Simon Waronker

In 1955 Simon Waronker, who has died aged 90, had spent 16 years as Twentieth Century Fox's orchestral contractor, organising the studio's music. It was then that his cousin, Decca Record's Herb Newman, proposed that they launch a record label. Waronker finally decided that he would do so - even if, by then, Herb had set up his own label. The result from Waronker, after a banking neighbour had accepted his furniture as collateral, was Liberty Records