Festival Records (later known as Festival Mushroom Records) was an Australian recording and publishing company founded in
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
, Australia, in 1952 and operated until 2005.
Festival was a wholly owned subsidiary of
News Limited
News Corp Australia is an Australian media conglomerate and wholly owned subsidiary of the American News Corp. One of Australia's largest media conglomerates, News Corp Australia employs more than 8,000 staff nationwide and approximately 3,0 ...
from 1961 to 2005, and the company was successful for most of its 50-year life, despite the fact that as much as 90% of its annual profit was regularly siphoned off by
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...
to subsidise his other media ventures.
Early years
Festival was established by one of Australia's first merchant banking companies, Mainguard, founded by entrepreneur and former Australian army officer Paul Cullen.
Mainguard had a wide range of investments including one of Australia's first supermarket companies, and a whaling business and also backed famed Australian filmmaker
Charles Chauvel.
The origin of Festival was Mainguard's purchase and merging of two small Sydney businesses—a record pressing company, Microgroove Australia, one of the first Australian companies to produce discs in the new vinyl
microgroove record format, and Casper Precision Engineering. After buying the two companies Cullen re-incorporated them as Festival Records on 21 October 1952; soon after he appointed popular Sydney bandleader
Les Welch as the label's first artists and repertoire (A&R) manager.
[Higgins, 2005, op.cit.] Another early staff member was
Bruce Gyngell
Bruce Gyngell AO (8 July 1929 – 7 September 2000) was an Australian television executive, active for more than 40 years in both Australian and UK television. Although Gyngell began his career in radio, in the 1950s he stepped into the arena o ...
, who was later hired to help found Australia's first commercial TV station,
TCN-9
TCN is the flagship television station of the Nine Network in Australia. The station is currently located at 1 Denison Street, North Sydney. The licence, issued to a company named Television Corporation Ltd headed by Sir Frank Packer, was one o ...
in Sydney and was the first person to appear on TV in Australia in 1956. The connection between Nine and Festival would reap great benefits for the label in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Festival was able to gain a foothold in the Australian music market mainly thanks to Welch, who acquired the Australian rights to the epoch-making
Bill Haley
William John Clifton Haley (; July 6, 1925 – February 9, 1981) was an American rock and roll musician. He is credited by many with first popularizing this form of music in the early 1950s with his group Bill Haley & His Comets and million-sel ...
record "Rock Around The Clock". The single had originally been turned down by the Australian division of
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
in 1954, when it was first released in the United States, but Welch was able to trump EMI and secure the Australian rights to the recording for Festival in 1955, after the song became a big hit in America and Britain thanks to its inclusion in the film ''
Blackboard Jungle
''Blackboard Jungle'' is a 1955 American social drama film about an English teacher in an interracial inner-city school, based on the 1954 novel ''The Blackboard Jungle'' by Evan Hunter and adapted for the screen and directed by Richard Brooks. I ...
''. "Rock Around The Clock" became the biggest-selling record ever released in Australia up to that time, and it established Festival as a significant emerging player in the popular music market.
When Mainguard began diverting Festival's profits into its other businesses, Welch resigned. He was replaced by
disc jockey
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music f ...
and former record store clerk Ken Taylor. Like Welch, Taylor did not like rock 'n' roll, but he was an astute spotter and marketer of new talent. Thanks to Taylor, Festival was the first local label to sign Australian rock 'n' roll acts, including Australia's "Big Three" acts of the 1950s:
Johnny O'Keefe
John Michael O'Keefe (19 January 1935 – 6 October 1978) was an Australian rock and roll singer whose career began in the 1950s. Some of his hits include " Wild One" (1958), " Shout!" and "She's My Baby". In his twenty-year career, O'Keefe rel ...
and the Dee Jays,
Col Joye
Colin Frederick Jacobsen (born 13 April 1937), better known by his stage name Col Joye, is an Australian pioneer rock singer-songwriter, musician and entrepreneur with a career spanning some sixty years. Joye was the first Australian rock and ...
and the Joy Boys and
Dig Richards
Digby George "Dig" Richards (12 September 194017 February 1983) was an Australian rock and roll singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, musical theatre actor and television presenter, active during the late 1950s and early 1960s as lead singer wit ...
and the R'Jays. Festival's sales trebled, but by this time Mainguard was in serious financial straits and in 1957 Cullen sold Festival to property magnate
LJ Hooker
LJ Hooker is one of Australia's largest real estate groups, with 600 franchise offices and 6,000 people engaged in residential and commercial property sales and property management. The company was founded in 1928 by Sir Leslie Joseph ...
.
Hooker was an avid music fan and reportedly took a keen personal interest in the company, even establishing his own boutique imprint label, Rex, named after the Sydney hotel that he owned. During this time, Festival had its first home-grown hit with Johnny O'Keefe's "
Wild One" (aka "Real Wild Child"), a song covered in the US by Jerry Allison of the Crickets (as Ivan) in 1958 and also recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis for Sun Records. Both artists had heard O'Keefe perform the song during their 1958 Aussie tour and rush recorded the song on their return to the US. This Festival success was followed by four #1 hits in 1959 for another local act, Col Joye & the Joy Boys. But despite the chart success, Festival continued to lose money due to poor management and a lack of international acts on its roster, and Hooker eventually sold it on to
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...
's
News Limited
News Corp Australia is an Australian media conglomerate and wholly owned subsidiary of the American News Corp. One of Australia's largest media conglomerates, News Corp Australia employs more than 8,000 staff nationwide and approximately 3,0 ...
in 1961, shortly after Murdoch's attempt to acquire the Australian division of the American
Ampar
The α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid receptor (also known as AMPA receptor, AMPAR, or quisqualate receptor) is an ionotropic transmembrane receptor for glutamate (iGluR) that mediates fast synaptic transmission in the centr ...
label.
As with the Bill Haley single, Festival was again saved by a then-unknown American act—in this case,
Herb Alpert
Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American trumpeter who led the band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. During the same decade, he co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss. Alpert has recorded 28 albums that have landed on the ...
& the Tijuana Brass, who had been recommended to Festival in 1962 by top Sydney DJ
Bob Rogers. The Tijuana Brass' breakthrough record, "The Lonely Bull" became a worldwide hit and its success in Australia enabled Festival to sign a crucial distribution deal with Alpert's label
A&M Records
A&M Records was an American record label founded as an independent company by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962. Due to the success of the discography A&M released, the label garnered interest and was acquired by PolyGram in 1989 and began distr ...
, who supplied Festival with a stream of top-selling U.S. acts such as
the Carpenters
The Carpenters (officially known as Carpenters) were an American vocal and instrumental duo consisting of siblings Karen Carpenter, Karen (1950–1983) and Richard Carpenter (musician), Richard Carpenter (born 1946). They produced a distinct ...
.
Under the astute direction of long-serving company chairman
Alan Hely
Alan may refer to:
People
*Alan (surname), an English and Turkish surname
*Alan (given name), an English given name
**List of people with given name Alan
''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.''
* A ...
, Festival quickly rose to become one of the top pop labels in Australasia (although the New Zealand operation was a standalone company with differing ownership and management), and through the late 1960s and early 1970s it rivalled and often surpassed the local market leader
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
. Hely built up a strong roster by cultivating Australian talent and establishing distribution deals with important local independent labels like
Spin Records and
Clarion Records
Clarion may refer to:
Music
* Clarion (instrument), a type of trumpet used in the Middle Ages
* The register of a clarinet that ranges from B4 to C6
* A trumpet organ stop that usually plays an octave above unison pitch
* "Clarion" (song), a 2 ...
in the Sixties and
Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records was an Australian flagship record label, founded in 1972 in Melbourne. It published and distributed many successful Australian artists and expanded internationally, until it was merged with Festival Records in 1998. Festival Mu ...
in the Seventies. He also signed crucial distribution deals with major overseas labels like
Island Records
Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...
,
Chrysalis Records,
Arista Records
Arista Records () is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was previously handled by BMG Entertainmen ...
and
A&M Records
A&M Records was an American record label founded as an independent company by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962. Due to the success of the discography A&M released, the label garnered interest and was acquired by PolyGram in 1989 and began distr ...
which gave Festival exclusive Australian rights to a steady stream of international hit albums and singles.
Festival played a major role in the Australian pop scene of the mid-to-late 1960s, and it competed strongly with its overseas-owned rivals
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
,
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
and
RCA
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
. Festival recorded or distributed some of the most popular Australian acts of the decade, including country music star Reg Lindsay. Lindsay received citations and awards from Festival management and the Australian Record Industry in the 1960s and 1970s for outstanding record sales and his promotion of country music nationally and internationally]
the Delltones,
Warren Williams,
Billy Thorpe
William Richard Thorpe AM (29 March 1946 – 28 February 2007) was an English-born Australian singer-songwriter, and record producer. As lead singer of his band Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, he had success in the 1960s with "Blue Day", " Poison Iv ...
,
the Bee Gees
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
,
Ray Brown & the Whispers,
Tony Worsley & the Fabulous Blue Jays,
Jimmy Little,
Noeleen Batley,
Mike Furber
Michael Alexander Furber (28 September 1947 – 10 May 1973) was an English-born Australian entertainer popular in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of Mike Furber and the Bowery Boys. Furber's group had hits with "Just a Poor Boy", "You Stole M ...
,
Olivia Newton-John
Dame Olivia Newton-John (26 September 1948 – 8 August 2022) was a British-Australian singer, actress and activist. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included 15 top-ten singles, including 5 number-one singles on the ...
,
the Dave Miller Set,
Johnny Young
Johnny Young (born Johnny Benjamin de Jong; 12 March 1947) is a Dutch Australian singer, composer, record producer, disc jockey, television producer and host. Originally from Rotterdam, The Netherlands, his family settled in Perth in the early ...
,
Jamie Redfern
Jamie Redfern (born 9 April 1957) is an English-born Australian television presenter and personality and pop singer. Redfern was an original cast member of children's variety show, ''Young Talent Time'' from April 1971 to early 1972, before leav ...
,
Wild Cherries
The Wild Cherries were an Australian rock group, which started in late 1964 playing R&B/jazz and became "the most relentlessly experimental psychedelic band on the Melbourne discotheque / dance scene" according to commentator, Glenn A. Baker. ...
and
Jeff St John
Jeff St John (born Jeffrey Leo Newton; 22 April 1946 – 6 March 2018), was an Australian musician best known for several Australian hits, such as "Teach Me How to Fly" (1970), "Big Time Operator" (1967) and "A Fool in Love" (1977).
Early life ...
.
An important factor in the company's success during the pop boom of the 1960s was the pressing and distribution deals it made with the many small independent pop labels that emerged in this period. Notable among these were the
Sunshine Records and
Kommotion Records labels established by
Ivan Dayman
Ivan Howard Dayman (20 July 19201 October 1989) was an Australian music promoter, record producer, label owner and talent manager of the 1960s and 1970s, based first in Adelaide, then Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Although his career was brief †...
in 1964, Martin Clarke's Perth-based
Clarion Records
Clarion may refer to:
Music
* Clarion (instrument), a type of trumpet used in the Middle Ages
* The register of a clarinet that ranges from B4 to C6
* A trumpet organ stop that usually plays an octave above unison pitch
* "Clarion" (song), a 2 ...
and the Sydney-based pop label
Spin Records, a partnership between publisher
Clyde Packer
Robert Clyde Packer (22 July 19358 April 2001), usually known as Clyde Packer, was the son of Australian newspaper magnate Frank Packer and the elder brother of media baron Kerry Packer. From 23 April 1964 to 22 April 1976 he was a Member of ...
and promoter
Harry M. Miller
Harry Maurice Miller (6 January 1934 – 4 July 2018) was a New Zealand Australian promoter, publicist and media agent.
Life and career
Born on 6 January 1934 in New Zealand, Miller grew up in the Auckland suburb of Grey Lynn. He moved to Aus ...
.
A large proportion of the recordings released on Sunshine, Kommmotion and Spin were overseen by producer
Pat Aulton
William Patrick Aulton (c. 1938 – 13 February 2009) was an Irish Australian record producer, musician, arranger, and songwriter.
He is best known for the successful pop and rock singles and albums he produced for Australian and New Zealand ar ...
, who became one of Festival's house producers from 1966 until the early 1970s. Aulton was probably responsible for more Australian-made hits than any other record producer of his era. Aulton began his career as a singer in the Adelaide band
the Clefs
Levi Smith's Clefs, originally The Clefs, were an Australian R&B, pop rock group, which formed in Adelaide in 1963. Lead vocalist, Barrie "The Bear" McAskill, joined in 1965. In 1967 he took over and renamed the group after founding keyboardis ...
, then became an A&R manager for the Sunshine label, where he produced many of that label's releases, including hits by
Normie Rowe
Norman John Rowe (born 1 February 1947) is an Australian singer and songwriter of pop music and an actor of theatre and soap opera for which he remains best known as Douglas Fletcher in 1980s serial '' Sons and Daughters''. As a singer he was ...
