Stories

During the mid to late 1960’s, The Rolling Stones and Tom Jones were London Records of Canada’s best sellers. Nearly two decades before that, sales of London albums by Mantovani and his Orchestra were making cash registers across Canada sing. The book, “British Hit Singles and Albums” states that Mantovani was “Britain’s most successful album act before The Beatles” and was “the first act to sell over one million stereo albums.”

London Records of Canada or The London Gramophone Corporation of Canada, as it was called from 1948 until 1967 was launched when the British Decca Company and the American Decca Records split. Since British Decca couldn’t use the Decca name in North America, London Records was created to release records in Canada and the U.S.

London Records was known for their dedication to fidelity. Mono London albums had an FFRR logo (Full Frequency Range Recording) usually in the top right corner. Once stereo started making its mark, the new logo FFSS (Full Frequency Stereophonic Sound) was added.

The first Canadian to record for London Records was Jacques Labrecque, a former Radio Canada tenor who lived in Europe (mainly Paris) for several years and recorded his first album there in 1950. The following year, London Canada made recordings with famed French performers Pierre Roche and Charles Aznavour. In its early years, London released hundreds of French titles.

Andy Dejarlis, a Manitoba fiddler and one of the most popular performers on the Prairies, was one of the early London signed artists. Andy recorded 25 albums for London Records starting in 1959. Another westerner, Gabby Haas, a naturalized Canadian, recorded many accordion albums for London. Gabby was known as ‘Canada’s Mr. Polka’, a title since passed on to Walter Ostanek. Quebec born country singer Paul Brunelle recorded with London from 1961 until 1975.

Like Quality records, London Records distributed smaller U.S. labels, including Dolton Records (The Fleetwoods, The Ventures), Dore/Era Records (The Teddy Bears, early Jan & Dean, Dorsey Burnette, Donnie Brooks, Gogi Grant), Co-ed Records, (The Crests, Adam Wade, The Duprees).

Through U.S. based Liberty and Imperial Records, London Records Canada had sales success with albums and 45 singles from Bobby Vee, David Seville and The Chipmunks, Jackie DeShannon, Johnny Burnette, Jay and The Americans, Julie London, Gene McDaniels, Dick and DeeDee, Sandy Nelson, Fats Domino and Ricky Nelson.

Two years prior to the full ‘British Invasion’ in music in 1964 that launched The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Animals and many more onto North America’s shores, London Records had a number one hit single in Canada with “Telstar” by The Tornados, an English group under the direction of Joe Meek, Britain’s hottest record producer at the time. Once the floodgates opened in 1964, London had Canadian rights to many British hit makers, including The Rolling Stones, The Zombies, and Tom Jones (through its Parrot Records subsidiary).

In the late 1960’s, the company was renamed London Records of Canada (1967) Ltd. and Fraser Jamieson, a Canadian working in London’s New York office was brought in as President.

During this era, successful Canadian artists either signed to, or distributed by London Records included The Poppy Family, The Collectors, Rene Simard, Ginette Reno, Andre Gagnon, Gary and Dave, Andy Kim, Sweeney Todd, Terry Jacks, Susan Jacks. Chilliwack and Michel Pagliaro.

London Records of Canada (1967) Ltd. ceased operations when the British parent company, Decca Records merged with the Polygram Group in 1979, which twenty years later joined the MCA groups of companies and formed Universal Music Group.

It’s hard to imagine that a gigantic, international organization such as RCA Victor Records (now a part of the Sony Music group) could have ever begun as a small independent.

But it did. And it’s all due to one man – German born inventor Emile Berliner.

Berliner immigrated to the United States in 1870. Seven years later, he’d invented the microphone (which he sold to Alexander Graham Bell) and was working on a flat lateral groove disc system of playing music that could be commercially manufactured. Up to that point, Thomas Edison’s wax cylinder machine was the only way to hear recorded music, although the quality of the sound left a lot to be desired. In fact, it was Edison who coined (and trademarked) the word ‘phonograph’.

