Universal Music Group Nashville is
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...
's
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
subsidiary. Some of the labels in this group include
MCA Nashville Records
Universal Music Group Nashville is Universal Music Group's country music subsidiary. Some of the labels in this group include MCA Nashville Records, Mercury Nashville Records, Lost Highway Records, Capitol Records Nashville and EMI Records ...
,
Mercury Nashville Records
Universal Music Group Nashville is Universal Music Group's country music subsidiary. Some of the labels in this group include MCA Nashville Records, Mercury Nashville Records, Lost Highway Records, Capitol Records Nashville and EMI Records Na ...
,
Lost Highway Records
Universal Music Group Nashville is Universal Music Group's country music subsidiary. Some of the labels in this group include MCA Nashville Records, Mercury Nashville Records, Lost Highway Records, Capitol Records Nashville and EMI Records Nashv ...
,
Capitol Records Nashville
Capitol Records Nashville is a major United States-based record label located in Nashville, Tennessee operating as part of the Universal Music Group Nashville. From 1991 to 1995, Capitol Nashville was known as Liberty Records, before returning ...
and
EMI Records Nashville
Universal Music Group Nashville is Universal Music Group's country music subsidiary. Some of the labels in this group include MCA Nashville Records, Mercury Nashville Records, Lost Highway Records, Capitol Records Nashville and EMI Records Nashv ...
. UMG Nashville not only handles these imprints, but also manages the country music catalogues of record labels Universal Music and predecessor companies acquired over the years including
ABC Records
ABC Records was an American record label founded in New York City in 1955. It originated as the main popular music label operated by the Am-Par Record Corporation. Am-Par also created the Impulse! jazz label in 1960. It acquired many labels befo ...
,
Decca Records
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American ...
,
Dot Records
Dot Records was an American record label founded by Randy Wood (record producer), Randy Wood and Gene Nobles that was active between 1950 and 1978. The original headquarters of Dot Records were in Gallatin, Tennessee. In 1956, the company moved ...
,
DreamWorks Records
DreamWorks Records (often referred in copyright notices as SKG Music, LLC) was an American record label founded in 1996 by David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg as a subsidiary of DreamWorks Pictures. The label operated until 200 ...
,
Kapp Records
Kapp Records was an independent record label started in 1954 by David Kapp, brother of Jack Kapp (who set up American Decca Records in 1934). David Kapp founded his own label after stints with Decca and RCA Victor. Kapp licensed its records to L ...
,
MGM Records
MGM Records was a record label founded by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946 for the purpose of releasing soundtrack recordings (later LP albums) of their musical films. It transitioned into a pop music label that continued into the ...
and
Polydor Records
Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...
.
Capitol Records Nashville
Capitol Records Nashville is a major United States-based record label located in Nashville Tennessee operating as part of the Capitol Music Group. Capitol Nashville was formerly known as Liberty Records from 1991 until 1995 when it was changed back to Capitol. In 1993 Liberty opened a sister label, Patriot Records, but it was closed in 1995. In 1999 EMI launched Virgin Records Nashville but by 2001 Capitol absorbed the short-lived label. Capitol Nashville remained a stand-alone label until 2010 when it launched EMI Nashville. Capitol Nashville is also home to several successful comedy artists who remain on its roster today. On March 23, 2011, Alan Jackson signed with Capitol's EMI Nashville division in conjunction with his own ACR Records label. In late 2012 Capitol Records Nashville became part of the Universal Music Group after a merger between EMI and UMG.
EMI Records Nashville
EMI Records Nashville was formed in 2010 and served as a sister label to Capitol Records Nashville. Its flagship artist was
Troy Olsen
Troy Olsen (born July 12, 1973) is an American country music singer-songwriter signed to EMI Nashville, He co-wrote Blake Shelton's 2009 hit single "I'll Just Hold On" and Tim McGraw's "Ghost Town Train," a cut from the album '' Southern Voice ...
. Other artists signed to EMI include
Eric Church
Kenneth Eric Church (born May 3, 1977) is an American country music singer-songwriter. He has released nine studio albums through Capitol Nashville since 2005. His debut album, 2006's '' Sinners Like Me'', produced three singles on the ''Billboar ...
and
Alan Jackson
Alan Eugene Jackson (born October 17, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for blending traditional honky-tonk and mainstream country pop sounds (for a style widely regarded as "neotraditional country"), as well as penning many o ...
