Editing Decca Records (section)

===Second World War===
Decca had acquired the small [[Crystalate Manufacturing Company|Crystalate]] record company in the late 1930s, and with it its sound engineers [[Arthur Haddy]] and [[Kenneth Wilkinson]], as well as [[Decca Studios|its studios]] in [[West Hampstead]].<ref name=haddy/> Recording continued at the studios throughout the Second World War. Although production was hampered by a shortage of the [[shellac]] from which records were made,{{refn|Decca got around restrictions on shellac supplies by offering customers a discount on new purchases if they returned unwanted old records, which could then be recycled.<ref name=mcg>McGuinness, Paul. [https://www.udiscovermusic.com/in-depth-features/decca-records-label-history "Decca Records: A History of 'The Supreme Record Company'"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241003061959/https://www.udiscovermusic.com/in-depth-features/decca-records-label-history |date=3 October 2024 }}, ''Udiscovermusic'', 2024</ref>|group=n}} for Decca the positive results of the war far outweighed the disadvantages. Haddy and his team were moved from making commercial recordings to developing vital technology for the war effort. They were tasked with making recording equipment to detect the sonic differences in the water movement around German and British submarine propellers. As the relevant differences were at the high end of the frequency range, unprecedently sensitive equipment had to be invented, and this the Decca engineers did. This was not only an important contribution to the war effort, but made possible greatly enhanced gramophone recordings when the war ended. "We'd got the goods", Haddy later recalled.<ref name=haddy>Blyth, Alan, "Arthur Haddy, F.I.E.R.E", ''The Gramophone'', April 1971, p. 44</ref>

The American offshoot of Decca was less affected by the war than the British company. It bought out Warner Brothers' residual stake in Brunswick and floated as an independent company on the New York Stock Exchange in 1942. The company's popular music catalogue now included recordings by, among others, the [[Ink Spots]], [[Jimmy Dorsey]], [[Judy Garland]], [[Count Basie]], [[Louis Armstrong]] and [[Ella Fitzgerald]].<ref name=bill/> In 1942 the company released the first recording of "[[White Christmas (song)|White Christmas]]" by Bing Crosby. He recorded another version of the song in 1947, also for US Decca; it became and has remained the world's best-selling [[Single (music)|single]].<ref>{{Cite web |url= http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/8412/guinness2008.pdf |title=Guinness Book of Records, 2008 Edition, page 181 |access-date=January 16, 2018 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110723170832/http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/8412/guinness2008.pdf |archive-date=July 23, 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Guinness09">{{Cite web |url= http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/4387/guinness2009.pdf |title=Guinness Book of Records, 2009 Edition, pages 14, 15 & 169 |access-date=January 16, 2018 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20111125123821/http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/4387/guinness2009.pdf |archive-date=November 25, 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> American Decca pioneered original cast albums of musicals with the Broadway cast of ''[[Oklahoma!]]'' in 1943, and other shows followed, including ''[[Carousel (musical)|Carousel]]'', ''[[Annie Get Your Gun (musical)|Annie Get Your Gun]]'', ''[[Guys and Dolls]]'' and ''[[The King and I]]''.<ref name=bill/>