Decca Records was originally formed in 1929 by Edward R. Lewis in the United Kingdom. Then, five years later, in 1934, a U.S. division of Decca Records was created and headed by Jack Kapp. (By the way, after his death he was succeeded by his brother David Kapp, who later founded Kapp Records). In 1944, during World War II, Decca sold its American subsidiary, and as a result of this sale, two Decca Record Companies were created. They became known in the music industry as British Decca and American Decca. Since British Decca couldn't use the Decca name here in the United States to market its records, they created the London Records label in 1947 for their American distribution. Conversely, since American Decca couldn't use the Decca name in the United Kingdom to market its records, they revived the recently retired Brunswick label name for their U.K. distribution.

In 1980, after Edward R. Lewis died, Philips acquired British Decca and then merged it with their Polygram division. Polygram then gave the British Decca catalog to Polydor Records (a subsidiary of Polygram). As for American Decca, it purchased Universal Pictures in 1952, and then ten years later, in 1962, it was acquired by Music Corporation of America (MCA), thus becoming a subsidiary of MCA/Universal. In 1973, MCA dropped the Decca name in favor of the newly created MCA Records label. Then, 20 years later, in 1993, MCA revived the Decca name for the distribution of country records from its Nashville division. The MCA record label name itself was then dropped when Seagram bought MCA in 1995. The next change came in 1996 when Seagram's MCA Music Entertainment Group subsidiary changed its name to Universal Music Group (UMG). Then, in 1998, Seagram acquired Polygram (the parent company of British Decca and owner of London Records) from Philips, and as a result of Seagram's merging Polygram into UMG, the two Decca Records companies were finally reunited for the first time since 1944 -- a 54 year separation. And finally, in 2006, after the breakup of the Seagram Company, Vivendi of France became the sole owner of UMG.

Even though at this point you are probably thoroughly confused, there is yet one more very important thing regarding the London Records catalog: UMG only owns the London Records catalog prior to 1979; the post 1979 London Records catalog and the London Records name itself now belong to WMG. Here’s how that happened: in 1998, when Seagram bought Polygram and merged it into their subsidiary UMG, Roger Ames (the head of Polygram's London Records subsidiary) moved to WMG. That’s when WMG acquired the post 1979 catalog, as well as the London Records name itself.

So as you can see, because of all these acquisitions, mergers and buyouts, the continuing saga of the Decca-London story is guaranteed to be a veritable source of confusion for many, many years to come.