What Records
| Word Records | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Parent company | Curb Records |
| Founded | 1951 |
| Distributor(s) | Word Distribution (US CBA and general markets) |
| Genre | Gospel/contemporary Christian music |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Official website | wordlabelgroup |
Word Records is a Christian faith-based entertainment company based in Nashville, Tennessee. It is owned by Curb Records and is a part of Word Entertainment.
Word Records was founded in Waco, Texas, in 1951 by Jarrell McCracken, Baylor business major Henry SoRelle and radio and television executive Ted Snider. The label's name is based on a 16-minute spoken word recording written and narrated by McCracken, the first recording released by the label, entitled the "The Game of Life". The 23-year-old KWTX sportscaster in Waco had read an article by Jimmy Allen, a former athlete who became a Baptist preacher, and based his recording on the article which also is called "The Game of Life". The event is based on a full length match between the forces of Good and Evil with Jesus Christ and Satan coaching the two teams. McCracken was familiar with play-by-play broadcasting, having created virtual baseball games for radio broadcast based on wire reports. McCracken originally presented his "The Game of Life" presentation on Sunday nights at various churches around the central Texas area. Everywhere he presented "The Game of Life", he got requests for copies. Eventually, he had a short run of records pressed to offer at churches where he spoke. The fictional radio station in the recording has the call letters "WORD", so that was printed on the label of the custom record. After being asked by a friend when he was going to release a follow-up, McCracken then decided to pursue the label on a more serious level.
Subsequent records focused on other spoken word recordings, but Word soon branched out into southern gospel music. Early employees for the label included Tom Norfleet, Kurt Kaiser and Ralph Carmichael.
The label struggled initially until Marvin Norcross became an equity partner. By 1954, Word had become a publishing house as well.
Several subsidiary labels were started over the years: Canaan Records in the sixties, Myrrh Records (1972) and DaySpring Records in 1977, and Rejoice Records in the eighties. Two of these labels no longer exist today in their original form. The Myrrh Label was resurrected in 2005 as a praise and worship record label: Myrrh Worship.Canaan Records was also re-opened in early 2007 with Dave Clark at the helm.
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