IMAGE RECORDS

Category: Australian-owned independent distribution and recording company Date: 1967 - 1976 Location: Melbourne, Vic. Ownership: John MacDonald / Keith Colias.

History

The company was originally set up to distribute various overseas labels; one of the major deals they secured was for the Atlantic label, which up to that time had been getting only sporadic distribution in Australia through its former licencee, Festival. Sam & Dave's "Hold On, I'm Coming", for example, was one of several classic soul singles which were never locally released in Australia, even though Atlantic was having a huge international impact with hits by Aretha Franklin, Joe Tex, Otis Redding and Sam & Dave.

Tempo Record Sales (TRS) operated successfully as a distributor for two years, then in October 1969 the company launched its own house label, also called Tempo. The debut release was "The Hunter" by San Francisco band Pacific Gas & Electric, a recording leased from the American Orange label. Tempo released a total of nine singles over two years, including recordings by Gene Vincent, Trevor, Judy Banks, The Gathering and one single by Melbourne band Abacus, which were its only local recordings.

Label historian Hank B. Facer notes that TRS played a crucial role as a local distributor during the 1970 Radio Ban, serving several independent labels who were unable to get distribution elsewhere, notably Sparmac and Fable, who had both refused to take part in the ban. The Tempo label was closed down in 1971 because the name had already been registered in NSW by Maurice Chapman & Co., the Australian agent for Akai and BASF. Follwing the Tempo closure, TRS released three singles under licence from Leon Russel's Shelter label (IS-110 to IS-112 inclusive). These were Russell's version of Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-gonna Fall" in late 1971, and J.J. Cale's breakthrough single "Crazy Mama" and Leon Russell's "Roll Away The Stone" in mid-1972, all of which were Top 40 hits in Sydney.

In May 1972 TRS established the new Image label, and it proved very successful, releasing singles and albums by noted Australian acts including Sundown, The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, Linda George, Broderick Smith and Kevin Borich, as well as international recordings released under licence from overseas labels. In 1974 John MacDonald purchased Image from TRS (which went out of business in mid-1976) and Image continues as a successful independent label to the present; it now includes the recording and publishing assets of Ron Tudor's Fable group, which were purchased in 1986.

Many of the Image and Fable recordings have been reissued on CD as budget compilations on Image's Rajon Music label. The rare 1974 Image album To The Shores Of His Heaven by Mandu was re-released on CD by Aztec Music in 2008.

Discography

Note: the Image catalogue begins with IS-113. As noted above, this was because the first nine numbers had been used for the shortlived Tempo label (TS-101 to TS-109) and the next three were used for three singles released under licence from the US Shelter label (IS-110 to IS-112).

Image also distributed singles and LPs by the German studio group Silver Convention, who had several disco hits in Australia; "Lady Bump" by singer Penny McLean was a solo hit for her, and the other two nominal singers in the trio, Linda G. Thompson and Penny Wulf, also released solo singles. A trivia note relates to one these releases -- the B-side of Silver Convention's October 1976 single "No No Joe" was "Thank You Mr DJ", the song which was sampled at the very end of Regugitator's "The Song Formerly Known As".

So far we have only identified one Image EP, Matchbox Madness(1973) by The Captain Matchbox Whoopeee Band; although its catalogue number suggests that there were at least three earlier Image EP releases no others have yet been identified.

*The provenance of the Myriad LP is uncertain -- Vernon Joyson lists it as an Image release, but its catalogue number is different from all other Image LPs, and the "SEL" prefix was used by the Sydney Spin label, and Carrl and Janie Myriad did release a single on the Spin label around the same time, so this LP may be mis-identified.

Singles

EPs

Albums

References / Links

Vernon Joyson
Dreams, Fantasies & Nightmares: Australia (Bordeline Books, 1999)

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