3 Rabbit Band

3 Rabbit Band

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Liberty Records

Liberty Records was a United States-based record label. It was started by chairman Simon Waronker in 1955 with Al Bennett as president and Theodore Keep as chief engineer

Liberty's early releases focused on film and orchestral music. Its first single was Lionel Newman's "The Girl Upstairs." Its first big hit, in 1955, was by Julie London singing her version of torch song Cry Me a River, which climbed to US#9. It helped Liberty sell her first album, Julie Is Her Name. She was to record 32 albums in her career.
In 1956, Liberty signed the little-known Henry Mancini. They released two singles and several albums for him, but he left in 1959 when he got hot. Billy Rose and Lee David song Tonight You Belong to Me scored a US#4 and UK#28 as performed by teen sisters Patience and Prudence (McIntyre), selling over a million copies.(It was first recorded in 1927, revived by Frankie Laine in 1952.)
Their biggest early rock and roll artist was Eddie Cochran, who had just starred in his second film, Untamed Youth. His first hit for the label was John D. Loudermilk's "Sittin' in the Balcony" in 1957, then came Summertime Blues and C'mon Everybody.
The label was also home to R&B veterans Billy Ward and His Dominoes after Jackie Wilson quit, replacing him with ex-Lark Eugene Mumford. They hit with hoary Hoagy Carmichael 1927 song Stardust – already recorded by many artists – which rode the pop charts for 24 weeks and got as high as US#13. The track also reached #13 in the UK Singles Chart in October 1957. It was to be their only million seller.
By 1958, Liberty was close to bankruptcy when Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. convinced them that they might as well press singles of "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" with the leftover vinyl pucks and labels in their warehouse. (The Chipmunks were named after Liberty execs.) In just a few months leading up to Christmas of 1958, the record shot to the top of the charts. It became the only Christmas record to reach #1 on the pop chart, selling 4.5 million copies. Liberty was back in business.
In 1957, Liberty acquired Dick Bock's jazz label, Pacific Jazz Records. That same year, the World Pacific label was started in conjunction with Pacific Jazz.







Liberty's most successful signing of the early '60s would be Fargo-born teen idol Bobby Vee. They picked up his single recorded for Soma with his combo The Shadows, "Suzie Baby", and stuck with him as a solo act. Ears perked up over his reading of The Clovers' 1955 doo-wop ballad Devil or Angel in mid-1960. In the summer of 1961 he got a hole-in-one with the Gerry Goffin/Carole King tune Take Good Care of My Baby ... a US#1, UK#3. He regularly cranked out Hot-100 hits through 1970.
Other major singings included Johnny Burnette, Eugene McDaniels, Del Shannon, and Gary Lewis and The Playboys.
In 1963, the Liberty Records label was sold to Avnet (an electronics corporation) for $12 million. Avnet also bought Blue Note Records, Imperial Records, Dolton Records, Aladdin Records and Minit Records. After two years of losses, Avnet sold the labels back to Al Bennett for $8 million. In 1966, a reissue label, Sunset Records, was started to deal with previously issued records from the new labels.
Liberty recordings were first distributed in England by Decca Records on London Records, then by EMI, which released the recordings on the Liberty label. Liberty established a branch office in London, which signed acts such as the Bonzo Dog Band, Idle Race and The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation. Liberty also signed The Searchers for a short time in 1968 and in 1967 they issued the first single by Family. Ron Kass, onetime president of Liberty Records, later became the head of the Beatles' record label, Apple Records, and Ron Bledsoe, assistant to Al Bennett, was picked by Clive Davis to run the Nashville arm of Columbia Records.
In 1966, singer (and Imperial artist) Johnny Rivers started another Liberty subsidiary, Soul City Records. The following year, Liberty discontinued the Dolton label and moved its artists to the parent label.
In 1967 Liberty Records signed Canned Heat who were a White Blues Band that had 3 Big Hits for the Label,even if the Band themselves were not writing Music to have Hits. With Alan "The Blind Owl" Wilson and Bob "The Bear" Hite The Founding Members of Canned Heat who without those members and Henry "The Sunflower" Vestine the band Survive today under Leader Adolfo "FITO" de la Parra Skill and determination with Woodstock Legends by his side Larry "The Mole" Taylor and Harvey "The Snake" Mandel.
In 1968, Liberty was bought for $38 million by Transamerica Corporation (an insurance company) and combined with their other label United Artists Records. Two years later they shut down Imperial and Minit and transferred their artists to Liberty. Finally in 1971, Liberty and its remaining labels (with the exception of Soul City in which the name was held onto by its owner Johnny Rivers and its catalog sold to Bell Records) were shifted to United Artists Records and Liberty Records was no more.
In 1970, Liberty act Sugarloaf scored a top 10 hit in the United States with "Green-Eyed Lady", which reached #3 on the Billboard chart. Sugarloaf would score again in 1975 with "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" (US #9).
In 1978, Artie Mogull and Jerry Rubinstein acquired United Artists and Liberty Records (with money they borrowed from Capitol Records, which ironically was originally going to be named Liberty Records before changing names prior to incorporation). In February 1979, Capitol's parent company EMI foreclosed on them and has owned the rights of the Liberty labels since then.



































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