A musical rendezvous in '75

The Countour label needs little introduction to cover version aficianados. After all, it played host to no fewer than 22 editions of 16 Chart Hits between 1972 and 1975. And a fine host it was too, Mayfair-based and carrying the promise of a Musical Rendezvous, who were in fact a sort of parent company for Contour.

16 Chart Hits was prolific in its day, and copies are still pretty easy to find. Less easy are the end-of-year round-up albums, and especially the last one, 20 Great Hits of '75 - which I managed to add to my collection last week. For me it completes my Countour collection. Here are some scans...

This album proved to be Countour's last hurrah. Rounding up three or four songs from each of their last half a dozen standard LPs, it covers three quarters of the year - 16 Chart Hits having petered out in late summer. Thus, Countour missed their chance to join Hallmark in attempting a version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" - probably just as well!

Interestingly, Contour's first venture into the cover version field was also an end-of-year collection, Top Hit Replay '71 acting as a curtain raiser for 16 Chart Hits, with no previous LPs to draw on for its contents. Four years on, and the LP above ends the story, so far as we are concerned. What's left to do? Make some crop circles, I suppose.