Berliner named his invention the gramophone.

Emile Berliner took his idea to Eldridge Johnson, an sewing machine repair shop owner in Camden, New Jersey, who conceived of a spring motor to maintain a continuous turntable speed. That became the foundation for the modern record player.

In 1898, Berliner (along with his brother Joseph) expanded his growing empire by founding Deutsche Grammophon in Germany. The company would go on to become the world’s leading classical music label. That same year, Berliner, this time with a different partner, founded the Gramophone Co. Ltd in Great Britain, which over the years, became EMI (and is now part of the Universal Music Group).

Berliner was a very busy man, but should have paid a little more attention to his core business in America.

There were all sorts of snakes, scoundrels and thieves waiting in the wings and after several lawsuits and court cases, which did not go well for Berliner, he was barred from conducting business in the United States. Although a deal was struck where he would receive royalties for the rest of his life, Emile Berliner moved his family to Montreal where he had launched the Berliner Gram-o-phone company. Although Berliner didn’t stay in Quebec for long, his son Herbert did, and a few years later, he launched his own Canadian record company called Compo.

Eldridge Johnson eventually gained control of Berliner’s patents (along with the now iconic trademarked painting of a little white dog named Nipper cocking his head at the sound of ‘His Master’s Voice’ coming out of the Gramophone horn). Johnson also began to improve upon Berliner’s disc formulation by using wax and he changed the name of his company from the Consolidated Talking Machine Company to the Victor Talking Machine Company. …and RCA Victor Records was born. Well, not quite.

That happened in 1929 when the Radio Corporation of America, which was a major manufacturer of radios, radio equipment and also owned a network of radio stations in the U.S. acquired the Victor Talking Machine Company. In the same year that Emile Berliner died in Washington D.C., RCA Victor Records made its debut.

While there was serious competition between the rival record companies of the day, there was occasionally, a spark of co-operation. Columbia Records led by scientist Peter Goldmark and his research team are historically credited with inventing the 12” LP (long playing album) in 1948 (even though the initial Columbia LP releases were actually 10”). This allowed record companies to have nearly 25 minutes of music per side instead of the 5 or 6 minutes on their 78rpm records. The LP was also made of a better quality (a plastic compound called vinylite) than the prevailing 78’s, which were shellac. Columbia executives thought that this technology would help advance the entire record industry and set up a meeting with RCA Victor executives to share their technology. After Columbia made its presentation, the RCA group, angry over being beaten to the LP format by a rival company, stood up and walked out.

Within two years, RCA Victor had invented the 45rpm vinyl single…and a new record revolution was underway. And yes, RCA did eventually adopt the LP format as well. The company built record pressing plants in several cities in North America, including Camden, New Jersey and Smith Falls, Ontario.

There were several decades during the 20th Century when RCA Victor was one of the largest and most profitable record companies in the world, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars every year from such hugely successful RCA artists as Elvis Presley, Hank Snow, Neil Sedaka, Mario Lanza, Paul Anka, Harry Belafonte, Jim Reeves, Henry Mancini, Nilsson, Dolly Parton, Floyd Cramer, Jefferson Airplane, Skeeter Davis, Perry Como, David Bowie, John Denver, Duane Eddy, Sam Cooke, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Eddie Fisher, The Guess Who and hundreds of others around the world.

Emile Berliner would have been proud.

When Quality Records opened its doors in Canada in October of 1949, there were less than a handful of record companies north of the 49th parallel. All of those were branches of foreign companies.

Quality Records was the first Canadian record company wholly owned by Canadians. Founded by a group from Western Canada headed by Harold Carson, who was a partner in the automotive distribution company, Taylor Pearson & Carson, Quality quickly grew to become Canada’s largest independent record company.

