Saturday, July 6, 2013

Mystery Chevron cassette

This week I was contacted by Steve, a fellow budget collector, who had stumbled upon the cassette below at a car boot sale. There seemed to be no information about it on the internet, but a bit of detective work has brought to light a bit of background detail - although there are still some unanswered questions...




The label is clear - Chevron, they of "Parade of Pops" fame. But when we look at the track listing, we see that all the songs were hits in the 1970s, before "Parade of Pops" was launched. So, what is actually included here? Steve has confirmed that they are all soundalike cover versions, so one would presume they are from one of the regular LP series.

My first hunch was the earlier "Parade of Pops" album series, on the Windmill label. But on checking the tracks, there are songs such as "In The Summertime" and "Your Song" which were never on the Windmill LPs. Cross-checking has revealed that the only series to contain all eleven titles was "Top of the Pops", but it is not clear whether these are the same versions. It seems unlikely, on the face of it.

The cassette itself, CHV 3010, is from a short-lived series of "Chevron Classics" double-packs which were issued in the mid-1980s. It therefore has a partner cassette with more tracks, and presumably was originally issued in an outer case of some sort, which has been lost over the years. I am not aware that any of the other twin packs in the CHV 3000 series contain cover versions, but there is very little information available and it is possible that more exist.

If anyone can help fill in some of these blanks, I would be glad to hear from you. Meantime, the tricky task begins of trying to find my own copy, now that I know it exists!

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