Records found it expedient and ultimately cheaper to contract with European companies to fill their electrical classical catalogue.

Brunswick Records itself switched to a more conventional microphone recording process in 1927, with better results.

Between early 1932 and 1939, Brunswick Records was ARC's flagship label, selling for 75 cents, while all of the other ARC labels were selling for 35 cents.

That same year, Brunswick Records resumed releasing new material, initially as rhythm and blues specialty label, adding pop music in 1957.

Brunswick Records became a separate company and a unit of Decca in 1960 with Tarnopol serving as executive vice-president.

Legal problems caused Brunswick to become dormant after 1982, in which Tarnopol licensed Brunswick recordings from 1957 onwards to the special products unit of Columbia Records.