REGAL

Regal Records was a British record label founded in 1914 as a subsidiary of the UK branch of Columbia Records known as Columbia Graphophone Company.

The first record issues on the Regal Record label in February 1914 were re-issues of existing records from the Columbia Record Catalogue: G-6105 to G-6559, G-6440, G 6441 (English Catalogue), G 6560 to G 6639 (Scottish Catalogue). Catalogue numbers starting from G 6000 were used at later dates.

In November 1921, 12 inch records were introduced, commencing at catalogue number G-1000.

From around 1923 onwards many earlier recordings were re-recorded acoustically and released under the same catalogue number as the originals. For catalogue numbers below G-7963 (released July 1923) these may usually be identified by a matrix commencing with an 'A', rather than being completely numeric.

The Western Electric electrical process of recording was introduced in February 1926. Those records re-recorded using this process invariably have their catalogue number suffixed by 'R'.

From March 1930 all new releases were prefixed in the catalogue by 'MR', commencing at MR1.

In 1932 it was merged with the British Zonophone label and became Regal Zonophone, following the merger of those labels' respective parent companies - Columbia Graphophone Company and Gramophone Company - to form EMI. A listing of records produced by Regal in this era is available from the CLPGS.
Early UK Regal record, issued prior to the mid-1920s

In 1995, the Regal label was revived by EMI as the Parlophone imprint Regal Recordings. Regal Recordings' current roster includes Lily Allen, Loney Dear, Cathy Davey, and Jakobínarína. Regal, as well as Parlophone, became part of the Warner Music Group in 2013.