In 1966, MCA formed Uni Records in Hollywood, California, and in 1967, MCA bought New York–based Kapp Records. That same year MCA also acquired guitar maker Danelectro and mall retailer Spencer Gifts. In 1967, the MCA Records label was established outside the United States and Canada to issue releases by the MCA group of labels. Decca, Kapp and Uni were merged into MCA Records at Universal City, California in 1971; the three labels maintained their identities for a short time but were soon retired in favor of the MCA label. The first MCA Records release in the US was former Uni artist Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" in 1972. In 1973, the final Decca pop label release, "Drift Away", a #5 pop hit by Dobie Gray, was issued. MCA had two failed mergers in 1969. Initially it planned a merger with Westinghouse Electric but that collapsed in April and in July, they announced a proposed merger with the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company but this too was called off in September. In 1973, Stein stepped down from the company he founded and Wasserman took over as chairman and chief executive officer, while Sidney Sheinberg was appointed president and chief operating officer of MCA. Other executives within MCA were Lawrence R. Barnett, who ran the agency's live acts division during its glory agency years in the 1950s and 1960s, and Ned Tanen, head of Universal Pictures. Tanen was behind Universal hits such as "Animal House", John Hughes's "Sixteen Candles" and "The Breakfast Club". MCA issued soundtrack albums for most films released by Universal Pictures. In 1975, the company entered the book publishing business with the acquisition of G. P. Putnam's Sons. In 1979, it acquired ABC Records along with its subsidiaries Paramount Records, Impulse! Records, and Dot Records. ABC had acquired the Paramount and Dot labels when it purchased Gulf+Western's record labels, then the parent company of Paramount Pictures. From 1983 to 1989, Irving Azoff was chairman of MCA Records and is credited for turning around the fortunes of the label. The Chess Records catalog was acquired from the remnants of Sugarhill in 1985. Motown Records was bought in 1988 (and sold to PolyGram in 1993). GRP Records (which became for some years MCA's jazz music label and thus began managing the company's jazz catalogue) and Geffen Records (which served as another mainstream music subsidiary) were acquired in 1990.