Lucky Records

Lucky Records of the 1930s was a record label based in Tokyo, Japan which specialized in issuing United States popular music to the Japanese audience.

Lucky was founded in November of 1934 by the Lucky Record Co. Tokyo, owned by the Saito Shoten cotton importing business. They made arrangements with the American Record Corporation[?] to issue material from ARC labels in Japan. Their most successful import was the recordings of Bing Crosby. Much of the other Lucky Records issues are surprisingly eclectic, including recordings by Eddie Condon[?], Red Allen, Cab Calloway, and Duke Ellington, but also rural southern blues records otherwise unissued outside of the United States in the era (and in the US mostly restricted to labels catering to the African American market). Lucky issues also included accordion bands, Hawaiin music, Calypso music, and Argentine tangos. It is unclear if all of this material was specifically selected, or if some was simply chosen at random by someone at either Lucky or ARC.

Lucky was the victim of the Tojo government's nationalistic campaign against foreign cultural influence, and closed down by early 1940.

Lucky Records of the of about the 1960s - 1970s was a bootleg label, issuing recordings of live performances of noted rock & roll artists (including Elvis Presley) on vinyl record LP.

In the 1990s there seems to have been one Lucky Records based in Paris, France, and a separate company of the same name based in Seattle, Washington, USA.

See also: List of record labels