. When Dayman's mini-empire collapsed in 1966, Aulton discovered that he had unwittingly been named as a partner in the record label and this made him liable for its debts. As a result, he had most of his assets seized by creditors. He was rescued by Festival MD Fred Marks, who offered him a job as a house producer for Festival, overseeing all the pop side of the company's business. Aulton supervised the installation of Festival's new 4-track studio at Pyrmont later that year and he oversaw most of the company's pop/rock output between 1967 and 1970, including producing an album and an Australian hit single for American singer-songwriter
Neil Sedaka
Neil Sedaka (; born March 13, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Since his music career began in 1957, he has sold millions of records worldwide and has written or co-written over 500 songs for himself and other artists, collabo ...
.
Growth and consolidation
In January 1971, Festival established a new progressive music label,
Infinity Records
Infinity Records was a short-lived subsidiary of MCA Records established in New York City in 1978. The label was conceived by MCA president Sidney Sheinberg as a way for the Los Angeles-based entertainment conglomerate to improve its presence o ...
(not related to the U.S.
MCA affiliated label of the same name, see
Infinity Records
Infinity Records was a short-lived subsidiary of MCA Records established in New York City in 1978. The label was conceived by MCA president Sidney Sheinberg as a way for the Los Angeles-based entertainment conglomerate to improve its presence o ...
.) Early Infinity releases included
Kahvas Jute
Kahvas Jute were an Australian rock band formed in July 1970. Mainstay of the line-up was Dennis Wilson on guitar and vocals. Other founder members include Bob Daisley on bass guitar and Tim Gaze on lead guitar and vocals. Their debut album, ' ...
, the "new"
Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs
Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs were an Australian rock band formed in Sydney, New South Wales. The group enjoyed success in the mid-1960s, but split in 1967. They re-emerged in the early 1970s to become one of the most popular Australian hard-ro ...
and
Blackfeather
Blackfeather are an Australian rock group which formed in April 1970. The band has had numerous line-ups, mostly fronted by founding lead singer, Neale Johns. An early heavy rock version recorded their debut album, ''At the Mountains of Madness ...
. Infinity's biggest successes were Sydney band
Sherbet, who became the most popular and successful local band of the early Seventies and one of the most successful Australian groups of all time, and singer-songwriter
Richard Clapton; both acts were produced by
Richard Batchens, who succeeded
Pat Aulton
William Patrick Aulton (c. 1938 – 13 February 2009) was an Irish Australian record producer, musician, arranger, and songwriter.
He is best known for the successful pop and rock singles and albums he produced for Australian and New Zealand ar ...
as Festival's main house producer. In 1979 Mark Moffatt replaced Batchens as house producer, bringing much of the Mushroom recording in house.
Another notable success for Festival in this period was
Sister Janet Mead
Janet Mead (15 August 1937 – 26 January 2022) was an Australian Catholic nun who was best known for recording a pop-rock version of the Lord's Prayer. The surprise hit reached Number 3 on the Australian singles chart (Kent Music Report) in 19 ...
. The Adelaide-based nun was an experienced music teacher who had been using pop music in religious ceremonies to involve young people and had provided music for "rock Mass" events. In 1973 Mead came to Sydney to record with Festival house producer
Martin Erdman and one of the tracks from that session, a rock arrangement of "
The Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
", was released as the B-side of her first single. After being picked up by radio it became one of the surprise hits of the year, reaching #3 on the Australian Singles Chart (Kent Music Report) in 1974. It was also a huge success in America, reaching No. 4 on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100, becoming the first Australian recording to sell over one million copies in the United States,
earning a Gold Award for Sister Janet Mead and Martin Erdman. It also earned a
Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...
nomination and
Golden Gospel Award in 2004.
Although the American-owned companies
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and t ...
and
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
considerably expanded their local presence and market share during this period, Festival enjoyed continuing success during the late 1970s and mid to late 1980s under the helm of managing director Jim White, and also thanks in part to its alliance with the Melbourne-based
Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records was an Australian flagship record label, founded in 1972 in Melbourne. It published and distributed many successful Australian artists and expanded internationally, until it was merged with Festival Records in 1998. Festival Mu ...
label and the Sydney-based
Regular Records
Regular Records was an Australian record label based in Sydney that operated from 1978 until the mid-1990s. Regular Records released music by acts including Mental As Anything, Icehouse (band), Icehouse, and The Cockroaches.
