GRT Corporation

GRT Corporation (General Recorded Tape Corp.) was a California company incorporated July 2, 1965 in Sunnyvale, a suburb of San Jose. Founder/President Alan Bayley envisioned a company dedicated to producing pre-recorded music tapes for independent record labels without their own duplicating facilities. Initially producing 1/4" reel-to-reel tapes and Muntz 4-Track stereo cartridges, they swiftly moved into Lear 8-Track cartridges and pre-recorded cassettes. Within a year of founding GRT was already handling tape duplication for 20 US record labels; 40 labels by mid-1967, and nearly 70 by the end of 1968, causing the company to double its manufacturing facility. A Canadian division, GRT of Canada, Ltd., opened in 1969 with manufacturing in Alliston, Ontario. By this point GRT had become so successful its board of directors began diversifying operations. GRT's first venture into the record-making arena came in 1968, when it entered into a joint venture with Bob Krasnow to finance Blue Thumb Records; in July 1969 the company launched into record manufacturing in a big way, with the formation of GRT Records as an umbrella company for three record labels: - Chess Records with all of its divisions, including Chicago's Midwest Record Pressing, Inc. and Nashville's Midsouth Record Pressing, was purchased in January for 6.5 million dollars. - Janus Records was launched in July, a joint venture with England's Pye Records Ltd. which gave Janus access to Pye's catalog and Pye distribution in the US. - The GRT Records label was launched in Canada to distribute foreign labels and record Canadian pop artists. The company further expanded with the purchase of Tape Handling Products of New Jersey and Magnetic Media Corporation of New York. Setup of the record divisions and a generally soft US pre-recorded tape market led to cost-cutting measures in 1970, with GRT pulling its equity from Blue Thumb Records and shuttering Midwest Record Pressing; the former Midsouth Record Pressing plant in Nashville was renamed GRT Record Pressing and continued operation until the company's demise. In 1972, Pye pulled out of the Janus Records venture, forcing GRT to purchase Pye's shares of Janus outright. In 1974, the GRT Records label launched in the US as a budget and reissue label, and Bayley reported that the combined Chess/Janus operation had been operating at a loss; a merger with ABC Records was rumored. To stave off losses, GRT sold all remaining Chess assets to All Platinum Records in 1975. An unexpected bright spot appeared in 1976 with the worldwide success of Al Stewart's Year Of The Cat Lp and single, which gave the Janus label its best sales in years. Another budget line, Sunnyvale Records, was launched in July 1976 as a vehicle for direct sales and television marketing. Stewart, seeing his chance, jumped ship for Arista after his contract with Janus expired, leaving the label with no significant artists, although it bought the masters of defunct Ranwood Records, Inc. from the Welk Music Group in 1978. The declining late '70s record market plus an alleged returns scam perpetrated by distributor Pickwick International Inc. took its toll, and with a debt of $21 million GRT filed for bankruptcy in August 1979. The former GRT headquarters in Sunnyvale, California lives on as a FedEx distribution hub; the Nashville pressing plant is now the home of record presser Welcome To 1979.