Fantasy Records - History

History

In 1949, Jack Sheedy, the owner of a San Francisco–based record label called Coronet, was talked into making the first recording of an octet and a trio featuring Dave Brubeck. (This Coronet Records should not be confused with either the Australia–base Coronet Records or the late 1950s New York–based budget label Coronet Records.) Sheedy's Coronet Records had previously recorded area Dixieland bands. But Sheedy was unable to pay his bills and in 1949 turned his masters over to his record stamping company, the Circle Record Company, owned by Max and Sol Weiss. The Weiss brothers soon changed the name of their business to Fantasy Records and met an increasing demand for Brubeck recording by recording and issuing new records. Soon the company was shipping 40,000 to 50,000 copies of Brubeck recordings a quarter, making enormous profits for the company.

When Brubeck signed with Fantasy Records, he thought he had a half interest in the company and he worked as a sort of A & R man for it, encouraging the Weiss brothers to sign other contemporary jazz performers, including Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, and Red Norvo. When he discovered that all he owned was a half interest in his own recording, he was more that willing to sign with another label, Columbia Records.

Fantasy's first subsidiary label, formed in 1951, was Galaxy Records. The labels were named in honor of fantasy and science fiction magazines. In the mid-1950s, Saul Zaentz joined the company and eventually instigated the company's major expansion. In 1965, another subsidiary label was formed which was short lived, Scorpio Records, in an attempt to capitalize on the British invasion sound. In 1967, Zaentz led a consortium that bought out the Weiss brothers. The following year, Fantasy's most successful act emerged when the local group Creedence Clearwater Revival, which he managed, released its first hit record, "Susie Q," in 1968. The group had been signed in 1964 as the Blue Velvets, but the label renamed it the Golliwogs so they would fit in with the then-new incoming crop of British Invasion bands, and after a series of failed releases under that name on the Fantasy and Scorpio labels, the group changed its name to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Creedence Clearwater Revival was the most popular band that the label recorded.

Zaentz, advised by the journalist Ralph J. Gleason and benefitting from profits from the sales of Creedence Clearwater Revival records, pursued a policy of acquisition concentrating on independent jazz labels. Zaentz had picked up Debut Records as a wedding present from bassist Charles Mingus to which were added Good Time Records, Prestige Records (in 1971), Riverside Records and Milestone Records (both 1972), Stax Records (1977), Contemporary Records (1984), Specialty Records (1991), Pablo Records (1987), Takoma Records and Kicking Mule Records (both 1995). During the 1980s, the label also had a hip hop subsidiary named Reality Records, which released the first two albums by Doug E. Fresh, among others.

Fantasy also built its landmark headquarters building at the corner of Tenth and Parker in Berkeley, California, in 1971, which was nicknamed the House that Creedence Built. Expanded in 1980 to house Zaentz's film operations, the Zaentz Media Center was sold in 2007 to Wareham Development.