Regal Zonophone 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,...

 formed in 1932

1932 in music

-Events:*January 14 – Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto is premièred in Paris.*May 1 – The music to John Alden Carpenter's ballet Skyscrapers is recorded by the Victor Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Nathaniel Shilkret; in addition to be being issued as six sides on 78 rpm discs, the...

, through a merger of the Regal Records and Zonophone Records labels. This followed the merger of those labels' respective parent companies - the Columbia Graphophone Company

Columbia Graphophone Company

The Columbia Graphophone Company was one of the earliest gramophone companies in the United Kingdom. Under EMI, as Columbia Records, it became a very successful label in the 1950s and 1960s...

 and the Gramophone Company

Gramophone Company

The Gramophone Company, based in the United Kingdom, was one of the early recording companies, and was the parent organization for the famous "His Master's Voice" label...

 - to form EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

.

Originally Regal Zonophone handled American releases from Okeh Records

Okeh Records

Okeh Records began as an independent record label based in the United States of America in 1918. From 1926 on, it was a subsidiary of Columbia Records.-History:...

, Victor Records and Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

, as well as offering home-grown recordings by artists such as Gracie Fields

Gracie Fields

Dame Gracie Fields, DBE , was an English-born, later Italian-based actress, singer and comedienne and star of both cinema and music hall.-Early life:...

 and George Formby. The label is also well known for its releases of Salvation Army

Salvation Army

The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....

 (particularly brass band) music.

In the 1950s the Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n division of Regal Zonophone played an important role in the emerging Australian country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 genre, signing several emerging country stars including Slim Dusty

Slim Dusty

David Gordon "Slim Dusty " Kirkpatrick AO, MBE was an Australian country music singer-songwriter and producer, with a career spanning nearly eight decades. He was known to record songs in the legacy of Australian poets Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson that represented the Australian Bush...

, Smoky Dawson

Smoky Dawson

Smoky Dawson, MBE , born Herbert Henry Dawson, was an Australian country music performer. He was widely touted as Australia's first singing cowboy.-Biography:...

, Reg Lindsay

Reg Lindsay

Reginald John Lindsay OAM was an Australian country music singer who won three Golden Guitar Awards and wrote more than five hundred songs in his fifty-year music career....

 and Chad Morgan

Chad Morgan

Chadwick William "Chad" Morgan is an Australian singer and guitarist known for his vaudeville style of comic country and western songs, his prominent teeth and goofy stage persona. In reference to his first recording he is known as The Sheik of Scrubby Creek.- Biography :Morgan was born in...

. Slim Dusty's 1957 Regal Zonophone hit "A Pub With No Beer" became the biggest-selling Australian recording ever released up to that time.

EMI revived the Regal Zonophone imprint in 1967 to handle the Essex Music/Straight Ahead producing account that had moved from Deram

Deram Records

Deram Records was a subsidiary record label established in 1966 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom. At this time U.K. Decca was a completely different company than the Decca label in the United States, which was then owned by MCA Inc. Deram recordings were also distributed in the U.S. through...

 (after one Procol Harum single and two singles by The Move) and continued well into the early 1970s, with successful producers Denny Cordell

Denny Cordell

Denny Cordell was an English record producer. He is notable for his late 1960s and early 1970s productions of hit singles for The Moody Blues, The Move, Procol Harum and Joe Cocker.-Career:...

 and Tony Visconti

Tony Visconti

Anthony Edward Visconti is an American record producer and sometimes a musician or singer.Since the late 1960s, he has worked with an array of performers; his lengthiest involvement with any artist is with David Bowie: intermittently from Bowie's 1969 album Space Oddity to 2003's Reality, Visconti...

 both having production companies releasing records through the label. During this period the label had both album and single success with artists such as The Move

The Move

The Move, from Birmingham, England, were one of the leading British rock bands of the 1960s. They scored nine Top 20 UK singles in five years, but were among the most popular British bands not to find any success in the United States....

, Joe Cocker

Joe Cocker

John Robert "Joe" Cocker, OBE is an English rock and blues musician, composer and actor, who came to popularity in the 1960s, and is most known for his gritty voice, his idiosyncratic arm movements while performing, and his cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of The Beatles...

, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Procol Harum

Procol Harum

Procol Harum are a British rock band, formed in 1967, which contributed to the development of progressive rock, and by extension, symphonic rock. Their best-known recording is their 1967 single "A Whiter Shade of Pale"...

. During the mid 1970s, many of these production deals ended and, despite a few sporadic releases by Blue Mink

Blue Mink

Blue Mink was a British five-piece pop group, that existed from 1969 to 1974. Over that period they had six Top 20 hit singles in the UK Singles Chart, and released five studio based albums...

, Geordie

Geordie (band)

Geordie were a British rock band from Newcastle upon Tyne, England, most notably active in the 1970s.-History:The original line-up included: Vic Malcolm , Tom Hill , Brian Gibson and Brian Johnson .Their...

 and Dave Edmunds

Dave Edmunds

David 'Dave' Edmunds is a Welsh singer, guitarist and record producer. Although he is primarily associated with Pub rock and New Wave, and had numerous hits in the 1970s and early 1980s, his natural leaning has always been towards 1950s style rock and roll.-Early bands:As a teenager Edmunds first...

, eventually EMI ceased to use the imprint as a major pop label. Many of the label's artists moved to Fly Records

Fly Records

Fly Records is a British independent record label, established in 1970 by the independent music publisher David Platz, and initially managed by Malcolm Jones from the offices of Essex Music in London.-History:...

 or to the EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

 imprint.

Regal Zonophone was revived at the end of the 1990s as a reissue label curated by the UK band Saint Etienne

Saint Etienne (band)

Saint Etienne are an English Pop group comprising Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs. They are named after the French football team AS Saint-Étienne.-History:Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs were childhood friends and former music journalists...

. This incarnation of the label is no longer active, as EMI has relaunched Regal

Regal Recordings

Regal Recordings is a British record label functioning as an imprint of Parlophone.-Background:Regal Records was a British record label founded in 1914 as a subsidiary of the UK branch of Columbia Records known as Columbia Graphophone Company...

 and Zonophone as separate imprints.

Trivia

• Regal Zonophone is one of the few record labels commemorated in song, namely "Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)" from the album Shine On Brightly
  Shine on Brightly
  Shine on Brightly, by the UK band Procol Harum, was released in 1968 and consolidated the success of their debut album; it was influential in the development of progressive rock by breaking all pop and rock music standards with the 17-minute epic "In Held Twas in I", which marked the beginning of...
  
  by Regal Zonophone artists Procol Harum, and mentioned in "Repetition" by The Fall.
• Regal Zonophone originally released Thrillington
  Thrillington
  Thrillington is a 1977 album by Paul McCartney, under the pseudonym of Percy "Thrills" Thrillington. The album is an instrumental cover version of Paul and Linda McCartney's 1971 album, Ram...
  
  in 1977.