Decca Records was formed by financier Sir Edward Lewis, the man who would famously run the company from its inception in 1929, right up until his death, in 1980.
Fast-forwarding some twenty-odd years, by the 1950s, Decca was established alongside EMI as one of the UK’s two major Majors. Indeed, from a perspective of ‘Popular Music’, Decca pretty much had the UK market sewn up, their roster including artists like Billy Cotton, Winifred Atwell, Dickie Valentine, Ted Heath, David Whitfield, Lisa Roza, Mantovani, The Stargazers, Joan Regan, Jimmy Young, Cyril Stapleton, ad infinitum, alongside licensed-in American repertoire on their London, Brunswick and Vogue-Coral labels. However, from your average British teenager’s perspective, the 50s didn’t really get going until 1955, when Bill Haley and his chums made their considerable presence felt. Up until that point, what passed for ‘Popular Music’ in the UK had remained rooted to a bygone era, still looking and sounding much as it had some fifteen or twenty years earlier. This double CD compilation covers those golden years. Click here or the sleeve to be taken to our shop