Ah, those independent record companies, they were the backbone of the American record industry during the mid to late 1950’s, ’60’s and well into the ’70’s. There were thousands of tiny, ‘regional’ labels spread all across the United States with labels like Legrand, Co-ed, Dot, Minit, Dore, Big Top, Era, Amy, King, Jamie, Chancellor, Del-Fi, Swan, Old Town, Wand, Laurie, Diamond, Buddah, Carlton, A&M, Roulette, Dot, Sun, Candix, Warwick, Kama-Sutra, Dolton, Garpax, Musicor. Sceptor and Cameo/Parkway, just to name a few.

Canada had few of these ‘regional’ labels. Quality Records, led by General Manager George Keane, who’d been hired in 1954, began signing Canadian distribution deals with many of these U.S. indies. Keane had worked in the studios of RCA Victor and in sales at MGM Records in New York and knew the record business extremely well. Naturally enough, MGM Records was the first U.S. record company George Keane signed for Canadian distribution by Quality. For well over a decade, Quality had the Canadian rights to more than 50% of the hits on Billboard Magazine’s Hot 100 chart, then the bible of the North American record industry.

Quality had its own in-house pressing and manufacturing plant and could sign and release music by an artist and have it in record stores quickly. By the early 1960’s, Quality was releasing records by Canadian artists such as country singers Myrna Lorrie and Jack Kingston and a Montreal based vocal group known as The Beau Marks, who racked up half a dozen home-grown hits starting in 1960 with “Clap Your Hands” and ending in ’62 with “The Tender Years”. “Clap Your Hands” also became The Beau Marks only U.S. charted single.

Besides using many of the U.S. label names in Canada, as well as the Quality label itself, George Keane launched several additional labels, such as Reo and Barry (named for his son Barry, who has been Gordon Lightfoot’s drummer for nearly 40 years). Reo, for example was used to release early Top Ten instrumental hits from guitarist Duane Eddy, ‘The Twist’ king Chubby Checker, as well as those ‘Jersey Boys’, The Four Seasons. The Barry label released albums and singles from ’60’s teen idol Bobby Rydell, instrumental group Johnny and The Hurricanes and Dionne Warwick as well as Manitoba born songstress Lucille Starr (“The French Song” and “Jolie Jacqueline”)

George Struth joined Quality Records in 1957, initially in inventory control, but quickly worked his way up the ranks to become Vice President under George Keane. It was Struth who took the song “Shakin’ All Over” by Winnipeg’s Chad Allan and The Expressions and released it to radio stations on a white 45rpm label with the words Guess Who? handwritten on it. Struth thought that the Chad Allan version sounded like one of the British Invasion songs, and in fact, it had already been a hit in England by Johnny Kidd and The Pirates. Radio stations across Canada held contests asking their listeners if they could ‘guess who’ the group was.

The name stuck.

George Struth eventually became the first President of Quality Records (George Keane and following his retirement, George Bays both held the title of General Manager). Struth successfully led Quality through the disco era of the 1970’s and into the mid ’80’s.

Quality Records ceased operations in 1985. It was revived in 1991, specializing in dance music and compilations. When it finally folded in 1997, Quality’s catalogue was sold to a record company in New York.

David Clayton-Thomas (born David Henry Thomsett, 13 September 1941) is a Grammy Award-winning Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the American band Blood, Sweat & Tears. Clayton-Thomas has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and in 2007 his jazz/rock composition “Spinning Wheel” was enshrined in the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. In 2010 Clayton-Thomas received his star on Canada’s Walk of Fame.

Clayton-Thomas began his music career in the early 1960s, working the clubs on Toronto’s Yonge Street, where he discovered his love of singing and playing the blues. Before moving to New York City in 1967, Clayton-Thomas fronted a couple of local bands, first The Shays and then The Bossmen, one of the earliest rock bands with significant jazz influences. But the real success came only a few difficult years later when he joined Blood, Sweat & Tears.

