Zonophone (early on also rendered as Zon-O-Phone) was a

record label "Big Three" music labels A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of Sound recording and reproduction, music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a Music publisher, ...

founded in 1899 in

Camden, New Jersey Camden is a City (New Jersey), city in Camden County, New Jersey, Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan region. The city was incorporated on February 13, 1828.Snyder, John P''The Story of ...

, by Frank Seaman. The Zonophone name was not that of the company but was applied to records and machines sold by Seaman's Universal Talking Machine Company from 1899 to 1903. The name was subsequently acquired by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

, the

Victor Talking Machine Company The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer, incorporated in 1901. Victor was an independent enterprise until 1929 when it was purchased by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and became ...

, and finally the

Gramophone Company The Gramophone Company Limited was a British phonograph manufacturer and record label, founded in April 1898 by Emil Berliner. It was one of the earliest record labels. The company purchased the His Master's Voice painting and trademark righ ...

EMI Records EMI Records (formerly EMI Records Ltd.) is a British multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was originally founded as a British flagship label by the music company EMI in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the succes ...

. It has been used for a number of record publishing labels by these companies.

1899–1910s

Emile Berliner Emile Berliner (May 20, 1851 – August 3, 1929) originally Emil Berliner, was a German-American inventor. He is best known for inventing the lateral-cut flat disc gramophone record, record (called a "gramophone record" in British and American En ...

, the inventor of the lateral-groove disc record and the

Gramophone A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physic ...

, formed a partnership with machinist

Eldridge R. Johnson Eldridge Reeves Johnson (February 6, 1867 in Wilmington, Delaware – November 14, 1945 in Moorestown, New Jersey) was an American businessman and engineer who founded the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1901 and built it into the leading ...

, who had improved Berliner's Gramophone to the point of marketability, and with former typewriter promoter Frank Seaman. Berliner was to hold the patents; Johnson had manufacturing rights; and Seaman had selling rights.

1920s–1970s

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

(primarily today's

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

and

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

) Zonophone was used as a label to record and produce Sakara, Juju and

Apala Apala (or akpala) is a music genre originally developed by the Yoruba people of Nigeria, during the country's history as a colony of the British Empire. It is a percussion-based style that originated in the late 1930s. The rhythms of apala grew ...

music on 78 rpm discs from 1928 to the early 1950s.John Collins. ''Musicmakers of West Africa''.

Lynne Rienner Publishers Lynne Rienner Publishers is an independent scholarly and textbook publishing firm based in Boulder, Colorado. It was founded in 1984 and remains one of the few independent publishers in the United States. It publishes primarily in the fields of ...

(1985)

References

External links

* US Zonophone masters in th
Discography of American Historical Recordings

Regal Zonophone label profile

Ray Templeton * ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080816000848/http://www.normanfield.com/labels1b.htm Scans of British 78 rpm record labels includes a large number of Zonophone & Regal-Zonophone labels.
Zonophone – Old time radio mysteries & dramas, and 1900-1920’s music, Zonophone offers a time portal to the bygone era of classic radio, and even before there was radio. {{Authority control Record labels established in 1899
Record labels disestablished in 1903 Record labels established in 2007 Re-established companies British record labels EMI American record labels Parlophone subsidiaries 1899 establishments in New Jersey 1903 disestablishments in New Jersey

1899–1910s

1920s–1970s

See also

References

External links