Some updates on the Gull, CBS, Charisma, Harvest and Blue Horizon labels, including a very rare Genesis DEMO single. Click the images to go to each page:
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I’ve added a whole new section on Harvest singles, featuring the text “THE GRAMOPHONE CO. LTD” around the label rim, to tie in with the albums section. There’s a whole lot of weird and wonderful along with the standard examples you’d expect such as Deep Purple, Edgar Broughton Band, Wizzard, ELO and Roy Wood.
There are just over 70 singles released up to and including Wizzard’s “Angel Fingers” (HAR 5076) in July 1973 before the wording changed on the labels to “EMI RECORDS LTD”. There’s a few more to add yet to the list, but here’s a broad selection to browse through for now!
The original sleeve designer for Deep Purple’s seminal “In Rock” album has recently been ‘discovered’ by Simon Robinson of the DPAS. You can read his article here about how the sleeve was created in those pre-Photoshop days. Great article.
Black Widow’s last LP on CBS orange label (they were dropped after this LP flopped) and a ‘posthumous’ release on Gull of a ‘best of’ Judas Priest 2LP set, featuring remixed tracks from their ‘Rocka Rolla’ and ‘Sad Wings Of Destiny’ original Gull albums. Bit of a cash in by Gull, following the global success of ‘British Steel’…
Sharp-eyed Gary Taylor has spotted another label variation for Uriah Heep’s debut on Vertigo Swirl – 1970’s “Very ‘Eavy Very ‘Umble”. Here’s Gary’s picture:
This label appears to be nearly identical to the ‘2nd’ pressing but has abbreviated the producer’s credit just above the ‘VERTIGO’ wording. The earlier versions spell out the credit in full, thus: “Produced by Gerry Bron for Hit Record Productions Limited”.
Here are the other 3 labels for comparison:
I would put Gary’s version as 3rd pressing, and the smaller swirl and VERTIGO above the spindle as a 4th pressing.
Please note that this was one of a few Vertigo releases to be subsequently reissued on the Bronze label, rather than the Vertigo spaceship label. So that would make the Bronze reissue a 5th pressing.
Hard to find on the original pink Island label, this 1970 one-off Fotheringay album (they disbanded in January 1971) in particular features some sublime guitar from Jerry Donahue (definite future influence for Mark Knopfler) as well as top class vocals from Sandy Denny (no wonder she was the only other vocalist to appear on a Led Zeppelin LP). The more folky/renaissance style tracks work better for me than the country influenced ones but it’s still an essential addition to your record collection:
I recently found two examples of original UK music press ads promoting 2 singles from Affinity and Jade Warrior. With a bit of photoshop cleaning up and retouching, here they are reproduced in their cleaned up state:
Three new additions to the pink Island and orange CBS labels as well as the very first LP issued on the newly redesigned Charisma label which utilised an existing drawing by Sir John Tenniel of the Mad Hatter and other images from “Alice In Wonderland” and this design has become known as the ’pink Mad Hatter’ variant.
Some recent additions on the Probe, CBS, Liberty and Marmalade labels:
Rare Record Collector 