Why Tmg . . . . . ?

[Guest MBarrett]

I'm just looking at some early Tamla Motown reference numbers and I see:

For EP's: TMEXXXX

For LP's: TMLXXXXX

But for singles: TMGXXX

Is there any logic in that G???!!

Thanks if anyone can satisfy my curiosity.

MB

[Pete S]

Tamla Motown Group?

[Craig W]

And Tamla Motown Gordy

[Richard]

Tamla Motown Good

[Guest mobbsy]

general?

[Kerry F]

And Tamla Motown Gordy

Sure its Gordy .

[Sean Hampsey]

It was always known to me as Tamla Motown Gordy.

Sean

[Godzilla]

Sure its Gordy .

Sounds reasonable. But why R for Parlophone and DB for Columbia?

Godz

[45cellar]

Sounds reasonable. But why R for Parlophone and DB for Columbia?

Godz

Hi

I was under the Impression that it was the code for the Country of release.

[Pete S]

Hi

I was under the Impression that it was the code for the Country of release.

No mate that is London. HLU, HLX, HLM etc. All Parlophone and Columbia releases begin with R and DB.

[Steve G]

Tamla Motown Group?

Tamla Motown G reat Britain quite possibly

[45cellar]

No mate that is London. HLU, HLX, HLM etc. All Parlophone and Columbia releases begin with R and DB.

Hi Pete

Thanks Pete, saved me the search.

I was just looking for Australian Tamla Motown, South African Tamla Motown etc,

Just something I was I was once told.

[Guest Matt Male]

Here's an answer.

https://www.bsnpubs.com/tmg.html

Might be correct....

[Guest MBarrett]

Thank you very much for the various suggestions.

Matt - Thanks for the website link but that seems to be a later U.S. scenario - whereas I am looking at U.K. 1965.

Having said that I feel 99.9% certain now that the G is for Gordy.

Of the first 5 releases on the U.K. Tamla Motown label:

TMG501 = The Supremes - from the U.S. Motown label

TMG502 = Martha & the Vandellas - from the U.S. Gordy label

TMG503 = The Miracles - from the U.S. Tamla label

TMG504 = The Temptations - from the U.S. Gordy label

TMG505 - Stevie Wonder - from the U.S. Tamla label

Quite likely these first U.K. releases and the promotional tour were deliberately contrived to include a good balance across the 3 main U.S. labels.

And maybe the U.K. label was originally intended to be called Tamla Motown Gordy. They docked it by one word but left the numbering prefix as TMG. But with the G kind of superfluous they could play around with the third character for EP's and LP's.

I am well and truly convinced - unless anyone can tell me otherwise!!

Thanks all.

MB

[Guest Paul]

No mate that is London. HLU, HLX, HLM etc. All Parlophone and Columbia releases begin with R and DB.

The letters from Decca's London HLU (or HLA, HLM etc) catalogue number prefixes stood for (H) HOME, (L) LONDON and the third letter U (for example) was an export code to indicate which territories they had licenses for.

I think U was for the world outside the USA and Canada. I saw a list somewhere of their territory codes.

On Decca's matrix numbers, by the way, the Z prefix indicated stereo.

They didn't have bar codes in those days so I suppose life must have been a bit dull.

Paul Mooney