Misplaced Pages

#448551

30-569: Pickwick Records was an American record label and British record distributor known for its budget album releases of sound-alike recordings, bargain bin reissues and repackagings under the brands Design , Bravo (later changing its name to International Award ), Hurrah , Grand Prix , and children's records on the Cricket and Happy Time labels. The label is also known for distributing music by smaller labels like Sonny Lester 's Groove Merchant , Gene Redd's De-Lite Records , Chart Records and

60-555: A few records from groups such as The Young Lovers and Kings Road in earlier years. This lasted until 1983 when PolyGram folded Pickwick. The Hallmark name has since been revived as a budget record label owned by the Pickwick Group. Pickwick's catalogue (including the entire De-lite/Mercury catalogue of Kool & The Gang) is now owned by Universal Music , which was formed by the merger of the MCA and PolyGram families of labels in 1999. In

90-714: A label of children's records. In 1957, after successfully marketing its Cricket children's label of 78- and 45rpm records, Pickwick entered the LP market with low-priced records, beginning with its Design label. The albums from the 1960s into the early 1970s bore the "Pickwick/33" imprint. Singer-songwriter Lou Reed once worked as a staff songwriter for Pickwick Records, and gained experience in its small recording studio. Several of Pickwick's soundalike albums from 1964 to 1965 feature Reed as an uncredited session musician . Two of his songs, "Cycle Annie" (credited to The Beachnuts) and "You're Driving Me Insane" (as The Roughnecks), both appeared on

120-412: A sealed copy of James Bond—The Themes (which was a purely soundalike record) sold for $ 4,000. Pickwick was well known for its "soundalike" records which often implied to be the original artists, but actually featured in-house bands or singers. When Pickwick issued The Everly's in 1984, all the songs were in fact covered by a singing duo called "Twice Divided". Pickwick was the record label to which

150-522: A two-LP set of mostly movie songs titled Double Dynamite . After Presley died in August 1977, sales of his recordings increased dramatically and RCA reclaimed the rights to Presley's Camden releases from Pickwick. Pickwick also reissued numerous LPs from the Motown catalogue during the 1970s. On many of these albums, the cover art was changed, and/or the track listing was altered (with two or more songs deleted). In

180-586: Is the eleventh studio album by the American band Kool & the Gang , released in 1979. The album became their first major success especially after the release of the title track, the U.S. #8 " Ladies' Night ," and the U.S. #5 follow-up " Too Hot " which both became Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 . The album brought a return to the mainstream after a lull in success from 1976–1978. Ladies' Night reached number one on

210-695: The Soundsville! compilation in 1965. "The Ostrich" and "Sneaky Pete", two earlier songs by Reed, united him with John Cale , leading to their founding of the Velvet Underground . Amos Heilicher and his brother Daniel Heilicher merged their Musicland retail chain with Pickwick International in the late 1960s. Capitol Records had an early interest in Pickwick, and many Capitol artists including Frank Sinatra , The Beach Boys and Nat King Cole , had recordings issued on Pickwick; however, Capitol sold its share in

240-584: The Synthetic Plastics Company who made Peter Pan Records ), and Ambassador Records. In United Kingdom , the Woolworths Group jointly owned Embassy Records with Oriole Records , later part of CBS . The Music for Pleasure (MFP) label was founded in 1965 as a joint venture between EMI , which provided the source material, and the publisher Paul Hamlyn , which handled distribution in so-called non-traditional outlets, such as W.H. Smith ,

270-494: The U.S. R&B chart. Additionally, all the cuts from the album reached number five on the disco chart. With Ladies' Night , Kool & the Gang made their funk style more mainstream by incorporating some pop and light R&B into the sound. The result was that this album was not only popular during the 1970s black-oriented funk era where the band started, but also during the more popular and diverse disco era. Ladies' Night became their first Platinum album. It also marked

300-573: The " orchestras " comprised very few musicians, were performed by background music companies, or were recorded outside the United States by orchestras credited under different names, such as 101 Strings . Despite major record companies lowering their prices or starting their own budget labels, the budget album companies, such as Coronet (who sold their LPs for 99 cents), remained easily available. Drugstore records originated with Pickwick International , founded by Cy Leslie . Leslie's first business

