Sacred Records

Template:Infobox record label Sacred Records was a religious music record label founded in 1944 by Earle E. Williams.

History

Earle E. Williams, a minister of youth and music director in the Los Angeles area, decided to start a religious music record label in 1944 as a solution to the problem of obtaining the records he needed for his work, which included broadcasting a weekly half-hour radio program every Sunday at noon on local station KXLA.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="RecordEagle">Template:Cite news</ref> In a 1947 interview, Williams described to United Press International (UPI), "I sold my car, ray dog, my wife's spinet, a camera and a renovated church organ and borrowed the rest on a note to get the $3,000 I had to have to start production.<ref name="RecordEagle" />

Based in Los Angeles, Sacred Records recorded and published religious music.<ref name="badboy"> Template:Cite book</ref> The label merged with Kansas City's White Church Records in 1949, and by the following year the company had opened new offices in Kansas City, Philadelphia, and New York.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Composer and arranger Ralph Carmichael convinced the label to finance Rhapsody in Sacred Music (1958), an instrumental album that featured a full symphony, including four trumpets, four trombones, multiple french horns, woodwinds, a string section of at least 12 violins and four viola, two bass harps, and percussion. "It was the first all-instrumental sacred music recording with that size orchestra", Carmichael said. "It was a scary experiment and I nearly broke the record company."<ref name="badboy" />

Sacred Records was acquired by Word Records in 1963.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Williams remained with Word as a salesman and distributor.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

See also

• List of record labels

External links

• Template:Discogs label