Fantasy Records is an American

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

company founded by brothers Max and Sol Stanley Weiss in 1949. The early years of the company were dedicated to issuing recordings by

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 m ...

pianist

Dave Brubeck David Warren Brubeck (; December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Often regarded as a foremost exponent of cool jazz, Brubeck's work is characterized by unusual time signatures and superimposing contrasti ...

, who was also one of its investors, but in more recent years the label has been known for its recordings of comedian

Lenny Bruce Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), known professionally as Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which ...

, jazz pianist

Vince Guaraldi Vincent Anthony Guaraldi (; né Dellaglio, July 17, 1928 – February 6, 1976) was an American jazz pianist best known for composing music for animated television adaptations of the ''Peanuts'' comic strip. His compositions for this series includ ...

, the last recordings made on the Wurlitzer organ in the San Francisco Fox Theatre before the theatre was demolished, organist

Korla Pandit Korla Pandit (September 16, 1921 – October 2, 1998), born John Roland Redd, was an American musician, composer, pianist, and organist. After moving to California in the late 1940s and getting involved in show business, Redd became known as "Kor ...

, the 1960s rock band

Creedence Clearwater Revival Creedence Clearwater Revival, also referred to as Creedence and CCR, was an American rock band formed in El Cerrito, California. The band initially consisted of lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter John Fogerty; his brother, ...

, bandleader

Woody Herman Woodrow Charles Herman (May 16, 1913 – October 29, 1987) was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading groups called "The Herd", Herman came to prominence in the late 1930s and was active until his dea ...

, and Disco/R&B singer

Sylvester Sylvester or Silvester is a name derived from the Latin adjective ''silvestris'' meaning "wooded" or "wild", which derives from the noun ''silva'' meaning "woodland". Classical Latin spells this with ''i''. In Classical Latin, ''y'' represented ...

Formation

In 1949, Jack Sheedy, owner of a San Francisco-based record label called Coronet, was talked into making the first recording of an octet and a trio featuring Dave Brubeck (not to be confused with either the Australian

Coronet Records Coronet Records is the name of at least three different record companies. One was based in San Francisco in the 1940s and was responsible for the first recordings of Dave Brubeck. Brubeck's Coronet Records disbanded when it couldn't pay its bills ...

or the New York City-based Coronet Records of the late 1950s). Sheedy's Coronet Records had recorded area

Dixieland Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band ...

bands. But he was unable to pay his bills, and in 1949 he turned his masters over to a pressing company, the Circle Record Company, which was owned by Max and Sol Weiss. The Weiss brothers changed the name of their business to Fantasy Records and met an increasing demand for Brubeck's music by recording and issuing new records. The company was soon shipping 40,000 to 50,000 copies of Brubeck records per quarter. When Brubeck signed with Fantasy, he thought he had 50 percent interest in the company. He worked as an unofficial artists and repertoire ( A&R) assistant, encouraging the Weiss brothers to sign

Gerry Mulligan Gerald Joseph Mulligan (April 6, 1927 – January 20, 1996), also known as Jeru, was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though primarily known as one of the leading jazz baritone saxophonists—playing the instrum ...

Chet Baker Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool". Baker earned much attention and ...

, and

Red Norvo Red Norvo (born Kenneth Norville; March 31, 1908 – April 6, 1999) was an American musician, one of jazz's early vibraphonists, known as "Mr. Swing". He helped establish the xylophone, marimba, and vibraphone as jazz instruments. His reco ...

. When he discovered that all he owned was 50 percent of his own recordings, he signed with

Columbia Records 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 A ...

. Fantasy was known for its unique colored-vinyl pressings. Monaural records were pressed in red vinyl while Stereo pressings were pressed in blue. Later Stereo pressings were red vinyl with a blue label. Eventually the company switched to black vinyl for all pressings and the label design went through several revisions as well.

Acquisitions

In 1955,

Saul Zaentz Saul Zaentz (; February 28, 1921January 3, 2014) was an American film producer and record company executive. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture three times and, in 1996, was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. Zaentz's film p ...

joined the company. Jazz musician

Charles Mingus Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz upright bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, and author. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians an ...

gave

Debut Records Debut Records was an American jazz record company and label founded in 1952 by bassist Charles Mingus, his wife Celia, and drummer Max Roach. This short-lived label was an attempt to avoid the compromises of working for major companies. Intended ...

to Zaentz as a wedding gift; at the time, Zaentz was marrying Mingus's ex-wife, Celia, who had helped found Debut with Mingus and musician

Max Roach Maxwell Lemuel Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was an American jazz drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in history. He work ...

