W&G RECORDS

An unusual W&G single from 1960, featuring a photo of singer Gaynor Bunning on the label.

Category: Location: Date: Ownership: Subsidiary labels: Distributor for:

Independent Australian record label 186 Batman St, Melbourne  1953 - 1977 subsidiary of White & Gillespie Pty Ltd Gem; In ABC Paramount Records (USA); Ember

History

W&G Records was the recording and record manufacturing subsidiary of Melbourne printing and engineering firm White & Gillespie (Melb) Pty. Ltd. The company was founded in 1910 when A.E. White and J.D. Gillespie formed a partnership, purchased equipment and began business manufacturing stereotype and electrotype duplicate printing plates. A Sydney division was opened in 1928. Originally sited in Patrick Street, Melbourne the business outgrew its premises twice before moving to new purpose-built premises at 185 A'beckett Street Melbourne in 1938. The same year White & Gillespie set up a wholly owned subsidiary, W&G Record Processing Co. and expanded its operations into the manufacture of radio transcription discs.

At the start of World War II in 1939 White& Gillespie turned over their precision instrument works to the manufacture of navigational aids and range finding devices for guns. 250,000 instruments bearing the W&G trade mark were made during this time and used worldwide by allied forces, although printing plate manufacture continued as the core activity during this period. At the end of the war, the company expanded into drawing instruments. Their range including drafting machine scales, hand scales, slide rules, and other specially-made instruments, which were produced alongside the transcription records still being produced for radio stations.

White & Gillespie continued to develop their recording division during the 1950s. According to the W&G History page, they were the first company in Australia to manufacture the new vinyl micro-groove format, initially on a custom pressing basis. If correct, this would place it before March 1953, when Festival began pressing microgroove records.

Other Australian recording companies began microgroove record production around this time -- EMI and ARC in Sydney both began pressing microgroove records shortly after Festival -- so W&G began to develop their own catalogue to maintain pressing volume, establishing the W&G record label, setting up its own recording studios, pressing plant and a company-owned distribution outlet in each state. The company was soon producing both local and imported recordings for the Australian and New Zealand markets. In the 1960s the company was affectionately nicknamed "Woggle and Goggle" by Geoff Haynes, a disc jockey on Melbourne radio station 3UZ.

From 1956-60 audio engineer Bill Armstrong (who later established the famous Armstrong's Studios) was manager of W&G Records. He established their disc-cutting room and built their recording studio in West Melbourne in 1957. The young Ron Tudor joined W&G as a sales representative just as the new record division was starting up, and over the next ten years he worked his way up through promotion, A&R and production. Ron was the first to record artists such as Diana Trask, Ernie Sigley and The Seekers, the group he was instrumental in getting signed to W&G. Ron left W&G in 1966 and after two years at Astor, set up his own production company (June Productions) in 1968, and founded his own successful labels, Fable Records in 1969, followed by the Bootleg subsidiary in 1973.

In the late 1950s and 1960s W&G played a very significant role in Australian popular music, signing a wide range of local artists, including several groups from the Melbourne 'trad' jazz and folk scenes, including The Red Onions Jazz Band (which featured several future members of The Loved Ones) and Frank Traynor's Jazz Preachers, which consecutively featured Judith Durham and then Margret RoadKnight as lead singers. W&G subsequently signed the newly formed Seekers and released their first LP, just prior to the group's move to the UK. Other notable signings included future country star Diana Trask (1958) and Johnny Chester (1961) who went on to become an A&R manager and house producer for the label. Other W&G recordings were produced by Ron Tudor, who produced The Seekers' first LP, and Russ Thompson, who produced most of Merv Benton's hits.

Artists who recorded for W&G in the late Fifties included Frankie Davidson, Ernie Sigley and renowned jazz guitarist Bruce Clarke who, with his band The Rockers, provided the backing for many W&G recordings of that period. As well as its many Australian acts, from the mid-1950s until 1960 W&G acted as the Australian distributor for the American ABC Paramount (Ampar) label, releasing hit recordings by 'teenage' artists including Paul Anka ("Diana"), The Royal Teens ("Short Shorts") and Danny & The Juniors ("At the Hop"), and mainstream popular artists such as Lloyd Price ("Stagger Lee", "Personality"), George Hamilton IV and husband-and-wife vocalists Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.

