Gift Idea: Book on the History of Columbia Records
Columbia is amongst the oldest recorded music companies on the planet. Actually, if there’s another label that’s managed to survive for 125 years, I can’t think of it.
A new book by Princeton historian Sean Wilentz called The 360 Sound: The Columbia Records Story is now out. And instead of telling simply the story of a record label, Wilentz looks at Columbia in the context of cultural and social history.
And there’s a lot of that. The label has been home to Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, Al Jolson, Johnny Cash, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Benny Goodman and a host of others. And let’s not forget that it was Columbia’s researchers that developed the 33 1/3 RPM long-playing album in 1948.
Looks like some good reading for the holidays.
