Island-Sue Records, & B&c-Trojan Records Demos

[dthedrug]

HI ALL Especially those people who have a love for collecting 60s UK Vinyl. This part 2 of the long running saga, of what was put out by the ISLAND RECORD in the 60s, that could be classed as a true company PROMO or DEMO,

Now as a bench mark, as a definition of a DEMO/PROMO I have for the sake of drifting away from the pioneer, and what I feel 99% of SOULSOURCE readers will accept, is how collectors have a understanding of how the mager's approached the issue in the 60s, my focus in the main has to keep to the 60s as this is the area that needs more explanation, even though it is pretty straight forward,

Although I have spent the week, thinking about this, I have used as reference to help me, the following.

MANSHIPS GUIDE TO RARE UK, Pete Smiths excellent listing & forerunner to the previous, and also to improve on the excellent FINDAGROOVE Price Guide, Pete Smiths Beatin Rhythm #1 - 10, essential and comprehensive set of fanzine type booklets, also original ISLAND CATOLOGES, ACTION CAT, ISLAND B&C CAT. SOUL CITY SHOP CAT. AND BLUES & SOUL MONTHLY MAG 1 - 23 TO COLATE INFO'

At this time and what I can say for fact, is I can only find 3 example out of all the releases from 1960 onwards, this is not to say there are not more, it is also most important, that to make my point, it is excepted as fact the ISLAND RECORDS was an independent company, however it was backed by a large DUTCH parent company especially for product production & manufacturing, PHILIPS, This has already been discussed on SOULSOURCE,

It is true to state that for much of the 60s, Philips stopped manufacturing white label DEMOS, once the 45 RPM record had taken over from the 78 RPM record, this crossover period covered the years from 1954 - 1960, when the last 78s for the UK market ended, again I have seen a BEATLES PLEASSE PLEASE ME on a PARLOPHONE 78 from 1963 also told that a CAPITAL 78 OF A 65 BEACH BOYS EXISTS?

Who am I to say it does not, but it is guaranteed, I suspect made for the Subcontinent?

Assuming that I am correct? this policy of no Demos on any o f the company's manufacture records, would include the ISLAND RECORD Co, as we are aware there are factory samples of all Philips/Fontana records, with SANPLE painted on in a yellow paint, and some have a sticker FACTORY SAMPLE NOT FOR SALE on the label, however never found this on any of the ISLAND group of labels?

Also as discussed before, ISLAND RECORDS had a history of making records that had been dubbed from a US or JA RECORD, and also relevant was the spurious licensing deals, through out the 60s? and also strange is how records that should have been issue on SUE are on ISLAND, and a small amount of non US records come out on SUE? and even more odd are the couple of records that were issued as promotional giveaways for company get togethers, so that's 2 ISLAND R&W PROMOS, that have no interest in having, unless you have it for sale or to complete a collection, as they are rare, my tip is don't buy them? the same can be said for the LPs on ISLAND, (on ISLAND means they have the ILPS Prefix< not the label) So to colect all the LPs you will need the Rugby songs LPs and so on,

Most of the 60s ISLAND records would not have any demos as the DJs were given the JA pre release, as to-day most DJs like to play records exclusive to them, so this is anouther sound reason of not having UK DEMOS DUKKE VIN would never play a sound that COUNT SHELLY was playing, however unique to JA music was for every lets say record to be released in the UK, there are many versions of the rythem that a sound man would play,

Evein the early 80s this was essential to the Jamaican music buisness,, and is a very important asect of Reggae music, which is based on rythems, going back to mento and SKA, again the most famouse early stuff is by SKATALITES, and BUSTERS BAND both had top musicions playing very indervidueal unique styles, in 1981 lovers rock was the to sound and had been for 3 years, however I heard a record while walking home in BLAKENHAL and thought it was a great sound, over the week I kept on hearing it, so I went to SUMMIT Records said to the bloke I want a record but dont no who it's by, "I could hear the sucking of teeth, and Babalon muttering" bloke said that could be anything, so I hummed the Rythem to him and the onlookers, and the mans face grinned, what verion do you want SPA as there are over 100?

