Tuesday, January 21, 2014

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.


5 comments:

  1. I have discs of the following from the same series: EMO19,EMO20,EMO21 & EMO62 all stored in the original box they were despatched in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow - sounds cool. I know a site where some scans would be most welcome: http://www.45worlds.com/78rpm/label/top-hits-of-the-month-record-club

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  3. Brilliant, I'll sign up and send in some scans within the next week. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Excellent - I'll check them out, I put a couple of them up, but there are plenty of gaps in the listing. It's a great site by the way - and really friendly people - all record fans and collectors.

    ReplyDelete