EMI Australia Info request

[Mal C]

Hi everybody, currently doing research on the Tamla Motown label in Australia, I’m interest in chatting to anybody who has knowledge of the setup at EMI Australia around the launch of the label in 1965.

regards

Malcolm 

[Roburt]

Guess you'll struggle to talk to anyone with direct involvement with EMI Australia back then as by now they'd be in their 80's (at least).

For most of the 20th century, EMI was the largest recording company in the world, and it dominated the local markets in most Commonwealth countries including Australia. It held something of a stranglehold on the Aussie market (it resisted record shops from importing copies of foreign pressed records & even had the local police raid such shops & confiscate their stock). Through its various house labels and the other labels it distributed locally EMI dominated the Australasian record market from the 1920's to the early 1960's. Its privileged status as a British-owned company operating in a Commonwealth country and Australia's protectionist trade regulations led to situation in which the vast majority of 'foreign recorded' records released there up to 1950 were made by British artists. Many influential jazz / blues recordings by American artists were never released in Australia.

EMI became even stronger in Australia (& most other territories) after the advent of the Beatles & the Mersey Sound / British Invasion. Australia's relatively small population meant that companies such as EMI gave preference to releases which they expected to sell strongly. As a result, many titles were not released locally and were only available as imports (some via EMI themselves).  Local collectors wanted import copies lots of the time as Australian pressings were often of inferior quality (or so I believe). Because of this, there was always a steady demand for imported British and American made 45's / LP's.

EMI's dominance began to fade in the country in the mid-1970s. EMI initially refused to release many progressive tracks in Australia, but with local radio promotion some import-only records became big sellers. So EMI were eventually obliged to give some of the 'lesser selling albums' a local release. Seems EMI execs in Aussie were happier that pop / Motown releases would sell better.

EMI's were the acknowledged market leader in Australasia through the 1960s. But, due to the foreign licensing deals they'd secured, on several occasions Festival Records releases outsold EMI's. EMI Aussie didn't seek it's own 'licensing deals' for foreign product but up to the 1950's & beyond most of EMI  Australian output was sourced from EMI's UK catalogue and via the UK from it's US labels (both in-house & licensed deal material such as the Motown stuff). EMI started to develop local artists careers  thru the 1960's (& into the early 70's), so they were putting out locally recorded stuff in that period. Some of this local stuff caught on abroad, with a few Aussie artists having hits overseas. 

In 1970 EMI Australia was one of the group of record companies that took on local commercial radio stations. Following changes to Australia's copyright laws in 1968, the labels scrapped a long-standing agreement with the commercial radio sector & tried to get royalties for every play of one of their releases. Most major American labels (CBS, RCA and Warner) didn't join this fight and their stuff continued to get extensive Aussie radio plays -- how this effected Tamla Motown cuts in Australia I don't really know. BUT I GUESS, if the radio stns were boycotting plays of most EMI's releases, then that would have included their T/Motown stuff too.

In 1968 EMI Australia ended the separate cataloguing systems used on its house labels and on the labels it distributed (including stuff on Capitol, Stateside and Tamla-Motown). They combined all labels under a single unified numbering system which was in the # '8000' series. So the original local T/M numbering system of TMO-101 was abandoned at TMO-199 (to the best of my knowledge). New releases were then numbered TMO-8328, 8334, 8344, etc (so not continuously & sequentially numbered any longer). 

EMI (Aussie) in 1969  started the new subsidiary label, Harvest Records, to market acts from the  emerging progressive rock genre. This was the start of the end for many EMI R&B releases as the market changed in favour of prog rock material. Tamla Motown stuff still got released as so many of those releases through the mid 60's to mid 70's had always enjoyed decent sales levels (though not at 'top of the chart' volumes).

 

Edited August 10 by Roburt

[Roburt]

A couple of related bits ...

 

[Roburt]

With some record companies not having much representation in Australia, EMI kept some stuff there long after it had lost it in the UK. Cameo Parkway changed from EMI licensing to Pye in summer 62. In Australia, EMI was still releasing Chubby Checker 45's in summer 66 ... 

