Heliodor (label)
Heliodor ( LC 00765) was a German record label that belonged to the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft .
history
The Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, based in Hanover , secured the rights to the name Heliodor on July 29, 1914. The label was re-established around 1953/1954. At first, it was primarily used to bring titles by lesser-known young artists onto the market at a lower selling price than the sister label Polydor . The recordings technically corresponded to those of the Polydor and numerous interpreters were later able to make careers there or with other record companies . For example, Erni Bieler (as Kitty Sisters ), Udo Jürgens , Lolita (as Ditta Zusa ), Jimmy Makulis , Danny Marino and the Hazy Osterwald Sextet were under contract with Heliodor. The orchestral accompaniment came from well-known musicians such as Johannes Fehring , Bert Kaempfert (as Bob Parker ) or Hugo Strasser , who also worked for Polydor at the same time or later. On so-called EPs by Heliodor, cabaret songs by Wolfgang Neuss and Wolfgang Müller from the films Das Wirtshaus im Spessart and Wir Wunderkinder (both 1958) appeared.
In the same year, Deutsche Grammophon succeeded in acquiring the German distribution rights for some US labels. Among the artists were some rock 'n' roll and - pop musician whose singles in Germany until then, partly on the label London the Teldec had appeared. Since the end of 1953, Deutsche Grammophon had licenses for the US labels Brunswick and Coral . Since it was not possible to publish the new material on these labels for legal reasons, the recordings were released on Heliodor from June with their own serial number under the name USA Production .
Thanks to well-known rock 'n' roll and pop music artists such as Frankie Avalon , The Chordettes , The Everly Brothers , Fabian , Johnny & The Hurricanes , Ray Peterson , Del Shannon or Johnny Tillotson , Heliodor became a popular one, especially with teenagers and so-called youngsters Brand. For foreign countries, Deutsche Grammophon partly had additional licenses, which were also released there on the Heliodor label. These included recordings by Fats Domino , Ricky Nelson and April Stevens . At the same time, the publication of German titles on Heliodor was largely stopped. The corresponding artists were largely taken over by Polydor.
Because the market for English-language music in Germany was still small at the end of the 1950s, the singles at Heliodor were produced in significantly lower numbers than those of the sister label Polydor. Numerous US titles that appeared on Heliodor in Germany only developed into sales successes through German-language cover versions by Polydor stars such as Ted Herold , the Honey Twins or Peter Kraus . The few English-language titles that promised a placement in the charts continued to appear on Polydor. Accordingly, records from the smaller sister label rarely made it into the sales charts.
The instrumental title Chi Chi by the studio band John Buck & His Blazers developed into its first hit . The piece made it into the top ten on January 30, 1960 for a total of nine weeks and reached seventh place. The German version of Tears in Your Eyes by Ralf Paulsen was no less successful on Polydor. Johnny & The Hurricanes reached number 32 with Down Yonder . In February 1961, Ray Peterson climbed to sixth place with the title Corinna, Corinna , the best chart position of a Heliodor single. A little later, Johnny Tillotson reached rank 38 in Germany with Poetry in Motion .
While the Heliodor singles were used exclusively for the publication of pop music, Deutsche Grammophon sold mainly LPs with classical music on music albums under this name, but with a different logo . Until the second half of the 1970s, Heliodor mainly brought older Deutsche Grammophon recordings onto the market. Initially, the offer also consisted of productions from Eastern European record companies. Later recordings by the American record company Westminster appeared on Heliodor in a separate series with their own order numbers.
With the entry of British beat music into the German charts, Deutsche Grammophon stopped producing singles at Heliodor entirely in 1963/1964. English-language pop music from license agreements appeared from 1965 mainly on the Polydor label.
literature
- Rüdiger Blomeke: Roll over Beethoven. How rock 'n' roll came to Germany. Hannibal-Verlag, 1996. ISBN 3-85445-122-9
Web links
- Heliodor Part 1 by Harald Bluschke and Dieter Moll (PDF file; 73 kB)
- Heliodor Part 2 by Harald Bluschke and Dieter Moll (PDF file; 110 kB)