Friday, January 18, 2013

Top Ten and Top Six picture sleeve EPs

Pictured below are another couple of cover version EPs from the 1960s, which I picked up last week. Unusually, considering their vintage, both come in picture sleeves - two very different ones, in fact. The first is from the Top Ten series:




Top Ten is one of the UK's oldest cover version EP series, dating back to 1962. They were popular enough to appear in the official UK EP charts of the day, and originally went by the name Top Ten Record Club. After eight EPs had been released, they started being billed on the covers as "Peter Sterling's Top Ten", as shown in the example above. It's not entirely clear who Peter Sterling is, but it's been suggested that he is in fact the well-known session man Peter Lee Stirling, although the name is spelled differently. If anyone knows, leave us a message - there's a photo of this Peter Sterling on an LP cover, featured on the back of the EP sleeve.

The record itself features six tracks, and was the last one released, circa April 1964. Here are a couple of tracks from the EP:

Anyone Who Had A Heart.mp3

Bits and Pieces.mp3

The next EP is a little later - the start of 1967 to be precise - and is one of the 40 or so which make up the Top Six series. This is one of the very last, No. 37, and my copy came housed in the following picture cover, proclaiming it a "'Top Six' Spectacular":




There's no reason to suppose that this cover was not originally sold with this EP inside it, although if you check the website 45cat.com, the sleeve is assigned to Top Six EP, No. 38. Of course, it's perfectly possible that the sleeve was used on more than one EP - there's nothing on it to indicate what record should be inside, which is perhaps a clue in itself. Maybe it was for multiple use? It's a great picture sleeve though, very futuristic for its day, and one might imagine, visually striking when spotted in a record shop.

You might have noticed this sleeve somewhere else too... Readers of the blog will know that Top Six had a slightly awkward crossover with the Avenue EP series, but if you look at the printed sleeve for the Avenue EP, AVE 42, you will spot this "'Top Six' Spectacular" sleeve, along with a couple of recent Avenue 7-inchers:


Exclusive!!! This photo must have been taken in mid-1967, and to celebrate the passing of its 45th anniversary, I decided to bring the star EPs back together in a world's first. And they haven't aged a bit...


14 comments:

  1. FEB 1st.1967 Top Six 37.a good production on all six tracks and the last in the series to be recorded at 45rpm.In fact when TS 37 was released it lived up to the label name because the six titles on it were the actual six top songs on the charts that week.

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  2. Good point. I'd not notced that the discs switched to 33 rpm. Any knowledge of the discs numbered 39 and 40 in the sequence?

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  3. That was the parting of the waves of Avenue & BWD Top Six 39 and 40 were mainly taken from the first MFP Hits album which included Sitting in the park,peek a boo, a little bit me and others.I think the last in the series was number 44 using tracks issued on MFP Smash Hits including The day I met Marie.As you know Avenue started with the Cat. No.39 and went on to 165 into the year 1972. The TOP SIX Spectacular sleeve was produced by AVENUE and withdrawn after a couple of weeks when the two went their separate ways in early 1967.

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    2. Wow, I hadn't realised these EPs contained the early mfp recordings. I don't have any of the late EPs in the series. I do have a track listing for Top Six EP number 42, and five of the six songs also appear on mfp's "Smash Hits" LP:

      I'll Never Fall in Love Again / A Girl Like You / When I'm 64 / Thoroughly Modern Millie / San Francisco / Whiter Shade of Pale

      I wasn't sure that 39 and 40 existed. I haven't seen copies, but will keep hunting for them. Numbers 43 and 44 meanwhile are completely new to me. More research needed!

      It's interesting that the Top Six Spectacular sleeve was something to do with Avenue. It might be the case that Bill Wellings was also somehow behind it, since as you probably know, right at the start of 1967 he issued a covers LP called Top Ten Spectacular, seemingly under his own steam. (When he hooked up with mfp straight afterwards, they used a few songs from there on their first LP, Hits '67.) It seems more than coincidence - Top Six Spectacular and Top Ten Spectacular...

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  4. top ten records TPS 510 was the last in the series.You only have to listen to these final productions (far worse than what Embassy were still churning out)top ten records could not compete with the quality of the new Top Six No.2. Leaving only Allan Crawford and Chic Applin to continue with any real quality 7" 6 track cover records but they to had disappeared in little over a year

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  5. TTRC was disolved later in the Sixties. Does anyone know anything about the copyright on these tracks? Anyone in touch with Peter Snell or Peter Lee Stirling aka Daniel Boone?

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  6. Does anyone know which songs Elton John sang on before he became well known?

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    1. Indeed. It's been researched at some length (not by me). See here:

      http://tobekompleated.tripod.com/

      If you download the pdf (it takes a while) there is a very detailed section towards the end, which details all the cover versions he can be heard on, and the various records which were released.

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    2. Thanks, Popper!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  7. Hi, does anybody know who played the lead guitar breaks on the early top six ep's?The guitar work on 'no particular place to go' & 'the rise and fall of flingel bunt' (TP No5) and 'it's all over now' (TP No7) are all effortlessly spot on, whilst the short break on 'hold me' (TP No7) not only reproduces the correct note sequence but actually delivers exactlythe right nuance. colour me impressed. does any body know who he/they were? cw.

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    1. Sorry, I can't help with that one. Maybe someone else knows? They were all kept completely anonymous - I don't think I've ever seen names for the session guitarists.

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  8. My Mum had a Top Six EP with 5-4-3-2-1, Anyone Who Had A Heart, Bits & Pieces, Little Children, I'm The Lonely One and Over You. In other words, almost the same tracks as the Top Ten disc shown (with the exception of 5-4-3-2-1 instead of Stay Awhile) but with the Top Six label. Surely the same publisher wouldn't have two competing labels so similar?

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  9. Don't think there's any direct connection. Top Six was a separate thing to Top Ten Record Club. They probably copied the track selection to pinch a few sales from their rival.

    Interestingly there is a Top 4 label, which did issue some of the Top 6 EPs (same firm) but with two tracks missing!

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