The Sound of the Hound today announced the launch of a new historical podcast series sharing the adventures, stories and lives of the entrepreneurs, artists and eccentrics who invented the music industry and brought recorded music to the masses at the tail end of the nineteenth century. The series is presented by music industry veteran… Read more »
Featured photo LONDON, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 04: Roger Taylor unveils Westminster Council’s commemorative plaque on December 04, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Dave J Hogan for Universal Music) LONDON: December 4, 2019 — Britain’s rich music heritage was celebrated yesterday with the unveiling of a commemorative plaque on the site of Europe’s first recording… Read more »
‘Nipper Runs Amok’ By David Hughes MBE – Trustee of EMI Archive Trust. Archives and secrets go together, and the EMI archive is no exception. Archives are not visitor attractions; they are not laid out beautifully in lovely display cabinets. The key words are preservation and safety. Initially, presumably, for good business practice, The Gramophone… Read more »
Christabel Pankhurst, a leading Suffragette, was one of the primary strategists of the campaign for women’s right to vote in the first decades of the twentieth century. Christabel was jailed in 1907 and 1909 and was dubbed the ‘Queen of the Mob’ by the media, as described in this contemporary press release. Miss Christabel Pankhurst… Read more »
The EMI memorial, Cherry Lane Cemetery, which is both a grave marker and commemorative stone for 37 workers from The Gramophone Company, Blyth Road, Hayes killed when a V1 flying-bomb hit a factory surface air-raid shelter on 7 July 1944. Restored by EMI Archive Trust in 1994 by and again in 2009.
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 »