More than 1,120 detailed, carefully documented entries cover the record companies, independent studios, and individual producers -- and the thousands of disc and cylinder brands they produced for the commercial market (including consumer, jukebox, and subscription labels) -- from the birth of the recording industry to the start of the LP era.A directory section preceeding each entry includes company founding, record-production, and closing dates; office, studio, and pressing-plant locations; original-master sources; foreign affiliations; and a listing of all commercial labels and other record products.The volume also includes an introductory history of the American recording industry from the 1880s through 1950; user's guide; company genealogical charts; glossary; extensive references (largely primary-source); and label and subject indexes. --Publisher's website.