Label Guide: Pye

The Pye Company originally manufactured televisions and radios in Cambridge, England. The company entered the record business when it bought Nixa Records in 1953 which was renamed two years later as Pye Nixa Records. In 1958, Pye International Records was started which licensed recordings from American and other foreign labels for the UK market, including Chess, A&M, Kama Sutra, Colpix, Warner Bros., Buddah, 20th Century, and King.

In 1959, Pye Nixa became Pye Records, and through the 1960s several subsidiaries were launched, including Piccadilly Records and Dawn. When the rights to the name Pye expired in 1980, the label changed its name to PRT, which stands for Precision Records and Tapes.