But EMI Aussie execs were on Motown's radar by 1970, as both EMI London & EMI Aussie guys attended a Motown San Fran sales meeting in 1970. But London was sending guys who'd worked in the UK back to Aussie to take on top EMI jobs in Sydney. 

Forgot to post this up, an EMI released Chubby Checker 45 in 1966 ... 

[Mal C]

Cheers, I did pm you a few weeks ago, as I thought you might turn something up, you ignored me. 

the numbering system TMO to the 8000 series was in 1968, I have all that already.

Ken East was in the uk from 62/3 to 66/7, so had no input with Tamla Motown launch in 65, so he’s not the territory boss for Australia in 1965. I have Bill Stanford, who was Personnel Director @ EMI GB, in 63, then became general Manager Overseas Division.  So would have been the person the territory boss (Australia) would have reported into.

what I need is the person responsible for the launch down under, not East, as he's no in Australia  at the time, he’s working for EMI GB. 
 

I'm doing Cameo Parkway label, and that’s of interest, but this thread is a call about Tamla Motown Australia in 65. 

[Roburt]

11 hours ago, Mal C said:

I'm doing Cameo Parkway label, and that’s of interest, but this thread is a call about Tamla Motown Australia in 65. 

Well, the thread title is EMI Australia & it was EMI Australia that put out Cameo Parkway stuff till 66.

From the 1950's on, EMI UK exported lots of their old machinery / equipment when their facilities in the UK were upgraded. Earlier, their 78 rpm pressing machines had gone to the likes of India & Pakistan.

In the 60's & 70's, their recording studio machinery (from the likes of abbey Rd) was sent to Australia for them to use to cut their local artists (8 track, 16 track recording equipment, etc.). If EMI Australia's studio equipment was 2nd hand from the UK (perhaps there was less import duty / tax due on 2nd hand or low costed machinery), then did EMI UK also send 'old' pressing plant machines to Australia. If that did occur, it may account for mentions of EMI Aussie 45's & LP's (including T/ Motown stuff) being of dubious quality at times.    

[Roburt]

From January 1965 ... EMI Australia boss ... but he doesn't have the look of someone who'd be a big T/Motown fan and who spent time ensuring the label was well promoted there ... 

 

[Roburt]

The piece below (from 1965) makes mention of the music publishing company pushing the record label in Australia to release 45's featuring their music. A similar mention was made regarding the Marvelettes "Please Mr Postman" above ...

SEEMS that music publishing companies were more influential in getting records released in Australia than elsewhere. Almost as influential as the actual record companies (such as EMI) were themselves. Don't think they had as much say in the UK or US. 

[Peter99]

Rogers Reef(er). 

[Roburt]

More relevant bits from posts on 45cat ... 

The reason Motown, or Stax, or Atlantic, or Chess etc never caught on in Australia in the early to mid '60s was commercial radio stations were very very selective in what they played. They restricted their playlists generally to safe pop hits from America and the U.K. and usually steered clear of any records that sounded remotely "black". thus the Marvelettes 45's wouldn't get played on Aussie radio ... certainly no R&B or soul records on Atlantic or Chess were played. White Aussie cover versions of American hits by black artists of course got airplay but many fine records by black artists were never played, and therefore never heard and never bought. Local charts were supposedly based on local sales but in practice were published by the radio stations themselves and of course reflected their own playlists. In those days people generally only bought what they'd actually heard on the radio anyway, and what they heard was just a small percentage of what was released here.

why press and release them unless someone was buying them... I always thought, here in Australia, that it was a "throw 'em against the wall and see what sticks" policy. In other words, wait and see which particular records would get played by the radio stations and by definition they would be the potential "hits". Meanwhile, as in the case of this particular Marvelettes record, the record companies would be cautious, pressing maybe a hundred copies with promo stickers, and if there was no reaction from radio there was no follow-up pressing run and the record would be deleted within a very short time. 

The reps would come around with samples, I would order what I thought was a goer, the rest, if requested, I would get in via the release sheets. EMI and a couple of other companies had a half yearly 5% returns allowance, I guess, in part, to encourage the shop to take a punt on lesser known releases. These would be classed as deleted stock.