(in a shared agreement with his own ACR Records). Universal Music Group acquired EMI in 2012. EMI is currently a part of UMG along with sister label
Capitol Records Nashville
Capitol Records Nashville is a major United States-based record label located in Nashville, Tennessee operating as part of the Universal Music Group Nashville. From 1991 to 1995, Capitol Nashville was known as Liberty Records, before returning ...
.
MCA Nashville
![400px MCA Logo blk](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/400px_MCA_Logo_blk.png)
MCA Nashville started out as the country music division of Decca Records in 1945, founded by
Paul Cohen
Paul Joseph Cohen (April 2, 1934 – March 23, 2007) was an American mathematician. He is best known for his proofs that the continuum hypothesis and the axiom of choice are independent from Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, for which he was award ...
in New York. In 1947, Cohen hired
Owen Bradley as his assistant working in Nashville. The country music division moved to Nashville in 1955 as much of the country music recording business was locating there. Bradley succeeded Cohen as head of Decca's Nashville division in 1958
and developed Decca into a country music powerhouse. Decca Nashville was renamed MCA Nashville in
1973.
In 1979, MCA Nashville absorbed the country music roster (including
Roy Clark
Roy Linwood Clark (April 15, 1933 – November 15, 2018) was an American singer and musician. He is best known for having hosted ''Hee Haw'', a nationally televised country variety show, from 1969 to 1997. Clark was an important and influen ...
,
Barbara Mandrell
Barbara Ann Mandrell (born December 25, 1948) is an American country music singer and musician. She is also credited as an actress and author. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, she was considered among country's most successful music artist ...
and
The Oak Ridge Boys
The Oak Ridge Boys are an American country and gospel vocal quartet originating in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The group was founded in the 1940s as the Oak Ridge Quartet. They became popular in Southern gospel during the 1950s. Their name was change ...
) and back catalogue of ABC Records including the Dot Records catalogue. In the early 1980s, MCA Nashville signed
Reba McEntire
Reba Nell McEntire (born March 28, 1955), or simply Reba, is an American country music singer and actress. Dubbed " the Queen of Country", she has sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Since the 1970s, McEntire has placed over 100 single ...
and
George Strait
George Harvey Strait Sr. (born May 18, 1952) is an American country music singer, songwriter, actor, and music producer. Strait is considered one of the most influential and popular recording artists of all time. In the 1980s, he was credited for ...
, two of the greatest selling artists of all time and the mega stars on the record label.
In the 1990s, MCA Nashville briefly revived the Decca label for country music releases, but closed the label after Universal Music absorbed
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 ...
and chose to reserve the Decca name for
classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...
releases. While Decca resumed issuing country music in February 2008, the current Decca country music department has no connection with UMG Nashville. However, MCA Nashville continues to reissue past country releases from Decca, as well as those on the Kapp label.
With the absorption of
MCA Records
MCA Records was an American record label owned by MCA Inc., which later became part of Universal Music Group.
Pre-history
MCA Inc., a powerful talent agency and a television production company, entered the recorded music business in 1962 wit ...
into
Geffen Records
Geffen Records is an American record label established by David Geffen and owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M Records imprint.
Founded in 1980, Geffen Records has been a part of Interscope Geffen A&M since 1999 and h ...
in 2003, and in 2021 where UMG legally changed the name for
it's Philippine division, MCA Nashville is now the only unit of UMG to still use the MCA name.
Mercury Nashville
The still active
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it is ...
was formed in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
in 1945 issuing recordings in a variety of genres including country music. The Nashville office of Mercury began as a joint venture between Mercury and
"Pappy" Daily's established country music record label
Starday Records
Starday Records was an American record label producing traditional country music during the 1950s and 1960s.
History
The label began in 1952 in Beaumont, Texas, when local businessmen Jack Starnes (Lefty Frizzell's manager) and Houston record di ...
in January 1957. In July 1958, the Mercury/Starday joint venture was dissolved, and Starday record producer
Shelby Singleton
Shelby Sumpter Singleton, Jr. (December 16, 1931 – October 7, 2009) was an American record producer and record label owner.
