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His Master's Voice started long before the current abbreviation to HMV. The name was inspired by the famous painting of Nipper, painted originally in 1898 by Francis Barraud.
Unable to sell the painting, he visited the Gramaphone Company to borrow a brass horn rather than the black horn he had painted. The company offered to buy the painting if the phonograph pictured was replaced with one of their machines. The alteration was made but it was 1907 before the words "His Master's Voice" were to feature as a trademark. |
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There can be few corporate images better recognised than this. Barraud painted a further 24 copies of his work until his death in 1924 and then other artists carried on painting copies of the picture.
Early covers had images of the company's gramaphones or adverts for current records. Some had both, a featured artist on one side and a record player on the other. Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald are featured on the cover above left. They starred together in a number of films of musical operettas and were very popular on both sides of the Atlantic. |
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Early covers had images of the company's gramaphones or adverts for current records. Some had both, a featured artist on one side and a record player on the other.
Far too many artists to list of course, but British Dance Band fans can look for records by Jack Hylton and His Orchestra who recorded from the 1920s right through to the 1940s. He recorded some absolute gems with a fair number of comedy songs included. His wife also had her own orchestra known as "Mrs Jack Hylton's Band"! |
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By the 1950s the label had stayed the same but new covers were released. Dance Band music had moved on to Big Bands and Swing and His Master's Voice gave us big American names like Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey etc.
If anyone knows dates for these different covers or whether they were used for different styles of music, please get in touch! |
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When "popular" music started to become identified as a music category His Master's Voice brought out a special blue pop label.
Alma Cogan, the girl with the giggle in her voice, recorded on this label and the label also released American titles from Elvis Presley, Danny and the Juniors and others. |
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The label also released records specifically for children, including a 4-record series of 8 linked short stories about Noddy, read by the author, Enid Blyton.
The 78rpm cover and label is shown, although the series was also issued on two 45rpm Extended Play (EP) records. My Mum threw those away when I was 12 so I've had to buy them again - so far I've only got this one...! 30 years after these records Noddy was banned from libraries for being racist as one of the gollies was naughty - if the Wobbly Man had been the naughty character presumably Weight Watchers would have complained... |
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And so into the 45s era. A rather restrained cover sleeves Bernard Bresslaw's hit (yes the one from the "Carry On" films) "Mad Passionate Love".
The numbering of the early pop records on 45s followed the 78s numbering but had a "45-" prefix, this being 45-POP 522.
The small print on the cover introduces the shortened acronym of "H.M.V." |
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By the 1960s the sleeves and labels had taken on the EMI family style.
This copy of the Thunderbirds theme tune by Joe Loss has been "dinked" - the removeable middle pressed out for playing in a jukebox. Plastic inserts were sold to convert them back to the small hole for UK record players but invariably made the record revolve off-centre which made them sound horrible!
Frankie Avalon, the Swinging Blue Jeans and Manfred Mann were some of the 1960s HMV artistes but the label was destined to sit in the shadows of its stablemates, Columbia and Parlophone. |
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