The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #78114 Message #1400105
Posted By: Greg F.
05-Feb-05 - 04:51 PM
Thread Name: DECCA Bites The Dust
Subject: DECCA Bites The Dust
Universal Music Group to close record plant in May, citing popularity of CDs Saturday, February 5, 2005
GLOVERSVILLE, NY -- A vinyl record plant with a history dating to the production of old-fashioned 78s will close in May, leaving 112 employees out of work, owner Universal Music Group announced this week.
Layoffs will start in early April, and the plant will shut down May 6, officials said.
The plant on Route 30A just outside the city has been owned by Universal since the late 1990s. It is the only Universal manufacturing plant producing just vinyl LPs, said spokesman Peter Lofrumento. The company is based in New York City; it is a division of French telecommunications giant Vivendi Universal.
The Gloversville plant has been on Route 30A since 1962, but had existed at a different location since the 1940s. It operated for decades under the name Decca before that company was taken over by MCA in 1968.
Record collectors said the plant printed all kinds of music over the years, from Bing Crosby to the Jackson 5. Art Simmons, a record collector from Northville, said the plant was responsible for printing the first American single from an early incarnation of The Beatles, called Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers...