Arista Records

Arista was the name given to the Bell label by Clive Davis after he became head of the company in 1975. Bell had been a record company from the early 1960's, first as one of a group of associated labels, then as the name given to the whole group. Featured performers on this group of labels during the sixties and seventies included Del Shannon, the Box Tops, the Partridge Family, Dawn and Barry Manilow.

The company was renamed Arista in 1975 and the music released by the company moved toward album oriented rock rather than pop singles. Barry Manilow remained on the label and was joined by a wide range of groups including Patti Smith, the Grateful Dead and the Kinks. Arista became part of the European Bertelsmann group (BMG) in 1979 but continued to release albums using the Arista name. During the 1980's and 1990's the label released successful recordings by Whitney Houston, Kenny G, Milli Vanilli, Annie Lennox and the Crash Test Dummies.

The Grateful Dead signed with Arista toward the end of 1976. All their mainstream distributed albums from that time have been released by Arista, latterly in association with Grateful Dead Records.

Albums by group member bands; Jerry Garcia Band, Vince Welnick's Missing Man Foundation, Bobby & The Midnites, Phil Lesh & Friendbone and Ratdog have also been on the label.

The first Silver LP with Brent Mydland on keyboards, was released on Arista.

For more information about Grateful Dead and related releases on Arista see the Grateful Dead on Arista page.


Home