American Record Corporation

American Record Corporation (ARC) (not to be confused with the unrelated Allied Record Company), was a United States-based record company. It resulted from the merger in July 1929 of the Cameo Record Corporation (home of the Cameo (3), Lincoln and Romeo labels), the Pathé Phonograph & Radio Corp. (the US branch of the Pathé and Perfect (3) labels), and the Plaza Music Company's labels (Banner, Domino (2), Jewel (3), Oriole (3), and Regal (3)). The merger also included the Scranton Button Company and the parent company of Emerson Records (2) which pressed most of the records for those labels. In the 1930s (at least 1929–1934), ARC inaugurated a special service by recording a series of 78 rpm records that were intended to be used exclusively for movie theaters as background music. Using the talents and musicians from all the labels they controlled these theater 78 rpm discs were alternate takes or recorded specifically for promotional purposes. In April 1938, ARC discontinued Melotone, Banner, Romeo, Oriole and Perfect. In December 1938, the entire ARC complex including Columbia Phonograph Company, Inc., the owner of the Columbia imprint in North America (which it had acquired in 1934), was purchased from "Consolidated Film" for a large sum by Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. In 1940 the assets of Columbia Phonograph Company, Inc were transferred to ARC, which was then renamed Columbia Recording Corporation, thus reviving the Columbia imprint as its flagship label with Okeh as a subsidiary label. This allowed the rights to the Brunswick and Vocalion (2) labels (and the pre-December 1931 Brunswick/Vocalion masters) to revert to Warner Bros., who sold the labels to Decca Records, Inc. The ARC legacy is otherwise now part of Sony Music Entertainment.