The Label: The Story of Columbia Records

by Gary Marmorstein

From Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday to Janis Joplin and Michael Jackson, Columbia Records has discovered and nurtured a mind-boggling spectrum of talents and temperaments over the past 100-plus years. Now, with unprecedented access to the company's archives — memos, personal correspondence, recording contracts, sales reports and job sheets, as well as rich musical and literary material excavated from the Teo Macero Collection — The Label tells the never-before-told stories behind the groundbreaking music distributed by Columbia Records. More often than not, the music was created not just by the artists themselves but forged out of conflict with the men and women who handled them — executives, producers, Artists and Repertoire men, arrangers, recording engineers, and, yes, even publicists. And at almost every narrative crossroads in The Label is an undercurrent of racial tension — a tension that not only influenced twentieth century music, but also mirrored and at times prompted major changes in American culture. This vibrant account of Columbia Record's often tumultuous relationships with artists, businesspeople, and popular culture is sure to enlighten, entertain, and even shock.

Genres: Music, History

640 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Blog on Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barely a chapter into this almost 600-page long history of the venerable record company, which sports its famed red label on the cover, I've already learned more than I ever knew about the origins of the modern recording industry. Columbia Records was actually founded in 1888 by Edward Easton, a stenographer and principal in the company based in Washington, D.C. (hence the name), which manufactured Graphophones, an early forerunner of the victrola, originally used for office dictation. Just like today, the technology came first, and uses for the invention only came later. The fact that music could be recorded and played back on wax cylinders was virtually an afterthought (Thomas Edison, with his competing phonograph, felt music "demeaned" his invention), as the label was launched with a selection of John Philip Sousa marches recorded by the U.S. Marine Band and black singer George Washington Johnson, dubbed the "Whistling Coon" after his hit of the same name, brought to the label by prototypical 19th century A&R man Victor Emerson. What's striking is the role technology played in the growth of the industry, and how the format affected what was recorded and distributed, a factor still in place today in the wake of the digital revolution. A fascinating read that I have just dipped into, but will keep you abreast as I get deeper. - Roy Trakin

[John Albers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long time ago when I was a young man, I, and many of my friends spent a lot of hours in stores going through the record albums and in those racks, the Columbia albums, were among the best. They had some of the best artists in all the music fields: Johnny Cash, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Johny Mathias, plus Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, the Byrds and the New York Philharmonic, and the Philidelphia and Clevland Symphony orchestras. The recordings were almost perfect, and the albums were the best. Bob Dylan looks different on each of his first eight covers, and the Byrds' photographed with a fisheye lens probably is the best rock album cover ever.
The problem with the Label is that is it all inclusive, Dylan, Janis Joplin, and the Byrds, along with Sly and the Family Stone and Paul Simon, get second billing to Percy Faith, Mitch Miller, Andre Kostelanetz, and various jazz musicians. I had to go on You Tube to look up some of the artists.

[Mike Parkes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story of Columbia Records – both the business and the musician who made recordings there. It focuses mostly on obscure (to me) jazz and classical parts of the business, with much less space devoted to rock and popular music, and ends with the sale to Sony at the beginning of the ‘90s. This book clearly never received even a casual read-through from a trained editor – the organization is terrible and the book meanders all over the place. Despite all these caveats, there is still a lot of interesting background on music history and recording technology in the book.

[Jon Chaisson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A long yet fascinating story about the famed label. Noted: this story is not about the musicians but the producers, managers and CEOs behind the business, so passive music lovers may find this a bit long an unexciting. Music nerds like myself will definitely enjoy it.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess you really have to love the music business to read a 600 page book about a single label, but, if you do, you really should consider Gary Marmorstein's The Label.

How do you distill that many pages to a paragraph or two? The three most influential people at Columbia Records during the 20th century were actually the A&R men John Hammond and Mitch Miller in addition to it's long-serving president Godard Lieberson.

If you are of the belief that Mitch Miller nearly killed, or at least limited the careers of many a great singer, this book will not alter that view. It's not that Mamorstein is an apologist for Miller, although he did interview Miller for the book before his death at the age of 99, but I think Miller's career, for better or worse, speaks for itself. So the fact that Miller outlived everybody whose career he had an effect on and, therefore, had the last word, doesn't really alter the way history has and will perceive him.

I do however have renewed respect for Hammond and Lieberson. Hammond brought so many musicians to the label who would eventually become its biggest stars such as Dylan, Springsteen, Streisand, Diamond, etc. As president Lieberson created the Masterworks division and brought so many of the biggest-selling shows and soundtracks to the label.

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 2 out of 5]

Potentially interesting subject but too much of this is just random anecdotes in succession. There are also a lot of incredibly trivial things that ought to have been footnotes at best and probably should have never been included in the first place and far too many basic errors of fact, which says to me that the publishing world really needs some editors and fact checkers to maintain any kind of quality level. Occasionally there are worthwhile bits of information gleaned from the author's research (using primary source materials in archival collections at Yale, New York Public Library, etc. and some personal interviews), but they are few and far between. Whether it is accurate or not, one gets the impression that the author knew nothing about this subject before starting the book. Not a good sign.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the early parts about the invention, development & competing technologies in the record business interesting. I felt that the later sections tracking different musicians were just a patching together of different stories from magazines & books & there wasn't any deeper insights. Definitely very little "juiciness" one would hope for from the music business. Equally RCA is referenced as the other dominant player, but there's very little of the "why".

The book ultimately feels like just a regurgitation of facts vs some new or interesting insight on why they succeeded or failed. I love tracing the roots and influences of music, but I finished this book with a big "meh"

[Joel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very thorough and well-researched book. However, reading it made me realize two things: 1) I am far more interested in stories about making music than stories about executive and business matters relating to music; 2) Columbia did not get into the rock and roll game until the late '60s and there was not nearly enough jazz content to keep me interested until then (also the book does not mention The Clash, the only band that really matters).

[Dan Lalande · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ambitious history of Columbia records, the M.O.R. music monolith responsible for Tony Bennett, Bobby Vinton, Barbra Streisand and deep classical and Broadway catalogues, via Mitch Miller, George Avakian, Godard Liebersen and Teo Macero (there was jazz, folk and rock, too, but the label was inexcusably late to each of those parties.) It's a history light on socio-cultural context, weighted instead with a technological-biographical bent.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

WAY too detailed for me, but if you want a real who's who of Columbia Records, I can't imagine you could get better than this. Lots of great little stories about behind the scenes. Well written in a magazine style.

[Michael Carrier · Rating 5 out of 5]

MPL

Lost data when transferred. A great read about the records of my youth. My parents and I were members of the Columbia Record club at various times.