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20th Century Records
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
20th Century Records, also known as 20th Fox Records and 20th Century Fox Records, was a subsidiary of film studio 20th Century Fox. The label had major hits with Barry White, Carl Douglas (best known for the song "Kung Fu Fighting"), Edwin Starr and the Star Wars soundtrack in 1977.
The company also released the Harry Simeone Chorale's recording of "Little Drummer Boy" and the album on which it was first featured, Sing We Now of Christmas, later reissued as The Little Drummer Boy. It became the best selling Christmas album ever. The rights were later acquired by PolyGram, which released it on CD in 1988, on the Casablanca Records label.
Among the movie soundtrack albums released by 20th Century Fox Records were those of Zorba the Greek , The Bible: In the Beginning, and Doctor Dolittle. However, the label did not issue the soundtrack albums of any of the Rodgers and Hammerstein films released by the studio. Instead, the albums made from five of these films were released by Capitol Records (Oklahoma!, Carousel and The King and I) and by RCA Victor (South Pacific and The Sound of Music). Years later, the Capitol albums reappeared on CD in expanded versions issued by Angel Records. (The film versions of Oklahoma! (1955) and South Pacific (1958), although released in roadshow format by the Magna Corporation, were given general release by 20th Century Fox.)
The label launched its own subsidiary called Chi Sound Records for releasing disco records. It originally self-distributed its records, but by the late 1960s its releases were distributed by ABC Records. RCA took over distribution in the late '70s.
The label was active until 1981, being sold to PolyGram in early 1982.
It was relaunched in 1991 as Fox Records, which was mainly soundtracks, as well as a standard label with artists such as Jamie Foxx. The label folded several years later. It was distributed by Arista Records.