Warner Records Inc. (known as Warner Bros. Records Inc. until 2019) is an American record label. A subsidiary of Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1958, as the recorded music division of the American film studio Warner Bros. Pictures.
History
Founding At the end of the silent movie period, Warner Bros. Pictures decided to expand into publishing and recording so that it could access low-cost music content for its films. In 1928, the studio acquired several smaller music publishing firms which included M. Witmark & Sons, Harms Inc., and a partial interest in New World Music Corp., and merged them to form the Music Publishers Holding Company. This new group controlled valuable copyrights on standards by George and Ira Gershwin and Jerome Kern, and the new division was soon earning solid profits of up to US$2 million every year.Goodman 1997, p. 44.
In 1930, Music Publishers Holding Company (MPHC) paid US$28 million to acquire Brunswick Records (which included Vocalion), whose roster included Duke Ellington, Red Nichols, Nick Lucas, Al Jolson, Earl Burtnett, Ethel Waters, Abe Lyman, Leroy Carr, Tampa Red and Memphis Minnie, and soon after the sale to Warner Bros., the label signed rising radio and recording stars Bing Crosby, Mills Brothers, and Boswell Sisters. Unfortunately for Warner Bros., the dual impact of the Great Depression and the introduction of broadcast radio greatly harmed the recording industry—sales crashed, dropping by around 90% from more than 100 million records in 1927 to fewer than 10 million by 1932Goodman, 1997, pp.43–44 and major companies were forced to halve the price of records from 75 to 35 cents.
In December 1931, Warner Bros. offloaded Brunswick to the American Record Corporation (ARC) for a fraction of its former value, in a lease arrangement which did not include Brunswick's pressing plants. Technically, Warner maintained actual ownership of Brunswick, which with the sale of ARC to CBS in 1939 and their decision to discontinue Brunswick in favor of reviving the Columbia label, reverted to Warner Bros. Warner Bros. sold Brunswick a second time (along with Brunswick's back catalog up to 1931) in 1941, this time along with the old Brunswick pressing plants Warner owned, to Decca Records (which formed its American operations in 1934) in exchange for a financial interest in Decca. The heavy loss it incurred in the Brunswick deal kept the studio out of the record business for almost 20 years, and during this period it licensed its film music to other companies for release as soundtrack albums.
1958–1963: Formation and early years
Warner Bros. returned to the record business on March 19, 1958, with the establishment of its own recording division, Warner Bros. Records. By this time, the established Hollywood studios were reeling from multiple challenges to their former dominance—the most notable being the introduction of television in the late 1940s. Legal changes also had a major impact on their business—lawsuits brought by major stars had effectively overthrown the old studio contract system by the late 1940s and, beginning in 1949, anti-trust suits brought by the U.S. government forced the five major studios to divest their cinema chains.
In 1956, Harry Warner and Albert Warner sold their interest in the studio and the board was joined by new members who favored a renewed expansion into the music business—Charles Allen of the investment bank Charles Allen & Company, Serge Semenenko of the First National Bank of Boston and investor David Baird. Semenenko in particular had a strong professional interest in the entertainment business and he began to push Jack Warner on the issue of setting up an 'in-house' record label. With the record business booming – sales had topped US$500 million by 1958 – Semnenko argued that it was foolish for Warner Bros. to make deals with other companies to release its soundtracks when, for less than the cost of one motion picture, they could establish their own label, creating a new income stream that could continue indefinitely and provide an additional means of exploiting and promoting its contract actors.Goodman, 1997, p.44-45
Another impetus for the label's creation was the music career of Warner Bros. actor Tab Hunter. Although Hunter was signed to an exclusive acting contract with the studio, it did not prevent him from signing a recording contract, which he did with Dot Records, owned at the time by Paramount Pictures. Hunter scored several hits for Dot, including the US No. 1 single, "Young Love" (1957) and, to Warner Bros.' chagrin, reporters were primarily asking about the hit record, rather than Hunter's latest Warner movie. In 1958, the studio signed Hunter as its first artist to its newly formed record division, although his subsequent recordings for the label failed to duplicate his success with Dot.
