Brunswick Records T-shirt

Records under the Brunswick label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, a company based in Dubuque, Iowa which had been manufacturing products ranging from pianos to sporting equipment since 1845. The company first began producing phonographs in 1916, then began marketing their own line of records as an after-thought.

Starting in the latter part of the 1950s and continuing well into the 1970s, the label recorded mainly R&B/soul acts, such as the label’s leading artist in the late 50s and early/mid 1960s, Jackie Wilson, and later on, the Chi-Lites. Jackie Wilson’s manager, Nat Tarnopol, joined the label in 1957 as head of A&R. Brunswick became a separate company and a unit of Decca in 1960 with Tarnopol serving as executive vice-president. He acquired a 50% interest in Brunswick from Decca in 1964 and then the rest of Brunswick from Decca in 1969 to settle disputes with Decca management.