Relaxin Blues // Bud's Bounce

Other Early Vancouver Record Labels: Vanatone Records.

This short-lived record label was founded by Wallace "Wally" Peterson. Following a childhood interest in radio electronics, Peterson was hired in 1945 as an apprentice technician at radio station CJOR; he had apparently completed his apprenticeship the following year, and while working at CJOR began an involvement in the local recording scene, almost certainly at the Don Wilson Studio (Wilson was an announcer at CJOR; Al Reusch, when discussing Vanatone in interviews, never mentions any personal contact with Peterson). Wally Peterson apparently had an inventor's bent, and ambition: ca. 1948 he constructed his own record press, the first in Western Canada, and recruited investor(s).

In February 1949 the Vancouver Recording Co. Ltd. opened for business. It planned to record and press recordings by local artists, on Vanatone Records; to supply the radio stations with more durable transcriptions from their acetate recordings; and as well, to operate in a mutual agreement with one of Gene Autry's Los Angeles publishing houses, whereby Vanatone would record from their catalogue (possibly with some form of subsidy?), and they would in turn own the publishing rights to any original Vanatone recordings.

Here is some speculation on my part: I believe that the investor behind Peterson's Vancouver Recording Co. was J. G. Anderson, the Peter Piper pest control guy who purchased the Don Wilson Recording Studios in early 1949, renaming it Ambassador Studios. While the newspaper article announcing the record company's opening cites "$20,000 cash raised", the company registration announced October 29/1948 states its capitalization at $10,000; the additional $10M investment was likely Anderson's purchase of the recording studio. So everything was in place: a recording studio, a wholly-owned record manufacturing facility, and a record label; what could go wrong? (More to come.....)