. After an unsuccessful attempt by

Audio Fidelity Records Audio Fidelity Records, was a record company based in New York City, most active during the 1950s and 1960s. They are best known for having produced the first mass-produced American stereophonic long-playing record in November 1957 (although this ...

to buy Fantasy, Zaentz became president in 1967. He and a group of investors bought Fantasy from the Weiss brothers that year. He then acquired

Prestige Records Prestige Records is a jazz record company and label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock in New York City which issued recordings in the mainstream, bop, and cool jazz idioms. The company recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz music ...

(1971), Riverside (1972), and

Milestone A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the route relative to so ...

(1972). Ralph Kaffel, who was vice-president of Fantasy from 1971, became president in 1973. He continued the policy of acquisitions:

Stax Records Stax Records is an American record company, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the label changed its name to Stax Records in 1961. It also shared its operations with sister label Volt Records. Stax was ...

(1977),

Good Time Jazz Good Time Jazz Records was an American jazz record company and label. It was founded in 1949 by Lester Koenig to record the Firehouse Five Plus Two and earned a reputation for Dixieland jazz. The label produced new releases and reissues, includi ...

(1984),

Contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is o ...

(1984),

Pablo Pablo is a Spanish form of the name Paul. People *Pablo Alborán, Spanish singer *Pablo Aimar, Argentine footballer * Pablo Armero, Colombian footballer * Pablo Bartholomew, Indian photojournalist * Pablo Brandán, Argentine footballer * Pablo Br ...

(1986), Specialty (1991), Kicking Mule (1995), and Takoma (1995). Fantasy's first subsidiary was

Galaxy Records Galaxy Records was a record label founded in 1964 by Max and Sol Weiss in Berkeley, California. It was a division of Fantasy Records. History Galaxy Records was officially launched in 1964 in Berkeley, California. In 1967 Galaxy and Fantasy we ...

in 1951. Years later, it started the short-lived subsidiary Scorpio, which tried to capitalize on the

British Invasion The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of British culture became popular in the United States and significant to the rising "counterculture" o ...

. Still later, it had a subsidiary named Reality Records that concentrated on hip hop and released the first two albums by

Doug E. Fresh Doug E. Fresh (born September 17, 1966) is a Barbados-born American rapper, record producer, and beatboxer, also known as the "Human Beat Box". The pioneer of 20th-century American beatboxing, Fresh is able to accurately imitate drum machines an ...

Vince Guaraldi

proved a stand-out when he joined the company in 1955. His most famous contributions to Fantasy were his compositions involved in the film adaptations of the

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...

Peanuts ''Peanuts'' is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run extended from 1950 to 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. ''Peanuts'' is among the most popular and inf ...

'' by

Charles M. Schulz Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz (; November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000) was an American cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip ''Peanuts'', featuring what are probably his two best-known characters, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. He is wi ...

. This association began with Guaraldi's album, ''

Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown ''Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown'' (stylized with quotation marks as ''Jazz Impressions of "A Boy Named Charlie Brown"'') is the sixth studio album by American jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi (credited to the Vince Guaraldi Trio), r ...

'', which contained music he created for an unsold television documentary of the same name, but became most famous with the hailed

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrac ...

of the classic

Christmas special Christmas themes have long been an inspiration to artists and writers. A prominent aspect of Christian media, the topic first appeared in in literature and Christmas music. Filmmakers have picked up on this wealth of material, with both adaptatio ...

, ''

A Charlie Brown Christmas ''A Charlie Brown Christmas'' is a 1965 animated television special. It is the first TV special based on the comic strip ''Peanuts'', by Charles M. Schulz. Produced by Lee Mendelson and directed by Bill Melendez, the program made its debut on C ...

'', the album of which itself has become a perennial Christmas best-seller. This success would lead to numerous other ''Peanuts'' compositions for the rest of Guaraldi's career, selections of which were subsequently released by Fantasy. Guaraldi departed Fantasy in 1966 after the release of '' Live at El Matador'' (a collaboration with guitarist Bola Sete).

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Saul Zaentz's acquisitions had been funded in part by the success of the rock group

, a group that he had managed. Creedence was signed by Fantasy Records in 1964 as the Blue Velvets, but the label renamed it the Golliwogs so it would fit in with the bands of the

. After a series of failed releases under that name on the Fantasy and Scorpio labels, the group changed its name to Creedence Clearwater Revival. In 1968, it released its first hit record, a cover version of the song " Susie Q". In 1971, Fantasy built its headquarters at the corner of Tenth and Parker in Berkeley, California. The building was nicknamed "The House That Creedence Built". In 2004, Fantasy was sold to a consortium led by American television writer, producer, and activist

Norman Lear Norman Milton Lear (born July 27, 1922) is an American producer and screenwriter, who has produced, written, created, or developed over 100 shows. Lear is known for many popular 1970s sitcoms, including the multi-award winning '' All in the Fami ...

and merged with

Concord Records Concord Records is an American record label owned by Concord and based in Los Angeles, California. Concord Records was launched in 1995 as an imprint designed to reach beyond the company's foundational Concord Jazz label. The label's artists have ...

to create

Concord Music Group Concord Music Group was an American independent music company based in Beverly Hills, California, with worldwide (including the U.S.) distribution through Universal Music Group. The company specialized in recordings ( Fearless Records, Concord ...

