The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I just wanted to know if singers and bands could record the same song for multiple labels. For example, could Billy Murray have the same song on both a Victor 78 and an Edison Diamond Disc/Blue Amberol? Or did contracts prevent that?

Thanks,
ImperialGuardman

In short, absolutely. It's very common to see the same tune by Murray on different labels. Going back to even the cylinder era, an example of this is his "Meet Me In St. Louis, Louis" which I have on both Edison and Columbia 2 minute wax and I've seen it on Busy Bee as well.

Sean

There is also the arrangements made at Plaza Records in the US , and Compo Records in Canada..These two companies made records for department stores that had their own exclusive labels...take , for example , a July 3 1924 session at Plaza with Sam Lanin's Orch....master #5549-1 , "He's a new kind of man"...this side was issued as Banner-1385 ;Domino-369 ,21003 ;Harmograph-940 ; Paramount-20343 ; Pathé Actuel-036123 ; Perfect-14304 ; Regal-9681 ;Apex-8225 ; Imperial-1330 ;.....these sides were all pressed from the same master...And Sam didn't get the credit all the time...Domino-369 ,the band was listed as Rialto Dance Orch ;Domino-21003 as the Six Black Dominoes ; PA-036123 and Perfect-14304 as the Piedmont Dance Orch . Imperial-1330 as Lanin and his Orch...This is why a record on Banner sounds exactly like a record on Perfect , even though the bands are different...they sound the same because they were pressed from the same master , and the name of the band often came from the phone book.....this info from Brian Rust's JazzRecords 1897-1942......the Bible!!!

Thanks for the information! I guess that if I ever put up an ad for a particular song I'll also specify what type of record I would prefer (if possible).

I have really odd one. I bought a trunk load of 78s a few weeks ago and have been going through them. I wouldn't have even noticed except by some chance the two records in question were in the same pile I was going through at the time. I played a Dennis Day record and the next one up was a frank Sinatra record. Different labels but EXACT SAME SONGS.....ON BOTH SIDES!!!
For the record, I preferred the Dennis day versions.
Don't have them handy to give specifics but I believe the day was on RCA and Sinatra on Columbia.
If anyone is interested I can dig them out for specifics and/or pics.

Some singers had exclusive contracts with labels (Columbia used EXCLUSIVE ARTIST labels for a time) but others freelanced - the prime examples are Irving Kaufmann and Henry Burr who you'll find on everything