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Liberty Records was an United States based record label. It was started by Simon Waronker in 1955 with Alvin Bennett as vice-president, and Theodore Keep as chief engineer. In 1963, the label was sold to Avnet (an electronics corporation) for $12 million. Avnet also bought Imperial Records, Dolton Records , Aladdin Records and Minit Records . After 2 years of loses, Avnet sells the labels back to Al Bennett for $8 million. In 1966 a reissue label Sunset Records was started to deal with previously issued records from the new labels. In 1968, Liberty was bought by Transamerica Corporation (an insurance company) and combined with their other label United Artists Records. Transamerica had no clue how to run a record company, Alvin Bennett was fired after six months and things evolved from bad to worse. They shut down Dolton and transferred Dolton's artists to Liberty, later they shut down Imperial and Minit and transferred their artists to Liberty. Finally in 1971, all releases were shifted to United Artists and Liberty Records was no more. Artie Mogull and Jerry Rubinstein acquired United Artists and Liberty Records in 1978 (with money they borrowed from Capitol Records). In February 1979 EMI Records foreclosed them and owns the rights of the labels since then.
First EMI used Liberty to reissue the Liberty and Imperial catalogues. From 1980 until 1984 it was used by Capitol as a country label (featuring Kenny Rogers). In 1992 EMI renamed its Capitol-Nashville label to Liberty Records (featuring Garth Brooks).
1 Trivia
Ross BagdasarianRoss Bagdasarian ( January 27, 1919 January 16, 1972), pianist, songwriter, actor, and record producer was born in Fresno, California. During his professional life he was better known by the stage name David Seville which he used on his recordings featuri "AKA" David Seville (entertainer), named his ChipmunksCreated by Ross Bagdasarian in 1958, Alvin and the Chipmunks is a fictional musical group consisting of three singing chipmunks — Alvin, Simon, and Theodore — who are "managed" by their human "dad" and leader, David "Dave" Seville. In reality, "David Sevi characters after Liberty Records executives; Alvin Bennett (president), Simon Waronker (founder/owner), and Theodore Keep (chief engineer).
2 See also
- List of record labelsThe following is a partial list of record labels both past and present. From a business perspective, many present labels are part of the "Big Four record companies" which hold over 75% of the market share. These are: Universal Music Group, which includes
Record labels
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