Chick Webb and His Orchestra, “I Got a Guy/Harlem Congo,” Decca (CAN), Label #1681, 10” 78rpm, 1937.

This record was pressed and distributed by the Compo Company Limited, a production plant located in Montreal. Emile Berliner, the inventor of the gramophone, owned the Canadian patent for lateral-cutting which his son Herbert Berliner took on. In 1918 he installed surplus presses in Lachine (which is now a part of Montreal) and signed a five-year lease for the company. He advertised Compo as “the first independent Canadian factory of pressing discs” to bring in cliental from the U.S. The factory eventually signed on many recording labels including the Starr Company of Canada, His Master’s Voice (the Berliner’s company), and American Brunswick among others. Decca had their discs pressed by Compo from 1936-1970, which included this disc.

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