The label who brought you Bert Jansch, Pentangle, Ralph McTell, The Dubliners, Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, Billy Connolly, Mick Farren’s proto-punk, a song covered by David Bowie on Let’s Dance, and UK releases of a selection of iconic US artists, activists and poets including:
Miles Davis, Lenny Bruce, Frank Zappa’s Mothers Of Invention, Malcolm X and Allen Ginsberg.
Founded by Nathan ‘Nat’ Joseph, named after his practice of importing US records into the UK and selling them to retailers, Transatlantic was the first UK record company to license releases from prestigious jazz labels Prestige and Blue Note, and American folk and blues from Folkways and Elektra.
At it’s core went on to be one of the leading folk labels associated with the UK folk boom and evolution into folk-rock.
In 1980 Transatlantic bowed out and in the mid 90s, Castle Communications bought it as a name and archive, releasing new albums and adding artists to the fold.