Founded in 1949 in San Francisco, California.

The early years of the company were mainly dedicated to issuing recordings by jazz artists, but it began to branch out into other genres in the 1960s and achieved commercial success with Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Saul Zaentz then began a policy of acquisition which included Debut Records, Stax Records (1977), Takoma Records and Kicking Mule Records (both 1995).

In 2004, Fantasy was sold to a consortium and merged with Concord Records.