In 1964 Clayton-Thomas and The Shays recorded a rendition of John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom”. This led to a New York engagement for the Shays on NBC-TV’s Hullabaloo at the invitation of its host, fellow Canadian Paul Anka. Abandoning the bars on the strip, Clayton-Thomas began performing in Yorkville Village’s coffeehouses. He immersed himself in the local jazz & blues scene dominated by the likes of John Lee Hooker, Joe Williams, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Lenny Breau, Oscar Peterson, and Moe Koffman. Clayton-Thomas made his mark more forcibly with his next band, The Bossmen, one of the first rock bands anywhere to include jazz musicians. In 1966 he wrote and performed the R&B-driven anti-war song “Brainwashed”, which became a major Canadian hit, peaking at No. 11 on the national RPM chart.

Clayton-Thomas’s first album with the band, Blood, Sweat & Tears sold ten million copies worldwide. The record topped the Billboard album chart for seven weeks and charted for 109 weeks. It won five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Best Performance by a Male Vocalist. It featured three hit singles, “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy”, “Spinning Wheel”, and “And When I Die” (on the Hot 100, each peaked at No. 2 and lasted 13 weeks) as well as a rendition of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless The Child”.
In 1972 Thomas released his first Columbia solo album after BS&T, simply titled “David Clayton Thomas”. In 1973 the second solo album Tequila Sunrise was issued by Columbia. In 1974 he issued the Harmony Junction album on RCA. In 1975 Thomas returned to front Blood Sweat & Tears again on the Columbia albums New City and, in 1976, More Than Ever. In 1977 they released Brand New Day on the ABC label. In 1978 Thomas issued another solo album on ABC, titled simply Clayton. In 1980 BS&T issued the MCA album Nuclear Blues, which also included Thomas. Later in the decade Columbia issued the double live BS&T album Live And Improvised again with Thomas. In 2004, Clayton-Thomas left New York for Toronto and launched an All-Star 10-piece band. Since then, he has toured and recorded almost a dozen albums under his own name.

In his 1974 autobiography, Clive: Inside the Record Business, Clive Davis, then president of Columbia Records, described his initial impression of Clayton-Thomas singing at the Café Au Go-Go: “He was staggering… a powerfully built singer who exuded an enormous earthy confidence. He jumped right out at you. I went with a small group of people, and we were electrified. He seemed so genuine, so in command of the lyric… a perfect combination of fire and emotion to go with the band’s somewhat cerebral appeal. I knew he would be a strong, strong figure.”

BS&T continued with a string of hit albums, including Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 which featured Clayton-Thomas’s “Lucretia MacEvil” and Carole King’s “Hi-De-Ho,” and BS&T 4, which yielded another Clayton-Thomas-penned hit single, “Go Down Gamblin’.” Blood Sweat & Tears’ Greatest Hits album has to date reportedly chalked up over seven million copies in worldwide sales.[citation needed]

BS&T headlined at major venues around the world: the Royal Albert Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, the Hollywood Bowl, Madison Square Garden, and Caesar’s Palace, as well as the Newport Jazz Festival and Woodstock. It was the first contemporary band to break through the Iron Curtain with its historic United States Department of State-sponsored tour of Eastern Europe in May and June 1970). In the early years Clayton-Thomas lived on the road, travelling all over Europe, Australia, Asia, South America, the US, and Canada with BS&T. The constant touring began to take its toll. Clayton-Thomas left the band in 1972, exhausted by life on the road. By the mid ’70s, the founding members began to drift away to start families and pursue their own musical ambitions.

Stan Klees (born 29 April 1932 at Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian retired music industry businessman. He created the music recording companies Tamarac and Red Leaf Records in the 1960s.

Klees was a presenter at CHUM radio in the late 1940s then was employed by London Records. He founded Tamarac Records in 1963.

His advice to Walt Grealis led to the development of RPM Weekly in 1964. Klees formally joined RPM as a staff member in 1971 to assist with organisation and publication design. He also designed the “MAPL” logo to identify Canadian content of produced songs, also known as the Cancon movement. Klees and Grealis established RPM’s annual awards for Canadian music in 1964 which led to the creation of the Juno Awards ceremonies in 1970.

In 1995, Klees was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.

In 2001, Klees was awarded the Special Achievement Award at the SOCAN Awards in Toronto.