BASF Records
BASF Records or BASF Musikproduktion was a German record label that was active with interruptions from the 1930s to the mid-1970s.
history
The record label BASF Records was a subcontractor of the chemical company BASF and was based initially in Hamburg and finally in Mannheim. Its origins go back to the 1930s, when the aim was to demonstrate the quality of the company's own tape with the release of recordings of classical music . Appeared on BASF records a. a. Radio broadcasts such as a duet from Tristan and Isolde by the soprano Paula Buchner with Margarete Klose or the final song from the Rosenkavalier with Tiana Lemnitz and Maria Cebotari .
In the early 1940s there was a move to stereo recording. After the end of the war, BASF continued its label activities in the Group's Magnet Technology and Nyloprint division in the 1950s; the focus was on the publication of jazz and classical music along with a few productions with popular music. In 1970 the distribution of MPS , the jazz record company of Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer , one of the two SABA heirs, was taken over, but there was no sophisticated logistics for distribution. In addition to the record business, it was hoped that pre- recorded music cassettes could soon reach a share of around 50% of the music market and "the sales ratio of the unrecorded to the pre-recorded cassettes [...] shifts in favor of the pre-recorded cassettes". In addition to classical productions (for example by Friedrich Gulda , Ingeborg Hallstein , Josef Herrmann , Rudolf Kempe , Hermann Prey or Robert Stolz ) that were published on the Harmonia mundi sub -label, numerous recordings from the field of jazz were also released on the BASF label, u. a. by Monty Alexander , Association PC , Francy Boland , Leo Cuypers , George Duke , Embryo , Ella Fitzgerald , Giorgio Gaslini , Dexter Gordon , Earl Hines , Freddie Hubbard , Horst Jankowski , Volker Kriegel , Joachim Kühn , Theo Loevendie , Tete Montoliu , Turk Murphy , Oscar Peterson , Jean-Luc Ponty , Baden Powell , George Russell , George Shearing , Archie Shepp , The Singers Unlimited , Klaus Weiss and Leo Wright , mostly productions of the MPS label.
In addition, BASF also published pop and hit productions, including a. by Dieter Thomas Heck (“Everyone has a chance”, “Throw another piece of wood into the fire”), Freddy Breck (“Bianca”, “Rote Rosen”), Cindy & Bert (“Two guitars in the starry night”, “ Again and again on Sundays ”), Enry & Marna , Manfred Fink , France Gall , Bata Illic , Renate Kern , Knut Kiesewetter , Siw Malmkvist , Manuela , Peter Rubin , as well as humoristic (including the Munich laughing and shooting society (Der Abfall Bayerns) , from Jürgen von Manger , Horst Muys or Kurt Nachmann ), rock music by Gila , Don Sugarcane Harris (Fiddler on the Rock) , Jigsaw , Karthago , Britpop with Kulka and Cantlay, “Go to Morocco”, Udo Lindenberg (“I'll Make You Love Me "), Stud , Jon Symon or Taste , dialects like Trude Herr (" Mama, I am so bang "), Hans Peter Treichler (" I think she has Renate gheisse ") or the Bläck Fööss (" Loss d'r Kopp nit hang ”), country music by The Tumbleweeds and Gary Meister as well as entertainment , marching and folk music by the Leismann siblings , the Med ium-Terzetts , Peter Moesser , (world hits in Quadro) , Werner Twardy or the Westfälische Nachtigallen ("That can't shake a sailor"). In the early 1970s, BASF financed the Krautrock Pilz label and took over sales. In 1972, BASF began offering the recordings on the American market. Company headquarters BASF System, Division of BASF Wyandotte Corporation was in Bedford (Massachusetts) . With releases from pop, rock, R&B and country musicians like Gary Meister, Irma Thomas , Malcolm Roberts and the British band Candlewick Green, the company wanted to expand into a major label ; For example, the then extraordinarily high budget of $ 35,000 was spent on the promotion of George Duke's new LP.
Werner Bolz was the managing director, followed by Franz Leibenfrost. Hanno Pfisterer was managing director of the international division of BASF music production in the early 1970s. The label's business activities ended in 1976 after BASF had only “conquered two percent of the German sound carrier market after five years of loss-making record production, on which records and music cassettes valued at 1.5% in 1975 in the trading, club and mail order business Billions of marks have been sold, “and after the chemical company had made a total of 30 to 40 million marks in losses with the label. In the 1980s, there was a brief revival of BASF Records when archive material from before 1950 was put on compact discs . The last record production with which BASF said goodbye to the music business was the Tannhauser music parody by Johann Nestroy and Carl Binder .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b BASF US Labels and Company Sleeve 1973-1975
- ↑ Large Singer Lexicon , Volume 4, by Karl-Josef Kutsch , Leo Riemens , p. 630.
- ↑ a b c Felix Spies: Flop with Pop . in Time 1976
- ↑ a b Brief portrait of the label at Audio Tools
- ↑ HiFi Museum
- ↑ Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed July 17, 2015)
- ^ Billboard, June 8, 1974
- ↑ Frank Wonneberg: Label customer Vinyl 2008, page 338
- ^ Billboard, July 13, 1974
- ^ Billboard, Volume 87, 1975
- ^ Billboard, November 23, 1974
- ↑ a b Records: A Wagner by Nestroy in Der Spiegel (32/1976)