Building    From 1898 

Europe’s first recording studio / Gramophone Company

Categories: Music / songs

In 1898 The Gramophone Company moved into the building with the plaque and started to record popular songs often performed by music hall stars in the West End. The studio, which used primitive technology including a long trumpet-shaped horn which artists sang into, accompanied by a piano, only lasted four years.

1900-7 the company was known as the Gramophone and Typewriter Company Limited.

The painting His Master's Voice was acquired from the artist in 1899 by the Gramophone Company and adopted as a trademark by its US affiliate, the Victor Talking Machine Company.  The Gramophone Company did not use the dog's image on its record labels until 1909. The company's label was not at first formally called HMV or His Master's Voice, but rapidly became identified by that phrase due to its prominence on the record labels.

The Gramophone Company opened the first HMV shop in 1921.

In 1931 the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI and opened Abbey Road studios.

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Europe’s first recording studio / Gramophone Company

Commemorated ati

Europe's first disc recording studio

Queen's drummer Roger Taylor unveiled the plaque.

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Other Subjects

Mark Knopfler

Mark Knopfler

Lead guitarist in Dire Straits. Born Glasgow. Apart from the fact that they were both members of the Garrick Club, not necessarily at the same time, we can find no connection between Knopfler and...

Person, Music / songs, Scotland

1 memorial
Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Hungarian composer and pianist. First visited London in 1826. During 1840 - 41 he toured extensively in Europe including England and visited London a number of times.

Person, Music / songs, Seriously Famous, Hungary

1 memorial
Argyll Rooms Concert Hall

Argyll Rooms Concert Hall

The 'Argyll Rooms' venue opened in 1806.  A new building was designed, as part of the Regent Street redevelopment, by John Nash himself, to provide a concert hall, other public rooms and shop space...

Building, Music / songs

1 memorial
Bud Flanagan

Bud Flanagan

Born Reuben Weinthrop above his family fried fish shop in Hanbury Street, where the plaque now is. The first half of the Flanagan & Allen double act, with Chesney Allen. These two were also bot...

Person, Humour, Music / songs, Theatre

1 memorial
A. S. Smith

A. S. Smith

Student of Trinity College of Music, killed in WW1.

Person, Armed Forces, Music / songs

War dead, WW1
1 memorial