Cameo - Biography

Biography - Cameo

USA

Cameo Records, originally produced by the Cameo Record Corporation in New York City, was a budget label, active between February 1922 and 1930. At first, records were selling for 50¢; in December 1924, the price was reduced to just 35¢ (The Talking Machine World, Dec. 15, 1924, p. 175). Even that was not yet the bottom price because in July 1926 Cameo began to distribute its recordings through the S. H. Kress dime stores on a new label, Romeo, for just 25¢.

The original Cameo label (cat. #200- ca. 205) was plain black with golden text; the Cameo name appeared in a golden, black-letter type face in a banner on top. In late 1922, this was replaced by a red-and-blue striped label on which the Cameo name appeared in a golden, white-shaded font and was topped by the cameo of a young 1920s woman's head. In mid-1923, the label's striped background became simply black, but otherwise unchanged. Around cat. #382 (still 1923) the banner around the label name disappeared. Early in 1924 (around cat. #470) the phrase "Made in U.S.A." was added to the bottom of the label, below the matrix number. Around December 1926 (ca. cat. #1038), the words "Made in U.S.A." were moved up to below the label name.

In October 1927, Cameo merged with the Pathé Phonograph & Radio Corp. and ended its 200-series at #1288 in December 1927. New recordings were now made only at Pathé's studio in New York, and Cameo and Pathé frequently exchanged masters. Visually, the change in company structure was marked with the introduction of a new 8000-series and a new label style in 1928. Now the lower half of the label featured a kind of gold-framed white shield. This 8000 series went up to cat. #8380, recorded in November 1928.

Another merger in July 1929 between the Cameo Record Corporation, the Regal Record Company, Inc., and the Scranton Button Company established the American Record Corporation whose member labels now used a common pool of matrices. 1929 saw the introduction of a new 9000 series, followed by a 0100 series in 1930, after which ARC discontinued the Cameo label.

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