More on the Top 12 Pops...

Readers might recall that collector Bill Williams contacted us a while ago about an old 78rpm, 10-inch record on the Top 12 Pops label, dating back to 1956. We featured it here, and below is a label scan:

At the time, this very early covers record was the first we knew of the label, but for a different but seemingly related release from a little earlier. The records seem to have been mail-order releases, and now, through the shop window of Ebay, we have chanced upon a couple more:

The scans show two more releases in the series: EMO 19 and EMO 62.

EMO 19 consists of: Memories Are Made Of This / It's Almost Tomorrow / Only You / I Hear You Knocking / Croce Di Oro / Gee Whittaker.

EMO 62 consists of: Great Pretender / Teenage Prayer / Band Of Gold / Davy Crocket / Sixteen Tons / Shifting Whispering Sands.

The track listings suggest that the records date to around 1955-56, and we would love to find out more about this series. These two got away from us, but if we chance upon more, we will post them up here as part of the ongoing research into this early covers label. 

Very early covers EP discovered

Thanks to record collector Bill Williams, I have come across the following 10-inch record, which might be termed an EP, given that it contains six tracks. It's something of a prototype for the more familiar 7-inch EPs which would follow in the 1960s, but this one dates right back to 1956, and is on 78!

The title is, as the scans show, "Top 12 Pops of the Month Record Club" - so it's a mail-order club release. The record is not anonymous - it's credited to the Top Pops Orchestra and Vocalists. What do we know about them? Not a lot, but we can make an educated guess.

Regular readers might recall a post about a year ago about another 78 - the first I'd ever found, in fact - by the Top Hits of the Month Record Club. The original post is here and a label scan below:

My hunch is that this latest find is by the same outfit, who have altered their name somewhat. The real clincher for me is the catalogue number. The one above has EMO 11, and this new discovery has EMO 20. This seems more than coincidence, so we can conjecture that it's part of the same run of mail-order 78s, from the same source.

Incidentally, despite its speed of 78 rpm, this EP is pressed onto vinyl rather than shellac, so it has a real claim to being one of the first, if not the first covers EP released in the UK.

Our thanks to Bill for the images and info.

Top Hits of the Month - cover versions from 1955!

A couple of weeks ago I spotted the following on EBay for a modest sum, and had to have it:

It is, of course, an old 78 gramophone record, which goes by the name "Top Hits of the Month Record Club". It turns out that this "club" was a small-time label which sold records by mail-order, and although the original cover for this particular disc has been lost, it had the attraction of still having the outer box it was originally posted in. How many of them survive, I wonder? So this is what arrived with me:

The box is not in too bad a condition, considering its age. It still had the original postal label on it, addressed to someone living on Exmoor in Devon, and it was originally held shut by a length of gummed paper, with the following branding printed on it:

These are the record labels:

The six tracks are clearly chosen for their success in America, all charting there over the summer of 1955. (By contrast only two charted in Britain, both at the end of the year.) The tracks and original artists are as follows:

Side 1

Seventeen (Boyd Bennett)

Hummingbird (Frankie Laine)

Hey Mr Banjo (The Sunnysiders)

Side 2

Gumdrop (The Crew-Cuts)

Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing (The Four Aces)

Longest Walk (Jaye P Morgan)

Getting all six onto a 10-inch 78 meant that the tracks had to be shortened as compared to the original recordings, down to under two minutes each. Nevertheless, what can be heard of them beneath the considerable surface noise reveals that these are extremely close to the hit versions, such that you have to really focus to spot the difference.

The poor sound quality does not lend itself to MP3 samples, but I did take one track - "Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing" - and transfer it for comparison with The Four Aces' original. To do this I had to spin the disc at 45 and then use digital software to get it up to 78 - which hardly helps with the sonics - but you can still hear how faithful this version is to the original:

78 Record Club Splendored Thing.wav
 
Four Aces - Love Is A Many Spendoured Thing.wav

So what do we know about the Top Hits of the Month Record Club? Not a great deal, really. It seems it was set up by an American, Manuel Kopelman, who seemed to lose interest in this UK venture fairly quickly, transfering his attentions on the US and Canada instead. The following appeared in Billboard on September 3, 1955:

A contemporary report in NME names a few of the musicians, pictured below, as the Harry Leader Orchestra. Harry is in glasses, and with him are singers Cyril Shane, Elizabeth Batey and Denny Dennis:

In terms of the label's other UK releases, we have yet to find one which contains popular music like the one above (which was, after all, released before rock n roll took hold). We do know of EMO 15 and EMO 16, both by The Choristers, which contain religious and/or Christmas songs. Tantalisingly we also spotted the advert below on another website, which suggests that 12-track LPs might even have been released!

Note the company logo - a string of records, like the ones printed on the label above. Needless to say, we'd love to know more about these records. Please get in touch if you know any more about them or about the label...

There is more information available on this site, dedicated to Matt Monro.