Fact #3004
When:
Short story:
Jac Holzman, a college student at St John's, Annapolis, Maryland, USA, chooses the name Elektra Records for the recording company he is planning to start.Full article:
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ELEKTRA RECORDS by Johnnny Black
In the mid-60s, Elektra Records radically expanded the horizons of rock by insisting on excellence and innovation in every aspect of its operations.
Company founder Jac Holzman, a college student at St John's, Annapolis, Maryland, had more interest in electronics, radio and tape recorders than in his scheduled classes. Inspired by a classical concert, Holzman decided to start his own record company and on Oct 10, 1950, he named it Elektra Records.
"I came to rock'n'roll from something of an academic perspective," he told Richard Williams of The Guardian in 2008. "I loved folk music and I loved baroque music. I didn't get Presley at all - not until much, much later. I loved the simplicity and immediacy of folk music. I had no real feel for black music until I started working with Josh White, a man who had seen the South at its worst and who worked for a $100 advance because he was blacklisted and nobody would pay him any attention."
Elektra's first release, New Songs by contemporary classical composer John Gruen, was a commercial disaster. Holzman re-located to Greenwich Village, opened a record store to generate cash, and recorded a second album, the memorably titled Jean Ritchie Singing The Traditional Songs Of Her Kentucky Mountain Family. This garnered critical acclaim and sold enough copies to put Elektra on a firmer footing.
Adding blues to its folk-based catalogue in 1954, Elektra moved to bigger offices. Always politically-active, Holzman boldly signed Josh White to Elektra when his former label, Decca, dumped him because he had been placed on Sen. Joe McCarthy's Communist Witch Hunt black list.
The early 60s folk boom boosted Elektra's fortunes and Holzman's earlier reservations about rock music were swept away on July 25, 1965, when he watched Bob Dylan go electric at Newport Folk Festival. "Dylan and folk music and Elektra were never the same again," he has said.
Determined to get behind the new, politically aware, intellectually challenging form of rock that was emerging, Holzman first signed Los Angeles-based Love ("Five guys of all colours, black, white and psychedelic - that was a real first. My heart skipped a beat. I had found my band!") and then The Doors.
Suddenly, without compromising its principles, little Elektra was scoring hit singles and competing in the same arena as giants like Columbia, Capitol and RCA. Entering its golden age, Elektra signed a string of ground-breaking acts, each of which explored the outer fringes of rock. To name just three, The Holy Modal Rounders invented psychedelic folk; Ars Nova took the combination of baroque and rock to its logical conclusion; and The Stooges were hammering out punk rock five years too soon.
The label's big blocky 'E' logo became a hallmark of quality, not just for Elektra's choice of artists but for exquisite sound reproduction and imaginative sleeve designs. Holzman's unswerving commitment to quality also meant that when album sales began to overtake singles in the late sixties, his label was perfectly placed to reap the benefits because knocking off quick hits had never been a feature of Elektra's recording policy.
Throughout this period, Elektra also continued to record cutting edge folk artists, including Tim Buckley, Phil Ochs and the Holy Modal Rounders, while its classically-oriented sister label, Nonesuch, scored a totally unexpected international smash with Joshua Rifkin's recordings of piano rags by Scott Joplin.
By the start of the 70s, however, Holzman, was wearying of the business and moved to Hawaii. Elektra was merged, first with David Geffen's Asylum Records, then with Warner Bros, thus forming WEA (Warner/Elektra/Asylum). Under new management, the label continued to sign quality artists, and achieved higher sales figures than ever, but the Holzman fingerprint was gone and Elektra's unique identity was lost forever.
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In the mid-60s, Elektra Records radically expanded the horizons of rock by insisting on excellence and innovation in every aspect of its operations.
Company founder Jac Holzman, a college student at St John's, Annapolis, Maryland, had more interest in electronics, radio and tape recorders than in his scheduled classes. Inspired by a classical concert, Holzman decided to start his own record company and on Oct 10, 1950, he named it Elektra Records.
"I came to rock'n'roll from something of an academic perspective," he told Richard Williams of The Guardian in 2008. "I loved folk music and I loved baroque music. I didn't get Presley at all - not until much, much later. I loved the simplicity and immediacy of folk music. I had no real feel for black music until I started working with Josh White, a man who had seen the South at its worst and who worked for a $100 advance because he was blacklisted and nobody would pay him any attention."
Elektra's first release, New Songs by contemporary classical composer John Gruen, was a commercial disaster. Holzman re-located to Greenwich Village, opened a record store to generate cash, and recorded a second album, the memorably titled Jean Ritchie Singing The Traditional Songs Of Her Kentucky Mountain Family. This garnered critical acclaim and sold enough copies to put Elektra on a firmer footing.
Adding blues to its folk-based catalogue in 1954, Elektra moved to bigger offices. Always politically-active, Holzman boldly signed Josh White to Elektra when his former label, Decca, dumped him because he had been placed on Sen. Joe McCarthy's Communist Witch Hunt black list.
The early 60s folk boom boosted Elektra's fortunes and Holzman's earlier reservations about rock music were swept away on July 25, 1965, when he watched Bob Dylan go electric at Newport Folk Festival. "Dylan and folk music and Elektra were never the same again," he has said.
Determined to get behind the new, politically aware, intellectually challenging form of rock that was emerging, Holzman first signed Los Angeles-based Love ("Five guys of all colours, black, white and psychedelic - that was a real first. My heart skipped a beat. I had found my band!") and then The Doors.
Suddenly, without compromising its principles, little Elektra was scoring hit singles and competing in the same arena as giants like Columbia, Capitol and RCA. Entering its golden age, Elektra signed a string of ground-breaking acts, each of which explored the outer fringes of rock. To name just three, The Holy Modal Rounders invented psychedelic folk; Ars Nova took the combination of baroque and rock to its logical conclusion; and The Stooges were hammering out punk rock five years too soon.
The label's big blocky 'E' logo became a hallmark of quality, not just for Elektra's choice of artists but for exquisite sound reproduction and imaginative sleeve designs. Holzman's unswerving commitment to quality also meant that when album sales began to overtake singles in the late sixties, his label was perfectly placed to reap the benefits because knocking off quick hits had never been a feature of Elektra's recording policy.
Throughout this period, Elektra also continued to record cutting edge folk artists, including Tim Buckley, Phil Ochs and the Holy Modal Rounders, while its classically-oriented sister label, Nonesuch, scored a totally unexpected international smash with Joshua Rifkin's recordings of piano rags by Scott Joplin.
By the start of the 70s, however, Holzman, was wearying of the business and moved to Hawaii. Elektra was merged, first with David Geffen's Asylum Records, then with Warner Bros, thus forming WEA (Warner/Elektra/Asylum). Under new management, the label continued to sign quality artists, and achieved higher sales figures than ever, but the Holzman fingerprint was gone and Elektra's unique identity was lost forever.