Reason for the Different Labels from Motown

[midnightman]

And the multiple label thing was prominent in the fifties too, to designate different types of music. Groove [[RCA), Okeh [[Columbia) and Atco[[Atlantic) are just a few examples.

Yep. King had Federal also. I think Atlantic had Impulse! for jazz recordings too. And Warner had Reprise [[Sinatra's label).

[robb_k]

Yep. King had Federal also. I think Atlantic had Impulse! for jazz recordings too. And Warner had Reprise [[Sinatra's label).

King had Federal, DeLuxe, Bethlehem, Queen; Atlantic had ATCO, Cat, East-West, Cotillion; RCA had X, Vik, Groove, Chess had Checker, Argo,Cadet, Cadet Concept, Marterry; Columbia had Epic, Okeh, Date, Decca had Brunswick, Coral, Kapp, Uni, Revue, Congress; Warner Brothers had Reprise, Loma, 7 Arts, Warwick; Mercury has EmArCy, Wing, Smash, Fontana, Limelight, Pulsar; Modern had Kent, RPM, Flair, Crown; MGM had Metro, Orbit, Cub, Verve, Kama Sutra, Colossus; ABC had APT, Impulse, Tangerine, Dunhill, Oliver, Riverside, Battle, Duke, Peacock, Backbeat, and Sure Shot; Capitol had Tower, Uptown and Infinity; Liberty had Imperial, Minit, Sunset, Dolton, Double-L, Blue Note, Pacific Jazz, and World Pacific; United Artists had Unart, VEEP, DCP, Musicor, Ascot, and Solid State; VJ had Falcon, Abner, Tollie, Vivid, Exodus, J-V.


There were different reasons for having subsidiary companies[[record labels). Motown, was started after Tamla was successful, partly to get more capacity to have records played, but, also to divide product to more than one distributor, so as not to be dependent upon just one. Miracle seem to have been started partly to give Miss Ray a chance to run some production operations on the side [[eg. without getting in Berry's and Smokey's way). Miracle was essentially dissolved and its artist folded into the new Gordy label in 1962. Rich was started up as a joint venture of James Hendrix and Berry in 1962-63, and Inferno as a joint venture of Harry Balk and Motown, when Balk was brought in to run VIP was started up as L.A. Jobete Music's outlet, for Hal Davis to run, but it soon became a place to dump acts that Motown hadn't decided what to do with yet. MoWest was for L.A. product. Mel-O-dy was started as a 4th Motown label with Soul artists, but was quickly changed to a C&W label. Workshop Jazz was started to market Jazz, and Divinity as a Gospel/Spiritual label, and Black Forum started as a political label.

Some labels bought out others, and then ran them as their own, to get their artists, or their catalogue, or the rights to their songs, some new labels were subsidiaries because they were co-owned or joint ventures, others were outlets for specific artists, songwriters or to market specific music genres.