W&G continued to distribute overseas recordings throughout the Sixties, including recordings from the Time label (Hugo Montenegro & His Orchestra) and releases as varied as the breakthrough reggae hit "The Israelites" by Desmond Dekker & The Aces, "Silent Night" by Italian opera star Giuseppe Di Stefano and recordings by Trini Lopez, Lonnie Mack, Bobby "Blue" Bland.

Through the 1960s the main W&G label signed many important Melbourne pop acts, including noted instrumental groups The Strangers, The Phantoms, The Cherokees and The Tamlas. Artists and groups who released recordings on W&G and/or In include Merv Benton -- who scored fifteen Top 40 hits in Melbourne -- Margie Bayes, The Blackout, The Breakaways, Bobby Bright, Colin Buckley, Gaynor Bunning, Pat Carroll, The Cherokees, The Chessmen, Johnny Chester, Colin Cook, Roger Dee, Steve Denver, The Echos, Freshwater, The Gingerbreadmen, Freddie Hampton, John Hawes Group, Tony Henry, In-Sect, Johnny Broome & The Handels, The Kravats, Little Gulliver & The Children, The Lonely Ones, The Loved Ones, Johnny Mac, The Marksmen, Betty McQuade, The Mystics, Joe Paparonte, The Pink Finks, The Saxons, Somebody's Image, The Strangers, The Tamlas, The Templars, Terra Nova 5, The Thin Men, Daddy Long Legs and The Spiders (featuring Barry Crocker), Dave Thunder and The MacMen, The Vibrants, Johnny Wade and The Wizzard.

According to singer Merv Benton, his third single, "Be Sweet" / "You're The Dog" (Aug. 1964) was issued as a reaction to criticism the W&G label was getting from Melbourne radio. W&G's two-track studio was fairly basic, even by the standards of the day, and some Melbourne DJs were critical of the poor sound on W&G recordings. This became a perennial problem for Australian artists and led to the long-standing practice of taking major releases to the USA to be mastered, due to Australia's relative lack of expertise in that area, a trend that continued into the late 1970s. Both songs on this single were covers of German pop songs which W&G had sourced through its publishing connections. The instrumental tracks were completely recorded in Germany, and Merv's vocals were overdubbed vocals at the W&G studio.

In the mid-1960s W&G set up a pop subsidiary, the In Records label, which is best known for the classic recordings by The Loved Ones. The In roster included The Blackout, The Chessmen, Johnny Dark, The Elois, John Hawes Group, In-Sect, Little Gulliver & The Children, The Loved Ones, The Probe, The Sect, Somebody's Image and Roland Storm.

W&G continued in the record business into the 1970s, although its share of the record market gradually declined after its heyday in the late Sixties. In 1977, partly due to the introduction of the cassette and its impact of the LP market, the record and instrument plants were sold, along with the instrument process. The rights to the W&G and In catalogues were later leased by the Canetoad label, which has released definitive compilations of W&G and In recording artists like Merv Benton and The Strangers.

Discography

Thanks and acknowledgements to Andy of Global Dog Productions for discographical information

From the beginning of its microgroove production in the early 1950s until 1960, W&G's vinyl recordings were numbered in the '000' series, from 001-999. Recordings released under licence from ABC Paramount (Ampar) were catalogued with the prefix "SPN", while Australian recordings were typically prefixed "SL". This system lasted until 1960, when the new '1000' series began. From this point, all W&G recordings were catalogued in the same series -- singles were prefixed "WG-S-", EPs were prefixed "WG-E-" and LPs were usually prefixed "WG-B-" although some LPs were prefixed "WG-F-" and "WG-Q-". The '8000' series for 7" singles began in 1964, and this covered records issued on both the W&G and In labels.

The company also did custom pressings for other companies -- for example, singles pressed for Golden Fleece (which were given away as promotional items at their service stations) were prefixed "GF-", and they also produced a number of promotional records by Frankie Davidson which were made for the Lawrence dry cleaning firm.

W&G '0000' Series

Note: Entries highlighted in yellow indicate American recordings released under licence from the ABC Paramount label.

W&G '1000' Series (1960-1964)

W&G 8000 Series (1964 - 1972?)

EPs

References / Links

White & Gillespie Pty Ltd
http://www.flexo.com.au/History.htm

Global Dog Productions - W&G Discography
url

The ABC Paramount Story
http://www.bsnpubs.com/abc/abcstory.html

Please email webmaster@milesago.com if you have more information or corrections, or to report any broken links.