There were a few interesting online sales this week, all concerning quickly withdrawn items! First of all, the Animals LP from the 6000 series House Of The Rising Sun sold for 103.50$. This album was withdrawn since a deal had been made with MGM for the publishing rights.
The other record that sold this week was the James Taylor Apple single called Carolina On My Mind / Taking It In.
This record was soon replaced by a version with "Something's Wrong" on the flip side, and with the title of the A-side corrected to "Carolina IN My Mind".
This rare Canadian Apple single sold for 400$ !
A new section on Capitol Records of Canada Inner Sleeves has been added today under the Discographies tab. The section covers sleeves from early 78 RPM in 1949 up to late 80s 45 RPM singles sleeves and 33 RPM album inner sleeves.
From the "Corporate History" page for Capitol of Canada, it is seen that the London Ontario operation spanned 1949-1956. The Toronto operation started in 1956 and is still going strong there as EMI. So you can see that Capitol sold a lot of records in Canada between 1949 and the 1990s and therefore there are many thousands of these cool sleeves out there !
Click HERE to visit the new page.
All of these "re-issue" singles were re-pressed by RCA in 1967. They all have brackets around the word Canada on the label's perimeter print and were housed in the newer Capitol stock paper sleeves that featured the word "Capitol" repeated in black, on an angular format, on a white background. Here is the listing of what was issued:
More titles may have been issued at this time. The pressing quantities were limited so they are very scarce. More detailed information on this subject is to be found on page 99 of "The Beatles Canadian Discography Part 1 - 45 RPM & Other Special 7" Discs" which was published in 2003.
Some re-pressings were done by Compo, like this Yesterday single. It is supposed that these obscure repressings were shared between the two pressing plants. Paperback Writer was in print during the change-over, this is why late summer 1966 copies had the brackets on the label
A VG+ copy of the Yardbirds "Having a Rave Up With The Yardbirds" on Capitol's 6000 series sold today for an impressive $83 ! Yardbirds collectors should note that original Compo-pressed stereo ST-6166 copies of this LP from 1966 are very scarce and would fetch more than twice the price of the much more common mono copy that is featured here.
The first Canadian Music awards were presented in Toronto on February 23rd., 1970. The simple ceremony was held at the St. Lawrence Hall across from the St. Lawrence Market. Approximately 250 people attended that first awards ceremony ...
Stan Klees, who had started the Red Leaf record label in 1965 (original label home to The Paupers and The British Modbeats) and Walt Grealis, founder of RPM Weekly in 1964, are credited with coming up with the first "formal awards ceremony" for Canada's music industry. This tied in with the formation of the CRTC in Ottawa in 1968, initially headed by Pierre Juneau, and the push by the Government of Canada to promote "Canadian Content" .. now lovingly called "CANCON". Radio stations in Canada were regulated to play a certain percentage of Canadian records. These efforts were designed to promote Canadian culture in the wake of the dominance of the non-Canadian artists on our radio airwaves ... sorry Elvis !
The 1970 awards ceremony was a simple affair and the awards were called Gold Leaf Awards. RPM Weekly held a contest to rename the awards .. and initially they were then called "Juneaus" after the CRTC pioneer. In 1971 the annual awards were renamed to Juno. The CBC would broadcast the first JUNO awards show in 1975.
From humble beginnings ... well, RPM Weekly began publication from their office at 420 Merton Street, Toronto in February 1964 in the belief that there was a Canadian music industry and that it needed to be promoted
In the first "glossy" issue, the weekly chart for October 5th., 1964 looked like this:
.. and you can see from this chart that there were just a few truly Canadian artists in the charts. They included Gale Garnett (via New Zealand !) , Bobby Curtola, and Terry Black. These Canadian artists were competing with the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Four Seasons, The Beach Boys, Motown ... and such newcomers as the Kinks and Manfred Mann.
The first few issues of RPM were heavily supported by advertising from Capitol Records Of Canada as is seen by the following advert from page 6 of that very first issue.
Following the establishment of RPM in 1964 ... would come the likes of Ann Murray, Edward Bear, Rush, Robert Charlebois, The Stampeders, Bruce Cockburn, Gord Lighftoot, Andy Kim, The Tragically Hip, K.D. Lang, Celine Dion, etc. etc. etc.
Without the early efforts of RPM , the CRTC, and of others in the Canadian music industry ... it is doubtful that we would be celebrating 40 years of the Juno Awards.
We salute the early pioneers of the Canadian Music Industry and the JUNO Awards !
For more information on RPM Weekly, here is the best link:
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca
Lastly, here is a small playlist of early Canadian singles that represent some of the very best releases that were ever promoted within RPM Weekly:
We added A LOT of new pictures to the 6000 series page this week. Many thanks to Brian Schofield who sent most of these! Also, many thanks to Fred Young who has been very generous by supplying tons of pictures for the newly added Beatles sections as well! Make sure you take a look at these amazing record covers and labels!
This month's record feature is Help! by The Beatles .... Capitol of Canada 5476. The 45 was issued in Canada on Monday, July 26th., 1965. While all previous Capitol of Canada releases had been pressed by RCA, this 45 RPM disc was the very first Beatles Capitol disc to be pressed at the newly opened Compo pressing plant in Cornwall, Ontario. Compo had pressed the Hard Day's Night Lp the previous summer but this was the first time they had pressed singles for Capitol of Canada.
A few thousand copies of 5476 were shipped with the imported Capitol USA colour picture sleeve. The most unusual feature of these early Compo pressings is that while the matrix numbers are "machine stamped" (not hand-etched), the master was actually made in Canada and not in the USA. The markings on the A side are pronounced and look somewhat "clumsy" when compared to the stampings on the USA version.
On most of the early Canadian copies the matrix numbers for Side B are actually spaced too far away from the run-out area and are actually stamped into the label. This was actually an error with the stamper that should have been caught but it is probable that Compo was under real time pressure in July of 1965 to get the singles pressed and shipped. You will notice that the fonts used for the record title, group name, publisher etc. are quite different from the usual RCA fonts. In fact, RCA in Canada never pressed this single.
To start this new month of February, we added a very interesting new section that should please Beatles record collectors from Canada; this new page covers all the important variations found on Canadian Beatles records, from label mistakes to cover curiosities. Whether you are a neophyte, or a hardcore collector who has everything, you might just be surprised with what you will find on this page! Make sure you browse through it from the VARIATIONS link from the Beatles tab of the menu, or simply click HERE.