[78-L] United Artist Records (was: Gerald Wilson)

[Malcolm Rockwell]

Hmmm... United Artist... now there's a label that not a lot of research 
has been done on. I believe it was basically an indy label full of indy 
musicians and producers wanting to get their sometimes limited) material 
on a known label, and that they'd pay for the privilege.
ARLD gives some basic info saying UA (not United Artists which was a 
different, considerably larger, outfit) was located in Hollywood c. 
1946/47 and a slim dating guide. No owner name or other affiliations.
They released a wide variety of material: C&W, ethnic, Hawaiian, comedy, 
jazz and pop and a whole mess of vanity pressings, some produced 
internally (I think) but most from outside masters. I have a penciled 
note saying I thought UA to be affiliated with Allied (the large LA 
pressing plant), but little past that.
I do know that a consortium (or hui, as it's called in Hawaii) of 
Hawaiian artists, dissatisfied with their relationships with the 
(Hawaiian) Bell label, owned by Bill Fredlund, united and pulled up 
stakes, along with their masters, and moved over to UA. I have heard 
numerous rumors about why, but it may be just due to the fact that when 
Bell went belly-up in 1950 they bought their masters from Fredlund. By 
the time Fredlund got out of the record business he only owned some 12% 
of his own company - the artists owned the rest.
George Kainapau, Bill Lincoln, Pua Almeida, Andy Cummings, Randy Oness, 
The Royal Hawaiian Serenaders and The Kalima Hawaiians were all well 
known Hawaiian acts represented first on Bell, and later on UA.
I have yet to troll Billboard. Hopefully they will have a plethora of 
info there.
All comments and corrections accepted!
Malcolm

*******

On 9/10/2014 4:57 AM, Royal Pemberton wrote:
> He also did arranging and conducting for others....I have one of them, a
> 1963 Nancy Wilson LP YESTERDAY'S LOVE SONGS, TODAY'S BLUES (Capitol T/ST
> 2012).  Brilliant stuff!
>
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 3:18 PM, David Lennick <
> dlennick at sympatico.ca.invalid> wrote:
>
>> I'll have to look for the one United Artist disc I have of him.
>>
>> dl
>>
>>