My Record Collection - British Decca

This video showcases my British Decca LPs, as recorded live to file:

Decca was formed in 1929 by stockbroker Edward Lewis. It acquired the rights to Brunswick records and to those of several other companies, and by the mid '30s it had become of one Britain's major players in the record business. It started an American branch in 1934. The '40s saw the company introducing the revolutionary FFRR (Full Frequency Range Recording) recording system, which brought a lifelike clarity to its recordings and helped it to consolidate its place as one of the best Classical Music labels. Decca flourished in the '30s and '40s with the likes of the Andrews Sisters and Jimmy Dorsey; Tommy Steele, Max Bygraves and Winifred Atwell, among others, kept the pot boiling through the 50s; while the company's major recording artists in the '60s included Billy Fury, the Bachelors, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck and the Rolling Stones. The '70s, however, were years of decline. Some big names left, others lost their appeal, and eventually only the Moody Blues remained as a reminder of the times when Decca could boast a stable of world-famous artists. In 1980 Sir Edward Lewis died; shortly afterwards the remains of his Decca empire were sold to Polygram. The label continues as part of the Universal Music Group. There were a lot of labels under the Decca umbrella: Emerald and Rex for Irish music, London for records licensed from American labels, MCA for products of US Decca, Brunswick, Chapter One, etc. It had two Progressive Music subsidiaries: the short-lived Nova and the far more long-lasting and better-known Deram.