UNITED ARTISTS RECORDS

'United Artists Records' was a record label founded by United Artists in 1958 initially to distribute soundtracks from its movies, though it soon branched out into recording music of a number of different genres.
The label's releases became very popular in the 1960s, with the release of soundtracks from the James Bond and Beatles movies. United Artists also had a few subsidiary labels: Ascot, Musicor, Unart (for budget albums), and Veep. Gordon Lightfoot recorded his first major label albums with United Artists from 1966-1969. In 1969, United Artists acquired Liberty Records and its subsidiary Imperial Records.
United Artists involvement with jazz was significant, including albums by Duke Ellington and Art Farmer, although there were only a few jazz titles after about 1963. Around 1966 a subsidiary jazz label Solid State was founded, which lasted until 1969, on which recordings by the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra and Chick Corea, among others, were issued. Liberty's ownership of Blue Note resulted in Solid State's artists being transferred to the more prestigious label, and Solid State itself being wound up.
Mainstream pop acts continued to be signed to the label, among them being Traffic, the Spencer Davis Group, Peter Sarstedt, Shirley Bassey, War, and Hawkwind. The label also attempted, without success, to update the style of 1950s rock group Bill Haley & His Comets with a 1968 single. After UA bought the small Mediarts Records label, their roster grew to include Don McLean, Merrilee Rush, Paul Anka, Chris Rea, Dusty Springfield, Bill Conti, and Gerry Rafferty. Later, through a distribution deal with Jet Records, Electric Light Orchestra, Dr. Feelgood, The Buzzcocks and The Stranglers recordings were released by the label.
The label's most successful artist was Kenny Rogers who signed to UA in the mid-1970s, enjoying a long string of hit singles and albums.
In 1978, UA executives Artie Mogull and Jerry Rubinstein bought the record company from Transamerica with a loan from EMI. The name of the company was changed to Liberty/United Records and the UA Records name was retained. Unable to generate enough income to cover the loan, EMI foreclosed on Liberty/United Records in 1979 and changed the name of the label and company back to Liberty in 1980, returning the name of the record label to the film company. In a cost cutting move, EMI consolidated its labels, absorbing its artists into EMI's worldwide operations. Liberty Records operated between late 1980 and approximately 1986. The label's final release was the ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' soundtrack album.
Many albums from the United Artists Records catalog were reissued on Liberty during these years. Two notable exceptions were a couple of Beatles albums not previously controlled by EMI in the United States: The ''A Hard Day's Night'' soundtrack album, and ''Let It Be.'' (''Let It Be'' was actually released by Apple Records in both the UK and the US but because the movie had been distributed by United Artists Pictures, in America the album was distributed by United Artists Records rather than EMI.)
Both Beatles albums were reissued on the Capitol label, which already controlled the rest of the Beatles catalog. The primary artist on Liberty was Kenny Rogers.
United Artists released many other movie soundtrack albums, including those of ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'' and ''The Greatest Story Ever Told'', and of the film versions of the musicals ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum'', ''Fiddler on the Roof'' and ''Man of La Mancha''. However, the movie soundtrack album of United Artists' most critically acclaimed and financially successful film musical, ''West Side Story'', was released by Columbia Records, which had also released the Broadway cast album. Many of these soundtracks have reverted back to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who in turn have licensed them out to other labels for reissue; first Rykodisc, and more recently, Universal Music.
When producer Jerry Weintraub was enlisted to revive the United Artists movie studio in 1986, he attempted to revive the United Artists Records label as well. However, they released only one album: the soundtrack for ''The Karate Kid Part II'', a film which Weintraub had produced for Columbia Pictures before being hired at UA.
The EMI-owned United Artists Records catalogue is now controlled by Capitol Records.

Contents

United Artists Records artists

See also

United Artists Records artists

★ The Animals (Jet)

★ Paul Anka

★ Shirley Bassey

★ The Beatles

★ Bad Boy

★ Can

★ Al Caiola

★ Cher

★ Bill Conti

★ Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose

★ Spencer Davis Group

★ Patty Duke

★ The Easybeats

★ Electric Indian

★ Electric Light Orchestra (United Artists & Jet)

★ The Exciters

★ Broderick Falconer

★ Ferrante & Teicher

★ George Fischoff

★ Bobby Goldsboro

★ Bill Haley & His Comets

★ The Highwaymen

★ Jay & The Americans

★ Marv Johnson

★ George Jones

★ Gordon Lightfoot

★ Little Anthony & The Imperials (DCP, Veep & United Artists)

★ Manfred Mann (Ascot & United Artists)

★ Don McLean

★ Bobbi Martin

★ Melba Montgomery

★ Maxine Nightingale

★ Gene Pitney (Musicor)

★ Mark Radice

★ Gerry Rafferty

★ Chris Rea

★ Del Reeves

★ Johnny Rivers

★ Kenny Rogers

★ Merrilee Rush

★ Jean Shepard

★ Dusty Springfield

★ Traffic

★ The Ventures

★ War

★ Dottie West

★ Bobby Womack

See also

★ List of record labels