The Regular Records ...
label, whose roster included top selling bands such as
Icehouse,
Mental As Anything
Mental As Anything are an Australian New wave music, new wave and pop rock musical ensemble, band that formed in Sydney in 1976. Its most popular line-up (which lasted from 1977 to 1999, and recorded all of their charting singles and albums) w ...
and
the Cockroaches
The Cockroaches were an Australian pub rock band active throughout the 1980s. The band was founded in 1979 by the Field brothers—Paul (lead vocals), John (rhythm guitar, vocals), and Anthony (lead guitar, vocals)—and Tony Henry on drums ...
(which later evolved into the hugely successful children's act
the Wiggles
The Wiggles are an Australian children's music group formed in Sydney in 1991. The group are currently composed of Anthony Field, Lachlan Gillespie, Simon Pryce and Tsehay Hawkins, as well as supporting members Evie Ferris, John Pearce, Ca ...
). Both Mushroom and Regular recorded much of the best new Australian music of the time.
In the late 1980s change swept through the music industry and vinyl was rapidly supplanted by the new
compact disc
The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...
format which Festival embraced. However it started to lose manufacturing revenue at this point because of how predominant its vinyl and cassette pressing business was and because of the lack of CD manufacturing facilities for Festival, whose revenue was also dented by the loss of many of the successful independent overseas labels it had formerly distributed, notably
Island Records
Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...
,
A&M and
Chrysalis
A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their ...
; some deals ended due to overseas labels opening local branches, while others were lost when these former independents (e.g. Virgin, Charisma) were taken over by major labels like
PolyGram
PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a ...
, BMG (
Bertelsmann Music Group
Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) was a division of a German media company Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Sony Corporation of America on 1 October 2008. Although it was established in 1987, the music com ...
),
Sony Music
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainment ...
,
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and t ...
(which would absorb Festival), and
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
. The loss of these overseas labels took a sizeable chunk out of Festival's profits, a problem compounded by Murdoch's persistent siphoning-off of Festival's profits, leaving it without the cash reserves it needed to invest in new plant, new acts and new labels.
In 1995, Alan Hely was nearing retirement, but he agreed to stay on to tutor Rupert Murdoch's younger son,
James
James is a common English language surname and given name:
*James (name), the typically masculine first name James
* James (surname), various people with the last name James
James or James City may also refer to:
People
* King James (disambiguat ...
, who, to the surprise of many in the industry, was appointed as Festival's chairman despite then being only 23 and with no significant business experience. James Murdoch had a reputation as the Murdoch family rebel; he bleached his hair and for some time sported an eyebrow stud and, to his family's dismay, he had just dropped out of
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
to set up a hip-hop label,
Rawkus Records
Rawkus Records was an American hip hop record label known for starting the careers of many rappers. Rawkus started in 1995 with releases in hip-hop, drum and bass and fun-dustrial (Dystopia One).
Label heads Brian Brater and Jarret Myer then s ...
, which for a time was the United States' premier hip-hop label, boasting
Mos Def
Yasiin Bey (; born Dante Terrell Smith, December 11, 1973), previously and more commonly known by his stage name Mos Def (), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and actor. His hip hop career began in 1994, alongside his siblings in the s ...
,
Company Flow
Company Flow was an American hip hop trio from Brooklyn, New York City, consisting of Bigg Jus, El-P and Mr. Len.
The group was at one time associated with the independent record label Rawkus Records. Rapper/ producer El-P and DJ/producer ...
and others.
Hely stayed on for some time after the appointment, but he resigned earlier than he had planned after disagreements with Murdoch; MD Bill Eeg took the reins for a short period before but resigned after the appointment of
Roger Grierson, a one-time member of Sydney '80s new wave band
the Thought Criminals
The Thought Criminals is a London, England-based electronic band, formed by Kirlian Blue (synths, backing vocals) and Rocky Goode (vocals, lyrics) in 2004. Their debut album was ''Die Young : Stay Pretty'' (2008, WTII Records), made with danc ...
and a former manager of
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian singer, songwriter, poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional actor. Known for his baritone voice and for fronting the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Ca ...
.
In 1997, Grierson set about rebuilding Festival's profile, negotiating new licensing/distribution/promotion deals with a group of prestige Australian independent labels including
W.Minc,
Half a Cow,
Reliant Records,
Global Records
Global Records is a Romanian independent record label founded in 2008 by Ștefan Lucian.
