Rare Record Collector

A few peculiarities exist with this collectable label; namely, half of the catalogue was released on the B&C Records label (who undertook manufacturing and distribution duties for Charisma) and some releases were even issued under a later B&C Records offshoot, named Pegasus Records – all carrying the same cataloguing system of a ‘C A S’ prefix followed by four digits. (Refer to B&C Records here and Pegasus Records here).

The Charisma label itself was founded by Tony Stratton-Smith in late 1969. He was at the time the manager for various bands including The Nice, The Bonzo Dog Band and Van der Graaf Generator. He had been frustrated in his efforts at securing a record deal for VdGG so decided to create his own company, negotiating manufacturing and distribution through the recently formed B&C Records label (owned and run by Trojan Records’ Lee Gopthal).

Original Charisma ‘pink scroll’ recordings are relatively easy to collect as there are not that many of them (just 30 by my reckoning) and they generally command lower sums than other labels such as Vertigo ‘swirl’, with only a couple of exceptions such as Genesis “Trespass”, VdGG “The Least We Can Do…” and Birth Control’s self titled LP.

The label underwent a design change in early 1972 and 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. A late 70’s further redesign changed the predominant colour to blue and reduced the size and emphasis on the Mad Hatter character. Both these redesigns were used to reissue the original catalogue’s more successful releases and are much more common and worth significantly less than the original ‘pink scroll’ variant.

Charisma Records discography (click the links to go to each album’s page):

• CAS 1005 – Rare Bird
• CAS 1007 – Van der Graaf Generator
• CAS 1008 – Joseph Eger
• CAS 1009 – Gordon Turner
• CAS 1011 – Rare Bird
• CAS 1012 – Audience
• CAS 1014 – The Nice
• CAS 1017 – Trevor Billmuss
• CAS 1018 – Jackson Heights
• CAS 1020 – Genesis
• CAS 1021 – Brian Davison
• CAS 1025 – Lindisfarne
• CAS 1027 – Van der Graaf Generator
• CAS 1030 – The Nice
• CAS 1032 – Audience
• CAS 1036 – Birth Control
• CAS 1037 – Peter Hammill
• CAS 1039 – Atacama
• CAS 1040 – Leigh Stephens
• CAS 1049 – Monty Python
• CAS 1050 – Lindisfarne
• CAS 1051 – Van der Graaf Generator
• CAS 1052 – Genesis
• CAS 1053 – Bell + Arc
• CAS 1054 – Audience
• CAS 1055 – Spreadeagle
• CAS 1056 – Capability Brown
• CS 1 – The Nice
• CS 2 – Van der Graaf Generator
• CS 3 – Liverpool Scene

Full list of titles below, those in pink are Charisma releases, the others are on the B&C label.