| Sacred Records | |
| Founded: | 1944 |
| Defunct: | 1963 |
| Founder: | Earle E. Williams |
| Country: | United States |
Sacred Records was a religious music record label founded in 1944 by Earle E. Williams.
Earle E. Williams, a minister of youth and music director in the Los Angeles area, decided to start a religious music record label in 1944 as a solution to the problem of obtaining the records he needed for his work, which included broadcasting a weekly half-hour radio program every Sunday at noon on local station KXLA.[1] [2] In a 1947 interview, Williams described to United Press International (UPI), "I sold my car, ray dog, my wife's spinet, a camera and a renovated church organ and borrowed the rest on a note to get the $3,000 I had to have to start production.
Based in Los Angeles, Sacred Records recorded and published religious music.[3] The label merged with Kansas City's White Church Records in 1949, and by the following year the company had opened new offices in Kansas City, Philadelphia, and New York.[4] [5] Composer and arranger Ralph Carmichael convinced the label to finance Rhapsody in Sacred Music (1958), an instrumental album that featured a full symphony, including four trumpets, four trombones, multiple french horns, woodwinds, a string section of at least 12 violins and four viola, two bass harps, and percussion. "It was the first all-instrumental sacred music recording with that size orchestra", Carmichael said. "It was a scary experiment and I nearly broke the record company."
Sacred Records was acquired by Word Records in 1963.[6] Williams remained with Word as a salesman and distributor.[7]