Elektra Records
Elektra Records is a music label in the USA. It was founded in Los Angeles in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickholt. The seed capital was $ 600. Jac Holzman mainly produced interpreters from the folk scene on the American west coast of the time, sometimes with considerable success. But he also helped groups like the Doors to become nationally and internationally known.
After twenty years as an independent company, the label was sold to the Kinney National Company in 1970 for $ 10 million . This conglomerate had entered the media business only a short time before with the acquisition of the film and music company Warner Bros / Seven Arts . Warner Bros., for its part, brought well-known record labels into the group, such as B. Atlantic Records or the label Reprise founded by Frank Sinatra. After the purchase, the group combined its music activities under the name WEA (Warner-Elektra-Atlantic). The individual record labels were continued as divisions of the group.
In 1971 Elektra took over the label Asylum Records , whose founder David Geffen ran Elektra-Asylum from 1973. Jac Holzman remained connected to the group as one of the vice presidents and settled in Hawaii.
In 1972 the Kinney corporation sold almost all of its non-media activities and changed its name to Warner Communications . In the years that followed, the music business was established and expanded in Europe under old and new labels. In Germany, too, WEA became one of the leading record companies.
In 1982, Elektra / Musician was founded as a jazz label .
In the mid-1980s, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc. and was called Time-Warner from then on. In 2000, another merger with the Internet company AOL followed. As a result, the group ran into serious difficulties and sold significant parts of its business areas, including the music business including the Elektra label.
In 2004 the new owners of the Warner Music Group closed the music label Elektra.
In 2009 the record company Atlantic Records reissued the Elektra label.
Some famous artists who released on Elektra were Metallica , Bruno Mars , AC / DC , Mötley Crüe , Björk , Bread , Butterfield Blues Band , Dream Theater , Tracy Chapman , The Cure , Pantera , The Doors , Love , MC5 , Pixies , The Cars , Mindless Self Indulgence , Bob Dylan , Missy Elliott , Third Eye Blind , Queen , The Prodigy , Tom Waits , Phish , The Stooges , Kyuss , the Beach Boys and John Zorn .
literature
- Jac Holzman and Gavan Daws: Follow the Music. The Life and High Times of Elektra Records in the Great Years of American Pop Culture. 1998. Documentation of the first 20 years of Elektra (English). ISBN 0-9661221-1-9
Individual evidence
- ↑ Elektra Flies Again ( Memento of the original from July 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ 60th anniversary of Elektra Records (in English)
