The most notable signing for Bounty was the Paul Butterfield Band who was moved over to Elektra when Bounty folded. In 1965, Elektra began a short-lived joint venture with Survey Music called Bounty Records, which was Elektra's first foray into pop music. Other labels followed suit by starting their own budget series, but Nonesuch remained the most popular and Jac Holzman states in his book that profits from the budget classical label made it possible for Elektra to experiment with their pop releases by the mid-1960s. This classical budget label was the best-selling budget classical label of the era. In 1964, Elektra launched Nonesuch Records. Holzman also recorded Josh White, who was without a record deal as a result of McCarthyite blacklisting. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the label concentrated on folk music recordings, releasing a number of best-selling albums by Theodore Bikel, Ed McCurdy, Oscar Brand, and Judy Collins, and protest singers such as Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton. The first Elektra LP, New Songs (EKLP 1 released March 1951), was a collection of Lieder and similar art songs, which sold few copies. He found the 'C' in the original name 'too soft', but liked the 'solid bite' of the letter 'K', citing its use in the Kodak name.

Holzman famously explained, 'I gave her the 'K' that I lacked'. The usual spelling of the Greek mythological Pleiad Electra was changed. History 1950–1971: Founding and early history Įlektra was formed in 1950, as the Elektra-Stratford Record Corporation, with a singles label called Stratford Records, by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt in Holzman's St. In June 2022, Elektra Music Group was merged with 300 Entertainment to create the umbrella label 300 Elektra Entertainment (3EE), though both Elektra and 300 continued to maintain their separate identities as labels. In October 2018, Elektra was detached from the Atlantic Records umbrella and reorganized into Elektra Music Group, once again operating as an independently managed frontline label of Warner Music. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived as an imprint of Atlantic in 2009. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the 1950s and 1970s. Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt.

Sullen art collective