Charles O’Connell (1900-1962) was an American conductor, arranger and recording executive, active in the early and mid-twentieth-century American record industry. He worked for RCA Victor and helped shape recorded orchestral production.

In the Pristine catalogue he appears in The Magic Key of RCA, a broadcast document that captures the record company’s public musical world in 1937.

O’Connell’s importance lies partly behind the scenes: conducting, arranging, producing and helping organise music for broadcast and disc. Such figures helped determine what listeners actually heard at home.

His page is useful because recording history is not made by performers alone. O’Connell was part of the control-room and podium machinery that turned music into records.