330-429: The 1910s. It was fashionable for a chain like McCrory's or Kress to have their own exclusive label. Most of these records contained songs also available on many other 'exclusive' labels. (For example from the 1920s into the 1930s, Paramount Records produced the 'Broadway' label for Montgomery Ward , Cameo Records produced the 'Romeo' label for Kress, Columbia Records produced the 'Diva' label for W.T. Grant, and

SECTION 10

#1733085437449

360-457: The 1960s such as Connie Smith , Liz Anderson , and Dottie West to perhaps encourage sales of the artists' full-priced product. RCA Camden was particularly successful in repackaging older Elvis Presley recordings on the Camden label, as well as previously released and also unreleased material he recorded for his motion pictures, making these albums among the select few budget albums to actually make

390-534: The De-lite imprint, and subsequent Kool & The Gang records were issued by PolyGram's Mercury label, while De-Lite Records was acquired by Unidisc . After the purchase by PolyGram, Pickwick started putting out new material again, but this time it was "Sound-Alike" albums which featured covers of a certain artist or group on one album, and Disco Christmas albums. Most of those albums were performed by session musicians and singers dubbed Mirror Image; Pickwick also issued

420-749: The Harmony name from 1926 through 1932 and again in the late 1940s). The budget albums' peak was in the late 1960s and early 1970s when nearly every recording artist of note had one or more such collections on the market. Often these were recordings done for a previous record label before the star's current popularity. Major labels of the day with their own budget lines include: Other budget record labels were Somerset Records that became Alshire Records in 1963, Stereo Fidelity, Audio Spectrum, Peter Rabbit (children's records), Azteca, Score Records (a subsidiary of Aladdin Records ), Custom, Diplomat Records (a product of

450-501: The LP era, in some cases (notably the least expensive of the records) the record album would have only one cover version of a famous song or tune. Many of these albums had attractive album cover artwork (often picturing starlets such as Jayne Mansfield , Kim Novak , Irish McCalla , and the then-unknown Mary Tyler Moore ). The album were often filled out with music in the public domain or obscure music never recorded by anyone else. Sometimes

480-533: The Modern label. In 1954, Pickwick entered into a licensing arrangement with Capitol Records giving Pickwick the rights to press and distribute Capitol's secondary and noncurrent titles on their label. Pickwick's records were mostly sold in stores other than record shops such as department stores , dimestores , drugstores , and supermarkets . Pickwick later had several subsidiaries such as Bravo, Design, International Award, Hurrah, Grand Prix, and Hallmark Records in

510-751: The Plaza Music Company produced the ' Oriole ' label for McCrory's, among many others.) Drugstore records were called such as they were often sold in metal racks similar to the racks used for paperback books in drugstores or dimestores in the 1960s for prices from half to a quarter of regular LP albums . These records were markedly less expensive than major label recordings. The initial "drugstore records" mostly comprised popular music played or sung by unknown orchestras or singers, or conversely, once famous singers or orchestras playing music or songs that were relatively unknown (popular singers' early and obscure recordings were often showcased as well). By

540-586: The Swedish label Sonet Records (for which it distributed late-1960s recordings by Bill Haley & His Comets in Canada and the US). They also issued records from Britain's Hallmark Records label. Pickwick Records (originally formed as Pickwick Sales Corporation , later Pickwick International ) was founded in 1950 by Cy Leslie , whose first business was a prerecorded greeting-card service that in 1946 turned into Voco Records,

570-445: The U.K. RCA Records introduced RCA Camden Records in 1955, a budget label for re-releasing older recordings by currently popular artists on the label or vintage material from previous decades. Occasionally, original music was produced for release on RCA Camden such as children's music and instrumentals. RCA Camden also released single albums of country music recorded especially for the budget label by many of its newer country acts of

600-868: The booksellers. The MFP catalogue consisted of both original material and reissues of existing EMI recordings. In Venezuela (and arguably other Latin American countries)it was quite common to find these recordings in the Cassette format, which allowed for even cheaper and lower quantity of copies for each album issued. Usually rebranding from other budget label albums, were marketed under the Cim-Bra, Vallison, Co-Co, Allegro, Rotna, CM-Circulo Musical labels, and even other popular labels mostly marketing local artists issued budget albums as well, such as Suramericana del Disco, Yare, Promus, among others. Notable artists to have begun their careers recording for budget albums include Lou Reed , Jerry Cole , Al Kooper and Tina Charles . Perhaps