Warner Bros. agreed to buy Imperial Records in 1956 and, although the deal fell apart, it marked the breaking of a psychological barrier: "If the company was willing to buy another label, why not start its own?" To establish the label, the company hired former Columbia Records president James B. Conkling; its founding directors of A&R were Harris Ashburn, George Avakian, and Bob Prince. Conkling was an able administrator with extensive experience in the industry—he had been instrumental in launching the LP format at Columbia and had played a key role in establishing the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences the previous year. However, Conkling had decidedly middle-of-the-road musical tastes (he was married to Donna King of vocal quartet the King Sisters), and was thus rather out of step with emerging trends in the industry, especially the fast-growing market for rock 'n' roll music.Goodman, 1997, p.45
Warner Bros. Records opened for business on March 19, 1958. Its early album releases (1958–1960) were aimed at the upscale end of the mainstream audience, and Warner Bros. took an early (though largely unsuccessful) lead in recording stereo LPs that targeted the new "hi-fi" market. The catalogue in this period included: vocal/spoken word albums by Warner contract players such as Tab Hunter, Edd Byrnes, Connie Stevens, Jack Webb and William Holden novelty/comedy albums by artists such as Spike Jones and Bob Newhart film soundtracks and collections of film and TV themes 'middle of the road' instrumental albums by artists including Matty Matlock, Buddy Cole, Henry Mancini, George Greeley, Warren Barker and "Ira Ironstrings" (a pseudonym for guitarist Alvino Rey, Conkling's brother-in-law, who was in fact under contract to Capitol Records at the time).
Some albums featured jokey or self-deprecating titles such as: Music for People with $3.98 (Plus Tax If Any), Terribly Sophisticated Songs: A Collection of Unpopular Songs for Popular People, Songs the Kids Brought Home from Camp, Please Don't Put Your Empties on the Piano, and But You've Never Heard Gershwin with Bongos. Almost all were commercial failures;Goodman, 1997, p.45-46 and the only charting album in Warner Bros.' first two years was Warren Barker's 'soundtrack' album for the studio's hit series 77 Sunset Strip, which reached No. 3 in 1959. Tab Hunter's "Jealous Heart" (WB 5008), which reached No. 62, was Warner Bros.' only charting single during its first year.
Early Warner Bros. singles had distinctive pink labels, with the WB logo at the top center and "WARNER" in white Hellenic font to the left of the WB shield and "BROS." in the same color and style font to the right. Below the shield in white Rockwell font, it read "VITAPHONIC HIGH FIDELITY;" this 45 label was used for two years, 1958 – 1960. This initial 45 label was soon replaced by a new, all-red label with the WB shield logo at 9 o'clock and a number of different-colored arrows (blue, chartreuse, and yellow) surrounding and pointing away from the center hole. The first hit was the novelty record "Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)", with words and music by Irving Taylor, which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was nominally performed by Warner contract actor Edd Byrnes, who played the wisecracking hipster character Gerald Lloyd "Kookie" Kookson III on Warner's TV detective series 77 Sunset Strip. The story behind the recording illustrates the sharp practices often employed by major recording companies. Actress and singer Connie Stevens (who appeared in the Warner TV series Hawaiian Eye) spoke on the song's chorus, but although her record contract entitled her to a five-percent royalty rate, the label arbitrarily defined her contribution to be a favor to Byrnes, and assigned her just 1% royalty on the song, despite the fact that, as she soon discovered, her name was being prominently displayed on the single's label. Warner Bros. also charged her for a share of the recording costs, which was to be recouped from her drastically reduced royalty. When Stevens scored her own hit single with "Sixteen Reasons" in 1960, Warner Bros. refused to allow her to perform it on Hawaiian Eye because it was not published by MPHC, and they also prevented her from singing it on The Ed Sullivan Show, thereby robbing her of nationwide promotion (and a $5000 appearance fee).Goodman, 1997, p.46
With only two hits to its credit in two years, the label was in serious financial trouble by 1960, having lost at least US$3 million.Fredric Dannen, Hitmen: Powerbrokers and Fast Money Inside The Music Business (Vintage Books, London, 1991, ), p.121 Music historian Fredric Dannen reported that the only reason it was not closed down was the Warner board's reluctance to write off the additional $2 million the label was owed in outstanding receivables and inventory. After a restructure, Conkling was obliged to report to Herman Starr. He rejected a buyout offer by Conkling and a group of other record company employees but agreed to keep the label running in exchange for heavy cost-cutting—the staff was reduced from 100 to 30 and Conkling voluntarily cut his own pay from $1000 to $500.Goodman, 1997, p.47
Warner Bros. now turned to rock 'n' roll acts in hopes of advancing its sales but their first signing, Bill Haley, was by then past his prime and failed to score any hits. The label was more fortunate with its next signing, the Everly Brothers, whom Warner Bros. secured after the end of their previous contract with Cadence Records. Herman Starr effectively gambled the future of the company by approving what was reputed to be the first million-dollar contract in music history, which guaranteed the Everly Brothers $525,000 against an escalating royalty rate of up to 7 percent, well above the industry standard of the day. The duo were fielding offers from all the major labels as their Cadence contract wound up, but Warners eventually won out because the brothers harboured ambitions to branch out into film, and the label's connection to the movie studio provided the perfect opportunity. Luckily, the Everlys' first Warner Bros. single "Cathy's Clown" was a smash hit, climbing to No. 1 in the US and selling more than eight million copies, and their debut Warner Bros. album It's Everly Time reached No. 9 on the album chart.