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Columbia's "Magic Notes" trade mark

The Columbia Graphophone Company was one of the earliest gramophone companies in the United Kingdom.

In 1922, Columbia Phonograph, as it was then known, sold its UK subsidiary Columbia Graphophone. However, in 1925 Columbia Graphophone bought its former parent for $2.5 million. In 1926 Odeon Records and Parlophone Records were acquired. On April 21, 1931, the Gramophone Company and the Columbia Graphophone Company merged and formed a new company Electric and Musical Industries (EMI). American anti-trust laws forced EMI to sell its American Columbia operations.

EMI continued to operate the Columbia record label in the UK -- and everywhere but the U.S., Canada, and Japan -- until the early 1970s.

Under EMI, English Columbia's output was mainly licenced recordings from American Columbia until 1951 when American Columbia switched British distribution to Philips Records. English Columbia continued to distribute American Columbia sister labels Okeh and Epic through the 1960s when American Columbia's then parent CBS moved distribution of all its labels to the then new CBS Records created from the purchase of Oriole Records (UK) in late 1964. The loss of American Columbia product forced English Columbia to groom its own talent such as Russ Conway, Acker Bilk, Cliff Richard, The Shadows, Helen Shapiro, Frank Ifield, Rolf Harris, Freddie and the Dreamers, The Dave Clark 5, The Animals, Herman's Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Seekers, Pink Floyd (who have been on both Columbias), and The Yardbirds. Led by avuncular A&R man Norrie Paramor, the label was arguably the most successful in Britain in the rock era prior to the Beat Boom.

EMI decided to reserve the HMV label for classical repertoire and transferred HMV's remaining pop acts to Columbia by 1967. Later, EMI replaced the Columbia label with the eponymous EMI Records in 1972. It sold its remaining interest in the Columbia name in 1990 to Sony Music Entertainment (now Sony BMG Music Entertainment), who already owned Columbia Records in the U.S. and Canada. The formal reassignment of British registered trade marks, including the "magic notes" logo, from EMI took place in 1993.[1] Today, Sony BMG prefers using the "walking eye" logo (previously used on the old CBS label) for the Columbia Records trade mark in the UK.[2]

In Australia EMI continued using the Columbia label throughout the 1970s. But they did add the EMI Records label in 1973.

The history of the Columbia record label outside the UK is dealt with in more detail in Columbia Records and Columbia Music Entertainment.

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