to many you may know the rythem as the backing to "under my sleng teng" a minor hit, over the next month I had 40 x 2 differant versions? amazing,

When ISLAND launched the soul label SUE, again the contract was with Juggy Jones and that story is well known, and there were no demos also discussed was the black mark, as ISLAND sent the music to the demographic that it appealed to. The catalouge was distrubuted in small batches, to cater for the West Indian populus and also at the MOD clubs in 5 citys, these are I believe some of the ones that had the A stamped the records with the shop logo or the 3/- price was simmular to the us 45s with a drill hole and were classed as old stock, again easy mistaken by the soul market as a demo, because of the fact that they only had a few outlests,

Again I have written about the way ISLAND & SUE went about the way deals were made, and when Guy Stevens left ISLAND, and Blues & Soul man John Abbey took over the label & the frustrations of DAVE GODIN had after he pionted out the goings on, the other week,

However it was at this time the ISLAND RECORD group joined with B&C RECORDS, SUE record ended, along with the R&W Bow tie label. Action label was developed by John Abbey, but the real change was how the Jamaican Music was handled by B&C the launch of TROJAN RECORDS in 1967 issued classic music from DUKE REID not that we noticed at the time, When the Soul label Action was Launched in 68, B&C relaunched TROJAN - DUKE REID and then added more labels, also they issued some BLAK UK Pressed Pre release, again this is the nearest you will get to a DEMO.

The ACTION Label issued advanced copys with the famouse skelington capitol A on I class these as DEMOs as there are very few of them, however they are all on stock copys, B&C did use the A but these are very had to locate as they were sent to a very small number of white DJs who played to the inner city kids black & white to capture the new Skinhead Rude Boy sub culture, however they quickly dispended that idea and repromoted the most popular records through buget LPs TIGHTEN UP Vol 1-10 and by putting the 45s in a great sleeve. most of all the history of ISLAND can be sort out on a few books, but the YOUNG GIFTED & BLACK BOOK is worth getting even though the auther has put skinhead on nearly every page???

oh the 3 proper Demos were the ISLAND pressed BLACK & WHITE SOUL CITY RECORDS,

These demo make the GESTALT as PHILIPS 6 FONTANA started to issue B&W DEMOS at the same time??? if any one has a simular DEMO on any other 60s label please show, also ALL the BLACK AND GREEN ACTION LABEL that EMI Distributed have there company DEMO stuff on ad come out in the 70s

AS ALWAYS DAVE K

[TOAD]

the only trojan demos are the gwp white labels ?

[Guest john s]

Most of the 60s ISLAND records would not have any demos as the DJs were given the JA pre release

However it was at this time the ISLAND RECORD group joined with B&C RECORDS, SUE record ended, along with the R&W Bow tie label. Action label was developed by John Abbey, but the real change was how the Jamaican Music was handled by B&C the launch of TROJAN RECORDS in 1967 issued classic music from DUKE REID not that we noticed at the time, When the Soul label Action was Launched in 68, B&C relaunched TROJAN - DUKE REID and then added more labels, also they issued some BLAK UK Pressed Pre release, again this is the nearest you will get to a DEMO.

The Island R&W bow tie label didn't end in 1967 when Trojan was launched.

Island R&W demos look like this...

[dthedrug]

HI ALL Trying to write a history of a company, that started in 1959 and has run through 5 decades with 100s of releases, in a page, is not the easy thing to take on, is it? and to receive 3 0r 4 word replies adds little, the company decision to change was in 1966, the fact that the red & white label was still used in 68 is true, but they used the new catalogue numbering and then got rid of the label in favour of the pink label, which also had slight changes to it over a shot period?

My piece was trying to find a definitive answer to the question of ISLAND RECORDS demonstration records that had a regular release?

