Key Records was a conservative record label based out of Los Angeles, California, run by a man named Vick Knight that existed in the 1950s and 1960s. [1] Knight who was born in 1908 and died in 1984 was a songwriter, composers, and record producer among other things although very little information is available about him online. [2] Many of Key Records releases were recordings of speeches by right wing political figures like Robert Welch and Ronald Reagan, but they also released original songs sung by artists such as Wini Beatty such as “Folks Songs For Taxpayers.” Common themes for Key Records recordings include: libertarianism,  small government, anti-communism, anti-liberalism, anti-income tax, and free market capitalism. Although there are numerous catalogs and flyers for Key Records as seen below, there seem to be no actual audio recordings in the Hall Hoag collection. However there are some recordings online. I have included the cover of a catalog from 1966 and a 1962 letter from Vick Knight to Peter Flynn who apparently worked at the WTAG radio station in Massachusetts. In the letter Knight states the purpose of the label to the “gradual but increasingly apparent loss of our sovereignty as a nation.”

Key Records Catalog (1966)

Vick Knight Letter (1962)

[1] http://rateyourmusic.com/label/key_records_f1

[2] http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2012/12/walter-brennans-hes-your-uncle-not-your-dad-part-two-and-vick-knight-and-the-key-records-story.html