Early life
He was born Shelby Sumpter Singleton, Jr. in Waskom, Texas. His parents were Shelby Sumpter Singleton, Sr. and ...
stayed on with Mercury in Nashville, becoming head of Mercury's Nashville office by 1961. Singleton left Mercury in 1966 to form
his own company which bought
Sun Records
Sun Records is an American independent record label founded by producer Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee in February 1952. Sun was the first label to record Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny C ...
in 1969.
In 1986, American country music singer and songwriter
Johnny Cash
John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...
, after being dropped by
Columbia Nashville
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the Amer ...
, signed with Mercury Nashville. His first album for the label was ''
Johnny Cash Is Coming to Town
''Johnny Cash Is Coming to Town'' is the 73rd album by American country singer Johnny Cash, released in 1987, and his first for Mercury Records. It was re-released in 2003, paired with ''Boom Chicka Boom'' on a single CD. "Sixteen Tons" was pre ...
'', and Cash made several albums from 1987 to 1991 with Mercury Nashville. In 1997,
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 ...
, which owned Mercury, consolidated all its Nashville operations under the Mercury name.
When PolyGram was purchased by Universal Music Group in 1998, the resulting record label consolidations left Mercury under
The Island Def Jam Music Group
The Island Def Jam Music Group (IDJMG) was an American recording music unit, formed on New Year's Eve 1998 by the Universal Music Group. It consists of labels devised and consisted under the basic operations of Island Records and Def Jam Recordin ...
umbrella making Mercury in the USA dormant until recently, but still active internationally. The consolidations in Nashville which created UMG Nashville kept the Mercury Nashville imprint active.
Most reissues of country music recordings first issued on the MGM,
Polydor
Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...
, and other former PolyGram labels bear the Mercury Nashville imprint.
Lost Highway Records
left
Left may refer to:
Music
* ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006
* ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016
* "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996
Direction
* Left (direction), the relative direction opposite of right
* L ...
Lost Highway Records was formed by Luke Lewis in 2000. Lost Highway Records operates as a
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
label, based out of
Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
. The label also issues music by
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
and
alternative country
Alternative country, or alternative country rock (sometimes alt-country, insurgent country, Americana, or y'allternative), is a loosely defined subgenre of country music and/or country rock that includes acts that differ significantly in style ...
artists such as
Morrissey
Steven Patrick Morrissey (; born 22 May 1959), known professionally as Morrissey, is an English singer and songwriter. He came to prominence as the frontman and lyricist of rock band the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. Since then ...
and
Ryan Adams
David Ryan Adams (born November 5, 1974) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, artist, and poet. He has released 23 albums, as well as three studio albums as a former member of alt-country band Whiskeytown.
In 2000, Adams left ...
. The company's name was inspired by a
Leon Payne
Leon Roger Payne (June 15, 1917 – September 11, 1969), "the Blind Balladeer", was an American country music singer and songwriter.
Life
He was born in Alba, Texas, United States. He was blind in one eye at birth, and lost the sight in the othe ...
song. Today the label operates as an imprint of
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 ...
, formerly a division of
The Island Def Jam Music Group
The Island Def Jam Music Group (IDJMG) was an American recording music unit, formed on New Year's Eve 1998 by the Universal Music Group. It consists of labels devised and consisted under the basic operations of Island Records and Def Jam Recordin ...
. Lost Highway has distributed the soundtracks for ''
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' is a 2000 comedy drama film written, produced, co-edited, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson, with Chris Thomas King, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and ...
'', ''
Deadwood'', and ''
Open Season'' by
Paul Westerberg
Paul Harold Westerberg (born December 31, 1959) is an American musician, best known as the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the Replacements. Following the breakup of the Replacements, Westerberg launched a solo career that saw him re ...
. They have also acted as distributor for albums from
Johnny Cash
John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...
and Hank Williams.
Buena Vista Records
Formed in April 2017, Buena Vista Records is a partnership between
Disney Music Group
Disney Music Group (DMG) is the music recording arm of Disney Platform Distribution, a division of The Walt Disney Company. It is located at the studio's headquarters in Burbank, California. The division's subsidiaries consist of two owned record ...
and Universal Music Group Nashville.
Artists
External links
*
Capitol Records NashvilleEMI Records NashvilleMCA Records NashvilleMercury Records NashvilleLost Highway Records
References
{{Authority control
Record labels based in Nashville, Tennessee
American country music record labels
Record labels based in Tennessee