. Although some operations were still located in Berkeley, the label was later headquartered at the Concord location in

Beverly Hills, California Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. ...

. Shortly after Fantasy was purchased by Concord,

John Fogerty John Cameron Fogerty (born May 28, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. Together with Doug Clifford, Stu Cook, and his brother Tom Fogerty, he founded the band Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), for which he was the lead s ...

, the lead singer and songwriter of Creedence Clearwater Revival, re-signed with the label after leaving it in the mid-1970s after a falling out with Zaentz, who died in 2014. Fantasy Studios closed in 2018 with its studios being auctioned off, in response to financial difficulties.

Current roster

* Bailen *

Ry Cooder Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder (born March 15, 1947) is an American musician, songwriter, film score composer, record producer, and writer. He is a multi-instrumentalist but is best known for his slide guitar work, his interest in traditional music, a ...

Natalie Hemby Natalie Nicole Hemby Wrucke (born March 24, 1977) is an American country music songwriter and singer. She has written songs for Lee Ann Womack, Eli Young Band, Toby Keith, Miranda Lambert, Sunny Sweeney, Little Big Town, Jon Pardi, Kacey Musgra ...

Valerie June Valerie June Hockett (born January 10, 1982),Hubbell, John (2009),, '' The Commercial Appeal'', May 28, 2009.(aged 27 in May 2009). known as Valerie June, is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Memphis, Tennessee, Unite ...

* Avi Kaplan *

The Marcus King Band The Marcus King Band is a southern rock/blues band from South Carolina formed in 2013. History The band is led by guitarist Marcus King. Raised in Greenville, South Carolina, King was brought up on the blues, playing shows as a pre-teen sidema ...

* Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness * Gov't Mule * Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real *

Steve Perry Stephen Ray Perry (born January 22, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer of the rock band Journey during their most commercially successful periods from 1977 to 1987, and again from 1995 to 1998. He also wrote/co ...

Grace Potter Grace Evelyn Potter (born June 20, 1983) is an American singer-songwriter and musician who formed Grace Potter and the Nocturnals in 2002. Potter released her debut solo record ''Original Soul'' on 2004 via Grace Potter Music. Potter and her b ...

* L.S. Dunes *Tyler Ramsey *

Nathaniel Rateliff Nathaniel David Rateliff (born October 7, 1978) is an American singer and songwriter based in Denver, Colorado, whose influences are described as folk, Americana and vintage rhythm & blues. Rateliff has performed with a backing band called the ...

*Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats *

Allison Russell Allison Russell is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician and activist. Prior to her solo music career, Russell performed as a member of various music groups including Po' Girl, Birds of Chicago, Our Native Daughters and Sisters of the Strawbe ...

Seether Seether are a South African rock band founded in 1999 in Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa. The band originally performed under the name Saron Gas until 2002, when they moved to the United States and changed it to Seether to avoid confusion wi ...

Switchfoot Switchfoot is an American rock band from San Diego, California. The band's members are Jon Foreman (lead vocals, guitar), Tim Foreman (bass guitar, backing vocals), Chad Butler (drums, percussion), and Jerome Fontamillas (guitar, keyboards, ...

James Taylor James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He is one of the List of best-selling music artists, best-sell ...

Tedeschi Trucks Band The Tedeschi Trucks Band () is an American blues and blues rock group based in Jacksonville, Florida. Formed in 2010, the band is led by married couple Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks. Their debut album, '' Revelator'' (2011), won the 2012 Gra ...

*Layla Tucker *

Tanya Tucker Tanya Denise Tucker (born October 10, 1958) is an American country music singer and songwriter who had her first hit, " Delta Dawn", in 1972 at the age of 13. Over the succeeding decades, Tucker became one of the few child performers to mature in ...

* Andrea von Kampen

References

External links

Official Fantasy Records site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fantasy Records 1949 establishments in California American independent record labels Companies based in Berkeley, California Companies based in San Francisco Concord Music Group IFPI members Jazz record labels Music of the San Francisco Bay Area Record labels established in 1949