As yet I have not come across any run of records that had a demo that looked significantly different to the actual issue,

Those that do are clearly promotional demos such as the Jimmy Cliff Vietnam, as the cover info states it is limited to 200 copies,

The white label TROJAN Records that exist are or were at the time available to buy at the MUSIC CITY shops, as were other white UK JA UK pressed records such as the FAB BLANKS, PAMA BLANKS, These records although nice to own are not promotional or demo copies in the context of my article, and are more in line with the stuff that GOLDMINE put out, in fact at least Goldmine made an attempt at making the records look different, however for the amount of demo made, How many of you were on the Goldmine list to receive any of their records 6 weeks in advance of them issuing a release?

No I am far from a expert on this, I am just trying to get to a point that we all agree on, not for people to point out my mistakes. but to add information that can be used, that has not been available or published in books fanzines etc,

TO CONCLUDE I am stating that there are no SUE DEMOS, Never was, however there are SUE RECORDS that have stamped marks that were put on ISSUE or STOCK copies to identify the side to play, And that is what I hope this ARTICLE CAN ANSWER??? DAVE

[Guest john s]

HI ALL Trying to write a history of a company, that started in 1959 and has run through 5 decades with 100s of releases, in a page, is not the easy thing to take on, is it? and to receive 3 0r 4 word replies adds little, the company decision to change was in 1966, the fact that the red & white label was still used in 68 is true, but they used the new catalogue numbering and then got rid of the label in favour of the pink label, which also had slight changes to it over a shot period?

My piece was trying to find a definitive answer to the question of ISLAND RECORDS demonstration records that had a regular release?

As yet I have not come across any run of records that had a demo that looked significantly different to the actual issue,

Those that do are clearly promotional demos such as the Jimmy Cliff Vietnam, as the cover info states it is limited to 200 copies,

The red and white series (WI numbers) and pink series (WIP numbers) ran in parallel through 1967 and 1968 - pink generally for 'pop', r/w generally for reggae - though neither is exact, as the r/w series has anomalies like the Chords Five (Psych/mod) 45, and the pink series has Jimmy Cliff, Jackie Edwards and so on...

I think there were 60 or 70 releases in the r/w series in 1967, and again in 1968.

The 'sample' stamped Island came from a collection I bought a few years ago - the original owner was a club DJ in the latter half of the 60s, and was sent a lot of promos - the EMI group 45s (Columbia, Parlophone, TMGs etc) were mostly green/white demos, CBS and Pye 'A' labels like you'd expect, Decca (not very many there) mostly hand-written for some reason, Philips/Fontana stamped in yellow, Islands stamped like the photo.

[dthedrug]

HI JOHN Yes you are right, and as I have said much of the ISLAND story has been told, I am only trying to answer the question about the A stamped SUE copies that some people are mistaken, as DEMO copies, my thread was just a bit of background and not meant to be a comprehensive peace, only to point out that in my opinion there were no SUE DEMOS,

On the subject of records given to DJ that in my opinion also has little foundation, as I freely admit my 1st hand knowledge about this subject comes from the years 1969 & onwards when myself and 2 mates would travel around different outlets that distributed ISLAND products and also PAMA & JA IMPORTS and at every outlet, I can recall the sound man, in this case Aston Williams, had to haggle over each exclusive pre release, they were not given as freebies, this haggling is very much a part of JA culture, if you have ever tried to buy records of a Jamaican you will understand what I mean, you can take weeks trying to get records of them, Years in some cases,

I can tell you now where a collection of 60s 70s SKA. ROCK STEADY & REGGAE are in there cases, ALEX's Barber Shop, on the SOHO Rd, go and get them from the old man? if you think you can just do dealings the white man way?

SUE RECORDS were only given free to certain CLUBS and not to DJ unless the person who distributed them gave a couple away with an order, However all I am trying to ascertain, is my findings right, is there a DJ who can say that he was on a mailing list and received SUE RECORDS prior to the release & did they look different to the issue?

Also it would be good to have another thread on the sort of info that you put forward as it is of interest to many readers, thanx