I remember BRIT Records, Chris Blackwell's first attempt (with Chris Peers - where is he now?) long before Island.
Immediate was early - with Andrew Loog Oldham and Tony Calder.
My UK Records didn't start until the 70's but was way ahead of Virgin, Sire and others.

I've got 78s at home. Don't they count? Labels were hardly invented in the 60s, nor guerilla marketing or lo-fi produciton. Read ted Fox's "In the Groove".

Surely they all had to be indies before becoming majors?

The old cylinder thingies (was it a phonograph?) had commercial releases on them. I seem to remember there were two models, one by Edison, one by Columbia I think. Some guy was trying to sell the machines but had more success selling the cylinders so built up a catalogue, therefore I guess his company was the first label. Not sure of his name (Edward springs to mind for some reason) or his company.

I think Top Rank (late 50's?) pre-dates BRIT, JK.

There was also NIXA (which later acquired Top Rank before they were both sold into Pye).

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I don't know about the 50s (Embassy owned by Woolworths), but in the 60s there were a lot of producer owned independent labels like
RAK Mickie Most (distributed by EMI)
Blue Horizon Mike Vernone (distributed by CBS Records).
and later
UK Records JK (distributed by Decca).

Before there were independent labels, there had to be independent studios. Right?

And what about distribution? Was there independent distribution before Rough Trade?

What point of view should we be looking at it from JK?

it's the music that counts and the way of conveying it to the most people can be in a variety of ways.
One of the reasons I feel this is the most exciting time in my life for the communications industry.

There you go then! The first indie label was of course Edison.
We cant back any further than that.
Is his version of "Mary had A little Lamb", available in the i-tunes shop or is that Mcartneys?
UK and Island must have been the first big British labels indie though.
Which raises another question especially for JK..Did you name them "Terry Dactyl and The Dinosaurs", or did they arrive with a demo tape with that monicker on it?

We just took it over and turned it into a hit.
We did that a lot...
LOBO with Baby I'd Love You To Want Me; Shotgun Wedding by Roy C...

When did the term Major start to be used and for which labels at the time?

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