Lyric Records was a

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

based in the United States from about 1917 to 1921. The parent company of Lyric Records was initially listed on the label as the ''Lyraphone Company of America,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

'', although actually headquartered in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

(perhaps inspired by the

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...

Nipper Nipper (1884 – September 1895) was a dog from Bristol, England, who served as the model for an 1898 painting by Francis Barraud titled ''His Master's Voice''. This image became one of the world's best known trademarks, the famous dog-and-gr ...

of the

Victor Talking Machine Company The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer that operated independently from 1901 until 1929, when it was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America and subsequently operated as a subsidia ...

's ''

His Master's Voice His Master's Voice (HMV) was the name of a major British record label created in 1901 by The Gramophone Co. Ltd. The phrase was coined in the late 1890s from the title of a painting by English artist Francis Barraud, which depicted a Jack Russ ...

'' logo) seated on a

gramophone record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts nea ...

, with the legend "Never Scratches". Lyric Records actually seem to be exactly as prone to scratching as any other

shellac Shellac () is a resin secreted by the female lac bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes and dissolved in alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and ...

rpm Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

record of the era. The first Lyric records were vertical-cut with an unusually narrow groove that required using steel needles, related to that used by British "Marathon" discs, which according to company publicity yielded a playing time of four-and-a-half minutes per 10-inch side and seven minutes per 12-inch side. Over 1000 titles were available by September 1917, including popular vocal, dance, operatic, and orchestral selections. J. Louis von der Mehden was the company's chief conductor, and his diaries (now at the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

) detail recording sessions with a 40-player orchestra which he personally recruited, a much larger ensemble than most American recording groups. The recorded sound of Lyric vertical-cut discs is superior to most other contemporary American "hill-and-dale" records. From 1919 Lyric records were double-sided lateral-cut 10-

inch Measuring tape with inches The inch (symbol: in or ″) is a unit of length in the British imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement. It is equal to yard or of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia ("twelfth") ...

discs which have slightly above-average sound quality for the era. The company went into receivership in the fall of 1921 and ceased operations sometime the following year. Among those recording for Lyric were soprano Regina Vicarino, violinist Vera Barstow, tenor "Mario Rodolfi" (the first stage name of opera star

Mario Chamlee Mario Chamlee (May 29, 1892 – November 13, 1966) was one of the lyric tenors who inherited several roles associated with Enrico Caruso at the Metropolitan Opera. Early years His birth name was Archer Ragland Chamlee. Some references erroneo ...

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

comedian and prolific early

sound recording Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording te ...

star Billy Murray and

Harry Yerkes Harry A. Yerkes was a marimba player, inventor, and recording manager who assembled many recording sessions in the early years of jazz. Many of the sessions organized by Yerkes used his name for the artist credit, including Yerkes' Jazarimba Orc ...

' band featuring early

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

trombonist Tom Brown. The celebrated Polish pianist and composer Sigismund Stojowski made his only records for Lyric, of

Anton Rubinstein Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein ( rus, Антон Григорьевич Рубинштейн, r=Anton Grigor'evič Rubinštejn; ) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who became a pivotal figure in Russian culture when he founded the Sa ...

's ''Valse caprice'' in E-flat and

Frédéric Chopin Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leadin ...

's Waltz in A-flat major op. 42.

References

http://majesticrecord.com/labelsl.htm http://www.bookrags.com/tandf/lyraphone-co-of-america-tf/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Lyric Records (Us) Defunct record labels of the United States Vertical cut record labels Record labels established in 1917 Record labels disestablished in 1921 Jazz record labels

See also

References