Legacy Recordings

One of the first things that I remember from when I started at Legacy was the main conference room. It was a large room with blue walls, a big table in the center and lots of chairs. Each wall had a collection of framed, black and white photos. The photos were of iconic artists that had recorded with Sony BMG. It was really quite stunning.

From the 1950’s through the 1980’s, both Columbia and RCA had staff photographers. These employees were responsible for shooting press shots, album packaging, live shows, etc. Their photos were used in a variety of ways. Many were published in the likes of Rolling Stone, New York Times, Billboard, etc. Others, for one reason or another, were stored in the archives and never published. For years, people asked how they could obtain prints of these phenomenal photos, but unfortunately, prior to the Internet, we had no easy way to process these requests nor take orders.

Last year we began a pilot called ICON Collectibles. It was a test designed to measure interest in artist memorabilia and artist photos. Along with several memorabilia auctions, we launched a fine art print store with select photos of Bob Dylan, Miles Davis and Glenn Gould. The response was so great that last week we finally made available a handful of additional artist photos. We now also have photos of Jaco Pastorius, Billie Holiday, Sly & the Family Stone, Johnny Cash, and Charles Mingus. These are museum-quality fine art prints, which are printed individually on premium, fiber-based archival paper. Certain limited edition prints are even signed by the photographer and numbered.

I’ve already chosen which ones I want in my apartment.