Grey Gull Records

Grey Gull Records
1921 disc featuring the orchestra of Joseph Samuels
Founded	1919 (1919)
Founder	Theodore Lyman Shaw
Defunct	1934 (1934)
Status	Inactive
Country of origin	U.S.
Location	Boston, Massachusetts

Grey Gull Records was a record company and label founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1919. The company was started by Theodore Lyman Shaw, a member of a wealthy and prominent family from Wellesley, Massachusetts whose ancestors included Civil War hero Robert Gould Shaw.

Theodore Lyman Shaw was involved in a number of business projects, including the Marcus Lucius Quinn School of Music in Dorchester. He also operated an advertising business (Harvard University Class of 1905, 25th Anniversary Report, 575). According to the Massachusetts Department of Corporation and Taxation, Grey Gull was officially incorporated on 31 December 1919 and dissolved on 31 March 1934. (Acts 1934, c.187)

The original location of Grey Gull Records was 295 Huntington Avenue in Boston (advertisement in Talking Machine World, 15 October 1920, p. 192) but city directories show that by 1923 the company's offices were in South Boston, at 135 Dorchester Avenue. In the early 1920s, Grey Gull records were recorded and manufactured from a plant at 81 Wareham Street in Boston ("Local Studio," C7; Boston Globe classified ad, 21 August 1920, p. 9)

The first issues of Grey Gull were high-quality, vertical-cut discs sold at premium prices. Their small grooves were to be played with a needle or stylus, giving about twice the playing time of the standard 10-inch 78 rpm records of the time. Most offered more than one selection per side. These records bore catalog numbers prefixed with an "H," probably because vertical-cut discs were called "Hill and Dale" (Marco, 302-303)

These unusual records sold poorly, at a rather high price for the time of one dollar each. They were quickly phased out by 1920, to be replaced by the more common lateral-cut records (the essential patent on such discs had expired in 1919). The lateral discs bore catalog numbers prefixed with "L" (for lateral) and initially sold for the same high price. These records were recorded in Boston, where the company and Mr. Shaw were located ("Local Studio," C7), a practice that continued in 1926, when Grey Gull's recording operations were moved to New York City. A New York Times mention on 24 April 1926, p. 31 said Grey Gull had leased offices on the fifth floor of 20 East 42nd Street in Manhattan. An announcement of the move also appeared in the trade publication Talking Machine World on 15 July 1926.