zonophone - search/destroy

EMI RELAUNCHES CLASSIC ZONOPHONE LABEL
Unheard, Unearthed, Rediscovered
EMI are very proud to announce the revitalised and relaunched Zonophone label, which will release unearthed or rediscovered music for the discerning listener for both the physical CD world and the dimension that is digital download. With the music being off the mainstream's radar, you'll always find something special on Zonophone.

Every month, Zonophone pledges to unearth a hidden gem or two through EMI Catalogue, kicking off the new year with two releases that highlight the label’s diversity: punk compilation ‘Happening, Alive and Nasty’ on 15 January, and ‘The Best Of Bobbie Gentry: The Capitol Years’ on 19 February, plus a series of digital download albums from the quirky American singer-songstress.

A brief history of Zonophone – from The Salvation Army to The Move to The Cramps…

Zonophone (also rendered as 'Zon-O-Phone' early on), was a record label founded in 1899 in Camden, New Jersey by Frank Seaman. The Zonophone name was not that of the company, but was applied to the records and machines sold by Seaman from 1899-1900 to 1903.

Seaman had worked for Emile Berliner's 'Berliner Gramophone'. Seaman decided to start his own company to produce disc records and disc phonographs. Seaman's "Zon-O-Phone" records' design and technology were shamelessly stolen from Berliner, and his machines were similarly copied from the products of Eldridge R. Johnson's 'Consolidated Talking Machine Company'.

Astonishingly, Seaman then attempted to sue Berliner and Johnson for violating his technology. With the help of lawyer Phillip Mauro, Seaman arranged for an alliance with Columbia Records (then manufacturing only cylinder records and machines), arguing that the patents held by Columbia concerning cylinders applied to any type of recording where a stylus vibrated in a groove, and that Zon-O-Phone would pay royalties if Columbia helped him drive Berliner out of business. In 1900 Seaman and Mauro succeeded in getting a judge to file an injunction that Berliner and Johnson stop making their products. Johnson and Berliner counter-sued, and the following year emerged victorious in court—prompting the name of their new combined company, 'The Victor'.

Further legal actions dragged on until 1903, when all of the United States and Latin American assets of Zon-O-Phone were turned over to Victor, and the Europe and British Commonwealth assets to the Gramophone & Typewriter Company (which was to become HMV).

Victor Talking Machine continued use of the "Zonophone" name to market cheaper records which for whatever reason were not of the technical standard of the Victor label until retiring the label in the U.S. in 1910. In the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, The Gramophone Company continued to use the "Zonophone" label through 1931. When HMV and Columbia(UK) merged to form Electrical and Musical Industries, Ltd. (E.M.I.), the lower-priced labels of the two firms were merged also as Regal Zonophone, an imprint which offered recordings by the Salvation Army, Gracie Fields, George Formby as well has handling the UK distribution of American recordings from such labels as Columbia, Okeh and Victor.

Regal Zonophone continued well into the 60's and early 70's with successful 60's producers Denny Cordell and Tony Visconti both having production companies releasing records through the label. During this period the label had both album and single success with artists such as The Move, Joe Cocker, T Rex and Procol Harum. During the mid 70's many of these production deals ended and eventually E.M.I. ceased to use the imprint as a major pop label.

In the early 80's, the Zonophone half of the imprint was revived by E.M.I. to ride the post punk train with artists such as Angelic Upstarts, The Cockney Rejects and compilations such as the Oi! album. In fact, many of the releases on the label at the time did reflect the Oi! arm of post punk rather than anything else.

By the mid 80's the Zonophone imprint had disappeared again. It wasn't until the mid to late 90's that both Regal and Zonophone reappeared in very different guises. Regal was revived by E.M.I.'s Parlophone label to house one off singles, and slightly off beat artist and album projects. Success was initially had with the Beta Band followed by a major success story in 2006 with Lily Allen.

Zonophone in the mean time was quietly being used as a home for back catalogue artists of cult credibility and the odd one off single. Zonophone has now become the home to The Cramps' Illegal recordings in the UK along side David Axelrod produced albums by David McCallum, the cult sitar classic Lord Sitar, and classic compilations of their Capitol era material from the likes of Glen Campbell and Bobbie Gentry.

In 2007 the Zonophone label will begin to blossom further with the release of cult, hard to find, or just plain unreleased material from the whole spectrum of E.M.I.'s vast back catalogue either as physical CD's, digital downloads only or both. Either way, the next phase of Zonophone's life will offer something to those who love music and are looking for that little something different. "A new kind of kick" perhaps...