Oriole Records (UK)

Oriole Records was a British record label, founded in 1925 by the London-based Levy Company, which owned a gramophone record subsidiary called Levaphone Records.

History

The Levy family founded a record shop that also sold bicycles and sewing machines at 19 High Street, Whitechapel, and later moved to 139 High Street. Oriole recorded popular music in England, and also issued masters from the United States Vocalion Records in May and June 1927. The original label was discontinued in 1935.

Jacques Levy produced records starting in 1931 at the West End studios at Rosslyn House, 94-98 Regent Street, London, where they stayed until 1937 when they moved to 73 New Bond Street, with chief engineers Ted Sibbick and Bill Johnson, built into what was once an art gallery. In 1949, they segregated the work and the label, with Oriole Records Ltd moving into 101 New Bond Street, London, and with Levy moving out to a factory at Aston Clinton, near Aylesbury. From 1938 or 1939, David Morris Levy lived nearby at Flat 98, Clarence Gate Gardens, near Baker Street, until his 1971 death, and also maintained a residence in Birchington, Kent.

Oriole Records

Oriole Records may refer to:

Oriole Records (U.S.)

Oriole Records was a record label of the 1920s and 1930s based in the United States. The budget album label was sold exclusively at the McCrory chain of stores (a competitor of Woolworth's).

Audio fidelity of Oriole Records is somewhat below average for the era, but on par with other Plaza and ARC pressings.

The Oriole label first appeared in 1921, selling for 25 cents per disc record. Originally, Oriole records were pressed by the Cameo Record Company (generally not from Cameo material, however), but this arrangement lasted only a month or two. Most of the masters were leased from other labels, early on mostly Emerson. From around number 115, Orioles were pressed by Grey Gull and usually have unusual pairings of material, with one side being a hit popular tune and the other "standard" material, sometimes classical. At number 250, Orioles suddenly began being pressed by Plaza Music Company, who also pressed the Banner label, and whose issues were the original labels to be treated as "cheap" labels. Oriole and Banner, in common with Jewel, the Sears & Roebuck label Challenge, and a few others, often used a standard set of "noms du disque" on their labels, rather than the actual names of the artists who recorded the tracks they issued. Plaza-pressed Orioles used "control numbers" to disguise their matrix numbers; oddly enough, these were later to appear on the flagship Banner label. After Plaza was merged into the American Record Corporation, ARC matrix numbers replaced the control numbers.