ARC (record company)

Not to be confused with another American Record Company (1904-1908, reactivated 1979).

ARC, the American Record Company, also referred to as American Record(ing) Corporation, or (erroneously) as ARC Records, was a United States based record company. It resulted from the merger in July 1929 of the Cameo Record Corporation: (Cameo, Lincoln and Romeo labels); the Pathé Phonograph and Radio Corporation: (the US branch of Pathé and Perfect labels); the Plaza Music Company: (Banner, Domino, Jewel, Oriole, and Regal labels); and the Scranton Button Company, the parent company of Emerson Records (and the company who pressed most of the above labels).

Louis G. Sylvester (former head of Scranton) became president of the new company located at 1776 Broadway in Manhattan, New York City. In October 1929, Herbert Yates, head of Consolidated Film Industries took control of ARC. In the following years, the company was very involved in a depressed market, buying failing labels at bargain prices to exploit their catalogue.

In December 1931 Warner Brothers leased Brunswick, Vocalion and associated companies to ARC. By 1932, ARC was king of the 3 records for a dollar market, selling 6 million units, twice as much as RCA Victor. In an effort to get back on top, RCA created its "Timely Tunes" label in 1931, and the Bluebird and Electradisk labels in 1932. ARC bought out the Columbia catalogue in 1934, including OKeh. In the 1930s ARC produced Brunswick and (after 1934) Columbia at 75c and Oriole, Romeo, Melotone, Vocalion, Banner and Perfect at 35c. As the Depression began, ARC began weeding out some of the slowing selling labels (including Domino, Regal, Jewel, see below). ARC started a theater-only label using instrumental versions of their standard 35c recordings. Also for a time in 1933-34, ARC revived the Domino label exclusively for John Gabel company in Pennsylvania (they were a jukebox distributor).

As with the companies that they bought, some of the labels were created exclusively for specific stores: Challenge and Conqueror (Sears, Roebuck), Oriole (McCrory), Romeo (Kress) and when the contracts ended, the labels ended too. Other labels (Banner, Perfect, Melotone) were known to have been sold at enough varied businesses that they are considered "general purpose labels". Many of the remaining labels have not been attributed with a specific store contract, but it's likely that the smaller and shorter-lived labels were exclusive to some business or another.

In April 1938, ARC discontinued Melotone, Banner, Oriole and Perfect. In December 1938, the entire ARC complex was purchased from Consolidated Film for $700,000 by the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). CBS revived the Columbia imprint as its flagship label with Okeh as a subsidiary label. This allowed the rights to the Brunswick and Vocalion labels to revert to Warner Brothers, who sold the labels to Decca Records. The ARC legacy is now part of Sony Music Entertainment.

Labels ARC issued or pressed (1929-1938)

+ labels that existed prior to the formation of ARC

• ARC sold to theaters for background music 1931-1933?
• Banner +1929-1938
• Bernardo
• Broadway +(from 1932)
• Brunswick +1932-1938 (under lease agreement from Warner Brothers Pictures)
• Cameo +1929-1930
• Challenge +for Sears
• Columbia +late 1934-1938
• Commodore - specialty label for Commodore Music Shops
• Conqueror +for Sears (from 1929-1938)
• Domino +1929-1931, but was restarted (with a gold label) exclusively for the John Gabel Co. circa 1933-34
• Fox Movietone for Fox Theaters
• Gospel Herald
• Gramophone Shop Varieties - specialty label for The Gramophone Shop
• Hollywood (1936-1937)
• Homestead - mail order label (1929-circa 1931)
• Hot Record Society - specialty label for the Hot Record Society
• Jewel +(1929-circa 1932)
• Liberty Music Shops - specialty label for the Liberty Music Shops
• Lincoln +(from 1929-1930)
• Master (1937)
• Mel-O-Dee - specialty jukebox label
• Melotone +1932-1938
• Oriole +1929-1938 for McCrory
• Pathe +1929-1930
• Perfect +1929-1938
• Regal +1929-1931
• Romeo +1929-1938 for Kress Stores
• Shamrock Stores - specialty label for the Shamrock Stores
• Supertone +1930-circa 1931 (short-lived series made by Brunswick after the Gennett period ended, but this rare series probably hails from right before the ARC takeover of Brunswick)
• U.H.C.A. - specialty label for United Hot Clubs of America (through Commodore)
• Variety (1937)
• Vocalion +1932-1938 (under lease agreement from Warner Brothers Pictures)

See also

• List of record labels