The EMI Archive Trust was delighted to sit down with the wonderful Malcolm Addey. He was hired in March 1958 as a trainee/assistant engineer and after an unprecedented short three months was promoted and invited to join the renowned “pop” recording team of Peter Bown and Stuart Eltham. By July he had already recorded Cliff… Read more »
David, 71, is chairman of the EMI Music Sound Foundation (an idea he formulated with EMI MSF CEO Janie Orr MBE, as part of EMI’s centenary celebrations in 1997), an independent music education charity helping improve access to music education by providing instruments and bursaries. He also chairs the EMI Archive Trust, which preserves… Read more »
The World Service -The Documentary Delivering the King’s Speech, 2nd September 2014 Marking the 75th anniversary of King George VI’s declaration of war against Germany, Louise Minchin relates the untold story of how the King’s Speech reached the entire world. Inspired by the discovery of the original pressing of the speech in the EMI Archives… Read more »
EMI has a long history of supporting artists and music in India. The Gramophone and Typewriter, Ltd. engaged agents in India as early as 1900 and soon established their Indian offices by 1901. In 1906 the site for a record pressing factory had been chosen in Sealdah, Calcutta. By 1946, The Gramophone Company of India… Read more »
On July 28, 1914, one month after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by a Serbian Nationalist, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declares war on Serbia, thus initiating the First World War. By August 4th 1914, Britain declares war on Germany, Austria’s ally.Published at the start of the First World War, the popular song… Read more »
In early 1940, Alan Blumlein and his team at the EMI Central Research Labs began work on the technology behind the Capacitance Altimeter. This device works by measuring the differences in charge between a low-lying aircraft and the charge at Earth’s surface, therefore enabling aircraft and other vehicles to fly at night and in cloudy… Read more »
The Trust would like to thank Ricky Ford for sending in his memory of EMI. Ricky was an EMI recording artist and has shared a little about his time with the label. It was 1961 in Bristol a truly daring and controversial musical called A MAN DIES was produced, it was the first RocknRoll religious musical.… Read more »
In 1924, The Gramophone Company was commissioned by the royal household on behalf of Princess Marie Louise to make a bespoke set of six miniature records and a miniature gramophone for Queen Mary’s Doll’s House. The Doll House was to be filled with an extensive collection of fully functioning miniature pieces carefully selected to showcase the… Read more »
Huge congratulations to all of this year’s Grammy winners! The original article, posted in June 2014, was amended in May 2026. Did you know that the Grammy Award was originally called a Gramophone Award? It is given by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to recognise significant achievements in the music industry. The… Read more »
In December 1900, William Barry Owen (co-founder of the British Gramophone Company) gained the rights to sell and manufacture the newly developed Lambert Typewriter. The name of the company was then changed to “The Gramophone and Typewriter Ltd.” The Lambert Typewriter was initially taken on as insurance against the possible failure of the Gramophone as… Read more »