MGM Records

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  MGM Records was born in 1946 from a film studio's desire to sell its own music, and it ended up coining phrases the entire industry still uses today. The label grew out of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, one of Hollywood's most powerful studios, but it quickly grew into something far larger than a souvenir shop for movie fans. How did a label that began by cutting music from film playback discs become home to Hank Williams, the Animals, Frank Zappa, the Velvet Underground, and the Osmonds? And what happened when the studio that started it all finally let it go?

• 2. The First Soundtrack

  ›

  Till the Clouds Roll By, a 1946 film about composer Jerome Kern, was the first project MGM Records tackled. It became the first soundtrack album of a live-action film, originally pressed as a set of four 10-inch 78-rpm records. Only eight selections from the film made the cut, and fitting them onto record sides required editing and outright manipulation of the music.

  Magnetic tape did not yet exist for recording purposes. The producers worked by copying segments off the playback discs used on set, then copying and re-copying those segments from one disc to another, adding transitions and cross-fades until a final master emerged. Each copy generation cost the recording some fidelity. The playback recordings had also been deliberately captured without reverberation, since hall-like reverb would sound hollow in a large movie theater. On a home record player, that dry sound came across as flat and boxy.

  MGM called these releases "original cast albums" in the style of Decca's Broadway cast recordings, and the company invented the phrase "recorded directly from the soundtrack." Over the following decades, the word "soundtrack" drifted away from its original meaning. It came to be applied to any recording connected to a film, whether taken from the actual film track or re-recorded in a studio session, and it was even applied, incorrectly, to Broadway cast recordings.

• 3. Hits and Milestones

  ›

  Aba Daba Honeymoon, performed by Debbie Reynolds and Carleton Carpenter in the film Two Weeks With Love, became the first soundtrack single to reach national hit status, selling a million copies and charting at number three. Among the label's most celebrated soundtrack albums were those of Easter Parade, Annie Get Your Gun, Singin' in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Gigi.

  When CBS broadcast The Wizard of Oz on television in 1956, MGM Records released a soundtrack album containing songs and dialog excerpts recorded directly from the film. The label had already applied the same approach in 1951 with an LP of music and dialog from Quo Vadis. By 1950, magnetic tape had been perfected for recording use, and that shift markedly improved the sound quality on LP albums from 1951 onward.

  The label also scored an unlikely achievement in 1966: MGM Records released the highly successful soundtrack of Born Free, a film made not by MGM but by Columbia Pictures. It stood as a rare instance of one major studio's record label profiting from a rival studio's film.

• 4. Country, Pop, and Rock

  ›

  Frank Walker, MGM Records' first president, discovered and signed Hank Williams, who became the cornerstone of the label's country music operations. Williams' presence helped attract a roster that eventually included Hank Williams Jr., Conway Twitty, Sheb Wooley, Roy Acuff, Sandy Posey, Mel Tillis, Marie Osmond, and C.W. McCall.

  On the pop side, Joni James scored a notable first in September 1958, when her single "There Goes My Heart" was promoted as the first 45 rpm record released in stereophonic sound from one of the major record companies. James edged out RCA Victor's release of Perry Como's "Love Makes the World Go 'Round" by mere days. The first overall stereo 45 rpm records, however, had actually come from the smaller Bel Canto Records in June 1958.

  In the early 1950s, MGM was counted among the major record companies partly because it owned its own manufacturing facilities, alongside Columbia, RCA Victor, Decca, Capitol, and Mercury. MGM's pressing plant in Bloomfield, New Jersey, operated from 1947 until 1972, pressing not only MGM releases but also sub-contract work for other labels including Atlantic Records. The label moved into rock and roll with hit records by Connie Francis, Herman's Hermits, the Animals, the Cowsills, and Lou Christie. The Osmonds also recorded for MGM.

• 5. Subsidiaries and Distributed Labels

  ›

  Verve Records, primarily a jazz label, was acquired from Norman Granz in December 1960. Under the MGM umbrella, Verve became home to artists including the Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa, the Velvet Underground, the Righteous Brothers, Stan Getz, and Shelley Berman. Verve's own subsidiary imprints, including Verve Forecast and Verve Folkways, extended the label's reach into folk and rock.

  Subsidiary Cub Records was launched in the late 1950s and signed singer Jimmy Jones, whose hits were released on MGM in the United Kingdom. Kama Sutra Records was distributed by MGM from 1965 until 1969, when Kama Sutra's sister label Buddah Records took over distribution. Kama Sutra was home to the Lovin' Spoonful and John Sebastian, among others.

  MGM also briefly distributed Cameo-Parkway Records in 1967. Four albums and two singles came out under the arrangement before Allen Klein purchased the Cameo-Parkway catalog and renamed the label ABKCO. Other MGM subsidiaries included Lion, Heritage, Metro for budget albums, Leo for children's records, and MGM South. American International Records, the record division of American International Pictures, was also distributed by MGM.

• 6. Classical and Deutsche Grammophon

  ›

  MGM Records offered a modest classical catalog beginning in 1951. One early release, catalog number E3711, featured pianist Beveridge Webster playing two sonatas by Franz Schubert and was billed as the first in a planned complete cycle.

  In 1962, MGM Records secured the American distribution rights to Deutsche Grammophon Records, the prestigious German classical label. That arrangement held until 1969, when Polydor Records opened its own American office and took over the Deutsche Grammophon account. The seven-year relationship gave MGM a foothold in the classical market well beyond its own modest catalog.

• 7. Sale, Dissolution, and Catalog Fate

  ›

  PolyGram purchased MGM Records in 1972. The deal gave PolyGram perpetual rights to the "MGM Records" name and a ten-year license to use the MGM trademark and logo. In 1976, MGM Records and its artists were absorbed into PolyGram's Polydor Records. PolyGram continued releasing MGM soundtrack albums and reissues under the MGM Records name until 1982, after which MGM reclaimed the trademark in 1997.

  Frank Zappa spent two years in negotiations to regain control of his MGM and Verve recordings, including those made with the Mothers of Invention, finally succeeding in mid-1977. He later licensed the recordings to Rykodisc starting in 1987. In 2012, Gail Zappa licensed her late husband's catalogue to Universal Music Enterprises.

  Rhino Records, which obtained rights to the MGM soundtracks from Turner Entertainment Co. in the 1990s, issued expanded editions of the musical film albums containing virtually all of the songs and music. Rhino also released expanded editions of the Ben-Hur and King of Kings scores, which had originally been studio recreations rather than genuine film soundtracks. Rhino's license expired at the end of 2011, and those albums were deleted.

  Today the MGM Records catalog is divided among multiple owners. Universal Music Group oversees the pop music catalog through Universal Music Enterprises, the musical theater catalog through Decca Broadway, and the country music catalog through Universal Music Group Nashville bearing the Mercury Records Nashville imprint. Warner Bros. Entertainment, through its WaterTower Music unit, owns MGM's film soundtracks. MGM Music, formed in 1986, manages the music rights of MGM, United Artists, and Orion films produced from 1986 onward, while Turner Entertainment's pre-1986 MGM soundtracks remain with Warner Bros. Discovery.