In 1929 in America, Dashiell Hammett published his debut hardboiled novel Red Harvest, over in Paris Buñuel and Dalí began showing their film Un Chien Andalou at a small cinema, while in Britain the fledgling Decca Record Company opened for business.

Issued to mark 90 years of the label’s existence, this large format, fully illustrated volume benefits greatly from access to its extensive archive of the days when Billie Holiday, Kathleen Ferrier, Tom Jones, Pavarotti, Bing Crosby, Buddy Holly, Herbert von Karajan, Billy Fury, Marianne Faithfull, George Formby, Slaughter & the Dogs, Georg Solti, Benny Hill, Winston Churchill and even the...