History
Global Records's first signed artist was Inna in 2008, whose career has been spanning over 10 years. She has released a series of international ...
, and
Psy-Harmonics
Ollie Olsen is an Australian multi-instrumentalist, composer and sound designer. He has performed, recorded and produced rock, electronic and experimental music since the mid-1970s. His post punk groups included Whirlywirld (1978–80), Orche ...
as well as international licences including
TVT Records
TVT Records (Tee-Vee Tunes) was an American record label founded by Steve Gottlieb. Over the course of its 24-year history, the label released 25 Gold, Platinum and Multi-Platinum releases. Its roster included Nine Inch Nails, Ja Rule, Lil Jon, ...
,
Walt Disney Records
Walt Disney Records is an American record label of the Disney Music Group. The label releases soundtrack albums from The Walt Disney Company's motion picture studios, television series, theme parks, and traditional studio albums produced by its r ...
/
Hollywood Records
Hollywood Records is an American record label of the Disney Music Group. The label focuses in pop, rock, alternative, hip hop, and country genres, as well as specializing in mature recordings not suitable for the flagship Walt Disney Records l ...
/
Mammoth Records
Mammoth Records was an independent record label founded in 1989 by Jay Faires in the Carrboro area of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The majority of the acts on Mammoth were executive-produced by Faires and the label's general manager, Steve Balcom ...
,
Chris Blackwell's Palm Pictures
Palm Pictures is a US-based entertainment company owned and run by Chris Blackwell. Palm Pictures produces, acquires and distributes music and film projects with a particular focus on the DVD-Video format. Palm places an emphasis on such pro ...
,
V2 Records
V2 Records (or V2 Music; V2 being an abbreviation for Virgin 2) is a record label that was purchased by Universal Music Group in 2007 and sold to IASin 2013. In the Benelux, V2 operates separately from PIAS, as the label bought itself out from ...
and later on prestigious Australian label
Albert Productions
Albert Productions, a division of music publishing and recording company Albert Music, is one of Australia's longest established independent record labels to specialise in rock and roll music. The label was founded in 1963 by Ted Albert, whose ...
, the home of
AC/DC
AC/DC (stylised as ACÏŸDC) are an Australian Rock music, rock band formed in Sydney in 1973 by Scottish-born brothers Malcolm Young, Malcolm and Angus Young. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock, and Heavy metal ...
Under Grierson and Murdoch's management, Festival bought out
Michael Gudinski
Michael Solomon Gudinski AM (22 August 1952 – 2 March 2021) was an Australian record executive and promoter who was a leading figure in the Australian music industry. Born and raised in Melbourne to Jewish Russian immigrants, Gudinski formed ...
's controlling 51% share of
Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records was an Australian flagship record label, founded in 1972 in Melbourne. It published and distributed many successful Australian artists and expanded internationally, until it was merged with Festival Records in 1998. Festival Mu ...
in 1999. The two companies were then merged and renamed Festival Mushroom Records (FMR).
Several notable industry figures were hired as executives, including Jeremy Fabinyi (former artist manager and ex-head of AMCOS), Paul Dickson, former head of Polygram Australia, respected musician
Mark Callaghan (ex-
Riptides
The Riptides were an Australian power pop group which was formed in Brisbane, Queensland in 1977 as The Grudge. Their founding mainstay was Mark Callaghan on lead vocals, bass guitar, rhythm guitar and as principal songwriter. Former member M ...
,
GANGgajang
Ganggajang (styled as GANGgajang) are an Australian pop rock band which formed in 1984. The four founders are frontman Mark 'Cal' Callaghan (ex- Riptides) on guitar and lead vocals, Chris Bailey on bass guitar, Graham 'Buzz' Bidstrup on drums ...
) and industry veteran and former
Larrikin Records
Larrikin Records is a record company founded in 1974 by Warren Fahey. Larrikin started as an independent label and was sold in 1995 to Festival Records.
Artists who have released albums on Larrikin include Eric Bogle, Sirocco, Mike and Michelle ...
boss
Warren Fahey
Warren John Fahey AM (born 3 January 1946) is an Australian folklore collector, cultural historian, author, actor, broadcaster, record and concert producer, visual artist, songwriter, and performer of Australian traditional and related historic ...
