Tell Record

Swiss label founded 1919 by Max Blattner in Basel, Switzerland. Label Code: LC 1266 / LC 01266 First run as a music store, grammophone records and players besides instruments soon became part of the business of 'Blattner & Co.'. From 1934 to 1945 they represented the Kristall label in Switzerland and in 1939 they tried to establish the 'Tell' brand, what first failed due to the beginning of World War II and the dominance of Elite Record in the Swiss market. But with help of connections to French company Le Chant Du Monde in 1949 'Tell Record' was launched. The growing popularity of electronic grammophones in the 50s leaded to vinyl records and the first CD was released in 1984. (Source: Erzinger, Frank / Woessner, Hanspeter (1990): "Geschichte der Schweizerischen Schallplattenaufnahmen Teil 2". Zürich: Buchdruckerei a/d Sihl AG.) Released thousands of shellack, vinyl, cassette and cd titles containing mostly swiss folklore music and became famous for that. Purchased by Vic Eugster in 1991 and since 2007, it is a part of Warner Music Switzerland. Subdivisions were: "Tell Record International" First operated in the US, releasing international and contemporary folk, country, punk, psychedelic, jazz... (Dean Carter Sound, Velvet Illusions, Merritt) parallelled in Switzerland (beat, funk, schlager, jazz, kraut). "Serie Mercury" (Jazz) All Sublabels use same, continuous numbering. Pre- 1980s catalogue numbers are: T-### TELL-### 27### 45-### BMI US pressings 7" ### SUI mercury 7" and 10" T.### T ### early 7" TEP ### later 7" TLP ... album vinyl 12" LP TLA ... compilations vinyl 12" LP TCD ... album compact disk TK ... album cassette and 8-track TES ... double 7" fold out pack TMS ... maxi 12" TF Swiss carneval records 7inch. M children's fairytales (spoken word) 7inch. This summary lacks information about the US-pressings.