630-583: The company in 1970. In the 1970s, the label changed direction, and began reissuing LPs that had been deleted from catalogues of the major record labels, especially the RCA Records budget reissue label RCA Camden . Most notable in the RCA Camden catalogue, Pickwick obtained the rights in the mid-1970s to reissue Camden albums featuring recordings by Elvis Presley . The company also put out an edited reissue of Presley's soundtrack album of Frankie and Johnny , and

SECTION 20

#1733085437449

660-503: The early 1980s Motown began re-releasing its own catalogue albums, thus ending Pickwick's series. The company also started the subsidiary label P.I.P and started distributing Gene Redd's De-Lite Records , to issue original material. De-Lite hit it big in 1974 and 1975 with million-selling singles & albums by funk band Kool & The Gang . P.I.P had a couple of big dance club hits with "7-6-5-4-3-2-1 (Blow Your Whistle)" and "Drive My Car" by Gary Toms Empire in 1975. In 1977, Pickwick

690-442: The early 1980s, Pickwick manufactured so-called "audiophile" pressings on heavy vinyl (usually 180–240 grams). However, some audio aficionados found the sound quality in these pressings inferior to that of normal vinyl. These LPs were quickly deleted and some record collectors are now willing to pay extremely high prices for these records. In 2003, a copy of The Beach Boys Greatest Hits sold for just over $ 2,500 at auction, and in 2008

720-652: The fictional band Crème Brulée, from British sitcom The League of Gentlemen , was nearly signed to during its 1970s heyday. This came from a running gag about the market-stall sales that Pickwick enjoyed in England. Thes One , from the hip-hop group People Under The Stairs , mentions the label in the track "43 Labels I Like" (from its 2000 album Question in the Form of an Answer ). Budget album Discount stores (as well as department stores ) have had records produced for them by various record producing companies since

750-554: The full-price product although RCA Camden did on occasion market their albums in speciality "drug store" racks. The major label budget albums usually had eight to ten songs on them (usually nine) as opposed to full-price releases which contained ten to twelve songs. Columbia Records re-introduced the Harmony Records line around the same time for budget releases of older product repackaged. Harmony, however, seldom issued material that had not been previously released (Columbia has used

780-516: The most notable artists to emerge from a career as a "cover artist" for budget albums include Dolly Parton who, early in her career as a teenaged vocalist, recorded several covers of Kitty Wells hits for budget album release, and Elton John , who recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s for the Top of the Pops album series. See also List of record labels Ladies%27 Night (album) Ladies' Night

810-539: The national best-selling charts. At one point, the Camden albums were doing so well that two of Presley's major hit singles of the early 1970s - "Burning Love" and "Separate Ways" (and their respective flipsides) made their album debuts not on mainstream RCA releases, but on RCA Camden. Not long before Presley's death, RCA licensed its Camden line to Pickwick, though it eventually revived the label. The major labels' budget album releases were seldom sold at "drug stores", mainly at record shops and department stores just like

840-438: Was a prerecorded greeting card service that turned into children's record label Voco Records in 1946. In 1950, Leslie founded Pickwick Records and by 1953 Pickwick entered the LP market providing lower priced records. Another early producer of drugstore records was Enoch Light , who started Waldorf Music Hall Records under the auspices of the F.W. Woolworth dime store chain. Unlike most drugstore record producers, Light

870-588: Was sold to the American Can Company , which relocated its corporate headquarters from Long Island City, New York to Minneapolis, Minnesota, then subsequently sold its assets to PolyGram in the same year. PolyGram maintained the De-Lite Records label for releases by Kool & the Gang who experienced a second wave of success after the addition of new lead singer, J.T. Taylor, beginning with the group's 1979 album, Ladies Night . PolyGram later did away with

900-604: Was well regarded both as a musician and for his technical recording knowledge; which he would make much use of later in establishing Command Records . Probably the best known and most prolific drugstore label was Crown Records , an offshoot of Modern Records , owned by the Bihari brothers and operated from Los Angeles. From the mid-1950s to the early 80s, Crown turned out hundreds of cheaply produced LPs of country, Hawaiian, Latin, and other musical genres; often performed by pseudonymous studio groups; as well as blues material reissued from

#448551