. The company also established an online music site, Whammo, which offered online CD sales as well as hosting an online version of
Ian McFarlane
Ian McFarlane (born 1959) is an Australian music journalist, music historian and author, whose best known publication is the '' Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop'' (1999), which was updated for a second edition in 2017.
As a journalist ...
's ''
Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop
''The Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop'' or ''Rock and Pop'' by Australian music journalist Ian McFarlane is a guide to Australian popular music from the 1950s to the late 1990s. The book has a similar title to the 1978 work by Noel McGra ...
''. The company had #1 records with Motorace, 28 Days, George,
Amiel,
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Ann Minogue (; born 28 May 1968) is an Australian singer, songwriter and actress. She is the highest-selling female Australian artist of all time, having sold over 80 million records worldwide. She has been recognised for reinve ...
and others under licence and distribution arrangements including
Moby
Richard Melville Hall (born September 11, 1965), known professionally as Moby, is an American musician, songwriter, singer, producer, and animal rights activist. He has sold 20 million records worldwide. AllMusic considers him to be "among the ...
,
Madonna
Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...
,
Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer. Often referred to as the " Princess of Pop", she is credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s and early 2000s. After appearing in stage productio ...
and
Michael Crawford
Michael Patrick Smith, (born 19 January 1942), known professionally as Michael Crawford, is an English tenor, actor and comedian.
Crawford is best known for playing both the hapless Frank Spencer in the sitcom ''Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em'' an ...
. They also had the highest selling album of 2002 with the soundtrack to
Baz Luhrmann
Mark Anthony Luhrmann (born 17 September 1962), known professionally as Baz Luhrmann, is an Australian film director, producer, writer and actor. With projects spanning film, television, opera, theatre, music and recording industries, he is re ...
's ''
Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge (, ; ) is a cabaret in Paris, on Boulevard de Clichy, at Place Blanche, the intersection of, and terminus of Rue Blanche.
In 1889, the Moulin Rouge was co-founded by Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller, who also owned the Olympia (P ...
''. "Addicted to Bass" went to #2 in the UK charts and the band had top ten records in Japan through a licence arrangement with
Sony Music Japan
, often abbreviated as SMEJ or simply SME, and also known as Sony Music Japan for short (stylized as ''SonyMusic''), is a Japanese music arm for Sony. Founded in 1968 as CBS/Sony, SMEJ is directly owned by Sony, Sony Group Corporation and is ...
. In 2002, FMR had more #1 singles and more #1 albums than any other company.
In 2000, James Murdoch was appointed to head
Star TV Star TV may refer to:
* E! (Canadian TV channel) (formerly Star!), a Canadian entertainment news channel
* Las Estrellas (Spanish for The Stars), the Mexican television network
* Estrella TV (Spanish for Star TV), the American Spanish-language net ...
and moved to
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
.
Festival celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2002 with a major museum exhibition and a series of commemorative CDs. News Ltd poured millions into Festival in the decade between 1995 and 2005; James Murdoch reportedly spent A$10 million on artists and repertoire. The company won both the Song of the Year and Songwriter of the Year
ARIA
In music, an aria (Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompanime ...
award
An award, sometimes called a distinction, is something given to a recipient as a token of recognition of excellence in a certain field. When the token is a medal, ribbon or other item designed for wearing, it is known as a decoration.
An awar ...
in 2004 with
Powderfinger
Powderfinger were an Australian rock band formed in Brisbane in 1989. From 1992 until their break-up in 2010, the line-up consisted of vocalist Bernard Fanning, guitarists Darren Middleton and Ian Haug, bass guitarist John Collins and drumme ...
and
Amiel.
Despite these successes, revenues continued to fall and by 2006 the company was in dire financial straits. In October, FMR announced that its recorded music assets had been sold to
Warner Music Australasia
Warner Music Group's labels include the following.
Flagship labels
*Atlantic Records
* Elektra Records
*Parlophone Records
*Warner Records
Atlantic Records Group
* 1st & 15th Entertainment
* All Money In
* Artist Partners Group
* Asylum Rec ...
. The terms of the sale were not disclosed although sources at other labels estimated that the deal was worth between A$5 million and A$10 million. Festival Mushroom's offices in five cities were closed and 43 of the company's 54 remaining staff were retrenched, with eleven senior management, promotions and marketing staff moved into positions at Warner.
