Vocalion - Biography

Biography - Vocalion

USA

Before ca. July 1921, the label was called Aeolian-Vocalion. In 1926, Brunswick took over; in 1933, ARC, which marked Country and Race releases with a 0-prefix (label guide). In April 1940, new owner CBS replaced Vocalion with its OKeh label.

The 14000 series was started in 1919 by Aeolian Vocalion. Numbers up to 14232 (1921) belong there.
A 14000 series discography is availbale at https://78records.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/msp_vocalion-1.pdf

In 1926, the new owner Brunswick began the 1000 race series and 5000 country series; the popular series continued at 15000.

In 1933, the new owner ARC started a new series at 25000, soon shortened to 2500 and counting up to 5618 in July 1940; country and race releases were marked by the leading digit 0.

Starting in April 1938, after ARC had stopped issuing its budget labels Banner, Conqueror, Melotone, Perfect, Oriole, and Romeo, it reissued some of these releases on Vocalion. To do that, it created new catalog numbers by reusing old numbers of popular records that had not yet been issued with a 0-prefix and adding a "0" to them. The first reused number appears to be 2847, the last one 3499. Most of these Vocalion reissues were records by Blind Boy Fuller and Gene Autry, in addition to others, e.g., by Big Bill Broonzy, Patsy Montana, and the Carter Family.

In 1949, Decca briefly revived the Vocalion label for reissues.

Basic label style guide: http://oldtimeblues.net/labels/LabelsVoc.html
Another label history: https://www.iguide.net/792_article_trash_or_treasure_a_pickers_guide_to_78_rpm_records_on_the_vocalion_label.html

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