A patent was granted Tainter and Chichester Bell on May 4, 1886, specifically for a disc, but the two chose a cylinder for their work. In place of the tin-foil that Thomas Alva Edison had used in the development of his tinfoil phonograph a decade earlier, they substituted cardboard coated with wax, on which a recording stylus traced sound patterns according to vibrations caused by impulses of sound projected on it. By 1889, their new machine, the Graphophone, was ready for its first major exhibition in Washington, DC.

Columbia Leads the Way

The purchase of controlling interests for both Edison's and Tainter and Bell's patents led to the founding of the North American Phonograph Company, whose primary purpose was to manufacture office dictating machines. Rights were leased regionally to subsidiaries across the country; one of these was the Columbia Phonograph Company in the Baltimore/Washington market. When the subsidiaries began expanding into entertainment media, Columbia led the way, achieving particular success by recording military John Phillip Sousa marches, popular songs, instrumental solos, speeches, and novelties.

By 1891, Columbia was the first company to offer a catalogue's worth of its phonographs and cylinders. By the end of the century, it had a catalogue of more than 5,000 recordings. By 1901, however, Emile Berliner's Gram-O-Phone, which used flat discs with a lateral-cut track, had established itself as the superior (and more durable) playback medium. That same year, Columbia offered its first discs, 7-inchers for 50 cents, and 10-inchers for $1.00.

Into the 20th Century

Developments of both a technical and musical nature became Columbia trademarks down the years. In the spring of 1903, the company began recording stars of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. 1904 brought the first discs to play at 78 rpm, and the pioneering double-sided records whose inner core of rice paper and mica compound was surrounded by a durable layer of shellac. Guglielmo Marconi was hired to produce the indestructible Velvet Tone record, which he delivered to Columbia in 1907 (anticipating the Silent Surface records of the 1920s by more than a decade).

Irving Berlin's "Alexander's Ragtime Band" sparked the ragtime dance craze of 1911; in 1912, cylinder production ceased at Columbia, which became known as the Columbia Graphophone Company a year later. In 1916, the company initiated in America the practice of recording symphony orchestras, notably the Chicago and New York orchestras. 1917 brought the Original Dixieland Jass Band from New Orleans to Columbia Studios in New York for the recording of "Darktown Strutters Ball." By 1919, Americans were buying more than 25 million 78 rpm records every year, and the industry reported annual sales of $150 million.In 1926, Columbia took over OKeh (the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation), which had been issuing laterally-cut records since 1920, and whose catalog included Mamie Smith, Clarence Williams, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Lonnie Johnson, Bix Beiderbecke, Frankie Trumbauer, Eddie Lang, and Bennie Moten.

The CBS Era Begins

In 1934, Columbia and OKeh were bought by ARC-B.C. (American Record Company/ Brunswick Record Company). In 1938, ARC-BRC was purchased by William Paley's 'Tiffany Network,' the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).

This was the same year that legendary producer John Hammond presented the first of two annual "Spirituals To Swing" concerts at Carnegie Hall. Through the work of Hammond and George Avakian, Columbia began to sign the top jazz acts of the era, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Harry James, and Billie Holiday among them. The Columbia Recording Corporation's roster grew to include Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire, Harry James, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Budapest String Quartet and many more of the world's top artists. In 1946 the first wholly owned CBS Records International affiliate was established in Mexico, followed over the next eight years by affiliates in Argentina, Brazil and Canada.

In 1948, Columbia introduced the 33-1/3 rpm LP (or long-playing record), invented by Peter Goldmark, which revolutionized the industry and soon became the accepted standard for sound reproduction. By 1955, 78 rpm disc production had ceased.

CBS launched a new label in 1953, Epic Records, whose bright yellow and black "Radial Sound" logo became a familiar trademark on its early slate of jazz and classical releases. The latter included such notables as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Juilliard String Quartet, Antal Dorati conducting the Hague Philharmonic, and George Szell conducting the Cleveland Philharmonic.
Enter Epic Records

CBS launched a new label in 1953, Epic Records, whose bright-yellow and black "Radial Sound" logo became a familiar trademark on its early slate of jazz and classical releases. The latter included such notables as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Juilliard String Quartet, Antal Dorati conducting the Hague Philharmonic, and George Szell conducting the Cleveland Philharmonic.

In less than ten years, Epic would earn its first gold records and develop into a formidable hit-making force in Rock, Pop, R&B, and Country music through the music of Bobby Vinton, the Dave Clark Five, Sly and the Family Stone, and Donovan. The label continued to prosper in the '70s with the Hollies, Edgar Winter, Charlie Rich, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Minnie Riperton, Labelle, Jeff Beck, Ted Nugent, Boston, Dan Fogelberg, REO Speedwagon, Meatloaf, and the Jacksons paving the way for Epic's multiplatinum '80s and '90s successes.

