Capitol Records is a major United States-based record label, founded in 1942. It was acquired by EMI in 1955 and is now part of the EMI Group.
Capitol Records - History.
The Capitol Records company was founded by the songwriter Johnny Mercer in 1942, with the financial help of movie producer Buddy DeSylva and the business acumen of Glenn Wallichs, (1910-1971) (owner of Music City, at the time the biggest record store in Los Angeles, California). Wallichs Music City record store opened in 1940 and was locate ...
The Capitol Records building is one of the most distinctive landmarks in Hollywood, California. The 13-story earthquake resistant tower, designed by Welton Becket, was the world's first circular office building, and is home to several recording studios. The wide curved awnings over windows on each story and the tall spike emerging from the top of the building combine to give it the appearance of a stack of vinyl 45s on a turntable. The rectangular ground floor is a separate structure, joined to the tower after it was completed. It was built in 1956 just north of the intersection of Hollywood and Vine as the c ...
The Capitol Records company was founded by the songwriter Johnny Mercer in 1942, with the financial help of movie producer Buddy DeSylva and the business acumen of Glenn Wallichs, (1910-1971) (owner of Music City, at the time the biggest record store in Los Angeles, California). Wallichs Music City record store opened in 1940 and was located in Hollywood on the corner of Sunset and Vine. It was the premier music store in Southern Cal for decades but closed in 1978. Capitol Records opened in a st ...
Capitol has been criticized many times for the heavy modification of albums being sold by Capitol in the USA that had been released in other countries beforehand. Possibly most infamous is Capitol's creation of "new" albums by The Beatles. This began with Capitol's release of Meet the Beatles!, the first album by the group to be released by Capitol in the USA. It was quite literally the British album With the Beatles, with five tracks ("Money", "You've Really Got A Hold On Me", "Devil In Her Heart", "Please Mister Postman", and ...