Topic Records
| Topic Records | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1939 |
| Founder | Workers' Educational Association |
| Status | Active |
| Distributor(s) | Proper Music Distribution - City Hall Records - SRI Canada - Claddagh Records - Planet Distribution - Southbound Records Australasia - Office Sambinha - IRD Spa - Central Distribution |
| Genre | Folk music and World music |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Location | Uppingham, Rutland |
| Official website | Topicrecords.co.uk |
Topic Records is a British folk music label, which played a major role in the second British folk revival. It began as an offshoot of the Workers' Music Association in 1939, making it the oldest independent record label in the world.
The label began as an offshoot of the communist led Workers' Music Association in 1939, selling Soviet and left-wing political music by mail order. After a period of relative inactivity in the Second World War production resumed in the later 1940s, moving towards traditional music for the emerging revival market. Up to 1949 the composer Alan Bush was involved with choral and orchestral music released on the label. Topic also produced some of the first American blues records to be commercially available in Britain. From about 1950 the two key figures of the second revival, Ewan MacColl and A. L. Lloyd, became heavily involved, producing several records of traditional music. One of the earliest albums of UK traditional music was Street Songs and Fiddle Tunes of Ireland by Margaret Barry and Michael Gorman, issued in 1958.
With the decline of British Communist Party membership in the late 1950s financial aid to the label began to dry up and, under director Gerry Sharp, they were forced to pursue an entrepreneurial strategy to survive. In the early 1960s Topic Records separated from the Workers' Music Association, but those involved still had socialist credentials. A new company was registered in 1963. Financially, the company was in a precarious state until 1963 when they had substantial sales from the album The Iron Muse, a ground-breaking thematic programme of industrial folk songs. This success allowed them to produce a greater and wider range of records until tastes began to radically change again in the 1970s.
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