Brunswick

Brunswick

Brunswick. Trade name of phonographs and records, the former introduced to Canada in 1917, the latter in 1920, by Brunswick-Balke-Collender of Canada, Ltd, a Toronto-based subsidiary of the US firm of the same name. The company originally manufactured bowling and billiard equipment; and after 1934, when it left the record business, it returned exclusively to billiards. Brunswick phonographs featured the Ultona tone-arm designed for vertical-cut discs, Edison diamond discs, and the now customary lateral-cut recordings. Brunswick's own records initially were of the vertical-cut type, but soon were replaced by the lateral-cut variety. In 1924, (US) Brunswick took over the Aeolian-Vocalion label of the (US) Aeolian Piano Co. After Victor and Columbia signed a production agreement for electrically-recorded discs with Western Electric in 1925, Brunswick - with the co-operation of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), General Electric, and Westinghouse - met the competition by being the first to introduce an all-electric phonograph (known as the Panatrope) and to release discs made by the complicated light-ray system (which later was abandoned). In 1926 Brunswick interchanged its masters with Polyphonwerke and Deutsche Grammophon. With the 1932 takeover of the Brunswick operation by the American Record Company an agreement was signed with the Compo Co to manufacture and sell the Brunswick and Melotone lines in Canada. Subsequently many of Brunswick's popular artists were lured away to the newly formed Decca company in New York, and Brunswick was reduced simply to a name which passed through the hands of several major US record companies and survived into the LP era.

Canadian musical organizations which recorded for Brunswick in the 1920s and 1930s include the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir under H.A. Fricker (recorded at the TCM with portable equipment brought in from Chicago), Jack Denny and his Mount Royal Hotel (Montreal) Orchestra, Lloyd Huntley and His Orchestra (in the USA), Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians (in the USA), and the Ukrainian National Chorus of Winnipeg. Among individuals who recorded for Brunswick were Louis Chartier, Herbert L. Clarke (his last recordings), Florence Easton, the harmonica player Henri Lacroix, Charles Marchand, the baritone Frank Oldfield, and Irene Pavloska.