The combined Festival Mushroom Records–Warner Bros. Records recording archive contains a large proportion of the most important Australian pop and rock music of the late 20th century, and the collection is said to contain more than 20,000 master tapes, including music by
Johnny O'Keefe
John Michael O'Keefe (19 January 1935 – 6 October 1978) was an Australian rock and roll singer whose career began in the 1950s. Some of his hits include " Wild One" (1958), " Shout!" and "She's My Baby". In his twenty-year career, O'Keefe rel ...
,
the Bee Gees
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
,
Peter Allen,
Sherbet,
Olivia Newton-John
Dame Olivia Newton-John (26 September 1948 – 8 August 2022) was a British-Australian singer, actress and activist. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included 15 top-ten singles, including 5 number-one singles on the ...
,
Timbaland
Timothy Zachery Mosley (born March 10, 1972), known professionally as Timbaland, is an American record producer, rapper, singer, songwriter, and record executive. He has received widespread acclaim for his innovative production work and distinc ...
,
Nelly Furtado
Nelly Kim Furtado (; ; born December 2, 1978) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. Furtado has sold over 40 million records worldwide making her one of the most successful Canadian artists.
She first gained fame with her trip hop-inspired deb ...
,
Madonna
Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...
,
Mika
Mika is a given name, a nickname and a surname. Notable people and fictional characters with the name include:
People known just as Mika
* Mika (singer) (born 1983), Lebanese-born British singer-songwriter Michael Penniman, Jr.
* Mika (footbal ...
and
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Ann Minogue (; born 28 May 1968) is an Australian singer, songwriter and actress. She is the highest-selling female Australian artist of all time, having sold over 80 million records worldwide. She has been recognised for reinve ...
.
Another major FMR asset, Festival Studios, was acquired by ex-Festival Studios engineer Tom Misner, who acquired
Studios 301
Studios 301 is an Australian recording studio and is both the longest-running professional recording studio in the southern hemisphere and the largest studio complex in Australia.
History
The studio was founded in 1926 under the Columbia Gra ...
the same year. Similarly, Festival Music Publishing, was acquired in November 2005 by
Michael Gudinski
Michael Solomon Gudinski AM (22 August 1952 – 2 March 2021) was an Australian record executive and promoter who was a leading figure in the Australian music industry. Born and raised in Melbourne to Jewish Russian immigrants, Gudinski formed ...
's Mushroom Publishing, for an undisclosed sum.
2015 revival
In 2015, the Festival Records label was revived with the first album ''100 Greatest Australian Singles of the 60s''.
Labels
Local labels
*
Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records was an Australian flagship record label, founded in 1972 in Melbourne. It published and distributed many successful Australian artists and expanded internationally, until it was merged with Festival Records in 1998. Festival Mu ...
(merged with company in 1998)
* Best Boy (soundtrack label; formed in 1998)
*
Bazmark Music (joint venture in 2001)
*
Spin Records (distribution from 1966 to 1974; purchased catalogue after liquidation and briefly revived as a reissue label in 2000)
* Infinity Records (subsidiary formed in 1971)
*
Larrikin Records
Larrikin Records is a record company founded in 1974 by Warren Fahey. Larrikin started as an independent label and was sold in 1995 to Festival Records.
Artists who have released albums on Larrikin include Eric Bogle, Sirocco, Mike and Michelle ...
(acquired in 1995)
* Walkabout Records (jazz sublabel)
* Festival Kids
* Vital Records
* Interfusion Records
* F1 Records
* Walsingham Classics
See also
*
Lists of record labels
File:Alvinoreyguitarboogie.jpg
File:AmMusicBunk78.jpg
File:Bingola1011b.jpg
Lists of record labels cover record labels, brands or trademarks associated with marketing of music recordings and music videos. The lists are organized alphabetically, ...
*
Leedon Records
Leedon Records was an Australian record label active from 1958 to 1969. It was founded by American Australian entrepreneur Lee Gordon in early 1958.
Establishment and early releases
In Australian in the 1950s and early 1960s, locally distrib ...
*
Sunshine Records
*
Spin Records
*
Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records was an Australian flagship record label, founded in 1972 in Melbourne. It published and distributed many successful Australian artists and expanded internationally, until it was merged with Festival Records in 1998. Festival Mu ...
*
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...
Australia
References
{{Authority control
Music publishing companies of Australia
Australian record labels
Record labels established in 1952
Warner Music labels
Pop record labels
Record labels based in Sydney