Crown Records (1930s label)

Crown Records
Crown 78 from the 1930s
Founded	1930 (1930)
Founder	Plaza Music Company
Defunct	1933 (1933)
Status	Inactive
Genre	Jazz, blues, country
Country of origin	U.S.
Location	New York City

Crown Records was a record company and dime-store label that existed from 1930 to 1933 in New York City. Its catalogue included music by Eubie Blake and Fletcher Henderson. Known as the label offering "Two Hits for Two Bits" proudly printed on their sleeves, Crown's discs sold for 25 cents.

Crown was started by the Plaza Music Company after it was excluded from the merger which resulted in the American Record Corporation. The office was located at 10 West 20th Street, New York, and had recording studios in the McGraw-Hill building on 42nd Street. Adrian Schubert was the initial recording director.

Crown mostly used publishers' basic 'stock arrangements'. Releases didn't contain many hot solos and often were performed at a slower tempo than competitive dime-store recordings. Most of the releases were by session bands led by Adrian Schubert, Milt Shaw, Jack Albin, Lou Gold, Buddy Blue (Smith Ballew), The High Steppers, and Frank Novak. There were exceptions: Ben Pollack's band recorded for Crown using the name "Gil Rodin", while Gene Kardos's band used the name "Joel Shaw". A few black bands like Eubie Blake's and Fletcher Henderson's also recorded for Crown. Country music was recorded by Carson Robison, Frankie Marvin, and Frank and James McGravy, and later on during their existence employed working orchestras playing around the New York area, such as Gus Steck's Chanticleer Orchestra. Crown also issued a handful of "longer playing" 78s, featuring nearly 5 minutes of music at the same 25-cent price.

Although Crown recorded at its own studios, pressings were done by Victor Records, which made them the first client label pressed by RCA, although the first 100 or so Crown records do not resemble the standard Victor's pressing appearance. Victor was experimenting with its own budget series of labels beginning with the short-lived 1931 Timely Tunes label sold at Montgomery Ward. Then Victor started the Bluebird and Electradisk labels, originally as an 8-inch record. An early group of 10-inch Electradisk records (their 2500 series) look more like Crown masters than Victor masters, leading collectors to speculate that these early Electradisks might've been recorded at Crown's studios, based on appearance of the record and the typeface of the matrix numbers. This odd Electradisk series were made at two sessions in June 1932.