Pye Records was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

. In its first incarnation, perhaps Pye's best known artists were Lonnie Donegan

Lonnie Donegan

Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...

 (1956–69), Petula Clark

Petula Clark

Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...

 (1957–71), The Searchers

The Searchers (band)

The Searchers are an English beat group, who emerged as part of the 1960s Merseybeat scene along with The Beatles, The Fourmost, The Merseybeats, The Swinging Blue Jeans, and Gerry & The Pacemakers....

 (1963–67), The Kinks

The Kinks

The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...

 (1964–71), Sandie Shaw

Sandie Shaw

Sandie Shaw is an English pop singer, who was one of the most successful British female singers of the 1960s. In 1967 she was the first UK act to win the Eurovision Song Contest...

 (1964-1971) and Brotherhood of Man

Brotherhood of Man

Brotherhood of Man are a British pop group who achieved success in the 1970s, most notably by winning the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest with "Save Your Kisses for Me"....

 (1975–79). The label changed its name in 1980, but was briefly reactivated in 2006.
The Pye Company originally manufactured television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

s and radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

s. It entered the record business when it bought Nixa Records

Nixa Records

Nixa Record Company Ltd. was founded in 1950 by F. H. B. Nixon. Nixa was the second company, after Decca, in Britain to release LP records. At the time, EMI was attempting to promote 45 rpm records over 33 LP records...

 in 1953. In 1955, the company acquired Polygon Records

Polygon Records

Polygon Records was one of the first British independent record labels.It was started in 1949 as the Polygon Record Company Ltd. by Alan A. Freeman and Leslie Clark, who was anxious to control distribution of his daughter Petula Clark's recordings...

, a label that had been established by Petula Clark's father to control distribution of her recordings, and merged it with Nixa Records to form Pye Nixa Records.
In 1958, Pye International Records

Pye International Records

Pye International Records was a record label founded in 1958, as a subsidiary of Pye Records. The company distributed many American labels in the UK, including Chess, Kama Sutra, Buddah, Colpix and King...

 was started.