Short answers, pulled from the story.
Capitol Records was founded in 1942 by songwriter Johnny Mercer, songwriter and film producer Buddy DeSylva, and businessman Glenn Wallichs, owner of Wallichs Music City. The three men incorporated on the 27th of March, 1942, originally under the name Liberty Records before amending the name to Capitol Records in May of that year.
Capitol Records' first gold single was "Cow-Cow Boogie" by Ella Mae Morse, recorded in 1942 with Freddie Slack and his orchestra. The session on the 21st of May, 1942 also produced "Air-Minded Executive," both supervised by co-founder Johnny Mercer.
British company EMI, formally known as Electric and Musical Industries Limited, acquired Capitol Records in 1955 by purchasing 96 percent of Capitol's stock for $8.5 million. The deal ended a fifty-five-year mutual distribution agreement between EMI and RCA Victor in the Western Hemisphere.
The Capitol Records Tower is a thirteen-story circular office building in Hollywood, California, designed by architect Welton Becket with Louis Naidorf as project designer. It was the world's first circular office building and was completed in April 1956 after being commissioned by EMI following its acquisition of Capitol.
The Capitol Records Tower was nicknamed "The House That Nat Built" in recognition of Nat King Cole, whose commercial success at Capitol Records helped generate the funds that made the building possible.
Capitol Records is owned by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. Universal acquired the recorded music operations of EMI in 2012, which brought Capitol into the UMG family. In 2024, Capitol Records became part of UMG's Interscope Capitol Labels Group.