The Next Generation

The decades of the 1960s and '70s witnessed exponential growth for CBS Records. The company began its own direct mail order club, Columbia House Company, the largest direct marketer of pre-recorded music and videos in the world. In 1965 CBS Records International was established as a division. In 1968, CBS formed a joint venture with Sony Corporation -- CBS/Sony -- for the purpose of marketing CBS product alongside domestic Japanese product in Japan, Macao and Hong Kong.

By 1978, worldwide sales for CBS Records had reached $1.2 billion, the first American record company to cross the billion-dollar threshold. In 1980 CBS entered the home video field with the establishment of CBS Video Enterprises. Continuing its legacy of technological innovation, CBS helped introduce Sony/Philip's Compact Disc in 1982 with the release of Billy Joel's album 52nd Street, and the format eventually superseded the 33- 1/3 rpm LP. Simultaneously, CBS Records established music video as a new and vital form of promotion for its artists and releases.

SME and the Modern Age

In January 1988, Sony Corporation acquired CBS Records Group, known today as Sony Music Entertainment Inc., for $2 billion dollars. CBS/Sony, the earlier Japanese joint venture, is today the separate company Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. In April of that year Thomas D. Mottola became President of Sony Music, the domestic U.S. company, beginning a new era at the company that would come to an end in January 2003 when Mottola departed SMEI as its Chairman and CEO.

In January 1989 CBS Records acquired Tree Music Publishing, the world's biggest country music publisher, after its own music publishing division, CBS Songs (est. 1982) was sold by Larry Tisch to a consortium of Stephen Swed, Martin Bandier and Charles Koppleman (SBK), who then sold the company to EMI Music Publishing.

The 1990s were a period of accelerated growth for Sony Music. The company opened new subsidiaries in Taiwan, Turkey, Portugal, South Africa, Hungary, the Philippines, and Poland. SMEI became a force in the family entertainment business through an exclusive, long-term agreement with Children's Television Workshop to develop, produce, manufacture, and distribute Sesame Street film, home video and audio titles through Sony Wonder, Sony Music's children's and family entertainment division.

In order to accommodate its increasing worldwide growth and success, in 1994 Sony Music Entertainment reorganized into four label groups, each Group consisting of a chief label and its affiliated imprints and joint ventures: Epic Records Group, Columbia Records Group, TriStar Music Group, and Sony Classical. Three years later TriStar Music Group became Relativity Entertainment, which later merged with LOUD to become LOUD Recordings. LOUD later became subsumed into Columbia Records Group.

Sony Music's publishing catalogue was also growing quickly. In 1995 Sony Music Publishing merged with Michael Jackson's American Television (ATV) song catalogue to form Sony/ATV Music Publishing, a joint venture which owns and/or administers the catalogues of the Beatles, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson, and Ruben Blades, among dozens of others. In 2002 Sony/ATV acquired the Acuff-Rose catalogue, the first and most prestigious Country music catalogue in the world, containing songs by Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, and The Everly Brothers.

Extending its geographic reach, Sony Music International moved its Asian regional headquarters from Singapore to Hong Kong concurrent with its acquisition of Sony Music Hong Kong, which became a wholly owned subsidiary. In 1998 SMEI became the first major music company to establish a cooperative arrangement in China to develop Chinese-language repertoire for local and international markets, and subsidiaries in Indonesia and India began operations.

SMEI firmly established operations in mainland China when it became an equity partner in a cooperative joint venture music company in China, Shanghai Epic Music Entertainment Company, Ltd. (SEME), with two leading local partners. SMEI also launched a wholly owned subsidiary in Russia, expanded its activities in Asia, and acquired the independent record labels Luna Music (Mexico) and RTI (Italy).

SMEI also established the first major music company website in 1994, and launched the New Technologies and Business Development department that same year. That department explores new businesses for SMEI, and develops new products such as ringtones, Enhanced CDs, ConnecteD, and other Internet-related distribution platforms.

In 1999, 100 years after the introduction of the Gram-O-Phone, the originators of the compact disc, Sony and Philips, unveiled their jointly developed next generation sound carrier - the Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) - nearly 20 years after they introduced and established the Compact Disc as the standard and preferred format for packaged music. By 2003 three of the other four major music companies began releasing their own SACD discs in addition to those of more than two dozen independent labels.

Continuing its tradition of promoting technical innovation, SMEI entered the new century by establishing a joint venture with Universal Music Group to launch an on-demand, Internet-based commercial music subscription service, pressplay, that offers licensed content from all the major music companies as well as several independent labels. Its music is also available online through services provided by MusicNet, Rhapsody, and Rioport.