The Complete Harvest UK Vinyl Discography: Vol.1

HARVEST RECORDS VOLUME 1:
THE COMPLETE UK VINYL DISCOGRAPHY.

Details of every UK release on the Harvest Records labels from 1969 to early 1971 with full colour, high quality photography throughout of labels, sleeves and inserts along with detailed analysis and identification of the crucial 1st pressing details of every album and single. Essential reading for collectors of Harvest UK first pressing vinyl.

Harvest Vol.1

Harvest was founded by parent company EMI Records in mid-1969, to directly compete with its biggest rival, Decca Records, who’d launched their own subsidiary label, Deram, in 1966.

EMI, along with other labels who quickly followed suit, wanted to capitalise on the expanding progressive rock market – Philips launched their own offshoot, Vertigo, just a few months after Harvest.

Harvest’s first ‘signings’ were in actuality existing EMI artists; notably Deep Purple and The Pink Floyd, which were shunted onto the new offshoot from EMI’s other labels, Parlophone and Columbia, respectively.

Thanks to the future successes of both these acts, EMI ended up with arguably the most successful of all the ‘prog rock’ subsidiary labels. Harvest signed an array of other acts however, including folk, blues and jazz. Many disappeared into obscurity, never releasing anything ever again, thereby ensuring relative rarity amongst us record collectors. Other artists were more prolific and successful, but still those original first UK pressings remain desirable and therefore valuable.

‘The Gramophone Co. Ltd’ era from 1969-1973 is the most collectable, and Harvest issued nearly 90 LPs in that timeframe. To compile them all into one book (complete with exhaustive background detail and associated singles) would make for a massive tome, and therefore this first book, ‘Volume 1’, deals with the first 44 LPs and related singles. See ‘Volume 2’ to complete the label…