Lost 45's -- 1974

[Roburt]

A war in the Middle East in 1973 led the OPEC countries (mainly Arab) to restrict oil production to punish western nations for supporting Israel. This led to a worldwide shortage of petroleum sourced items, as well as resulting in a massive price hike in petrol (gas) prices.

By early 1974, many US pressing plants were struggling to source new supplies of vinyl, so they cut back on their production. Non regular customers were dropped, pressing volumes were reduced for many existing / ongoing customers and recycled vinyl was used (in whole or part) when pressing up new 45's.

I guess we'll never know which acts had proposed releases that never saw the 'light of day' but it is easier to state which 'unsold stock' of 1971 / 72 / 73 soul 45's fell victim of the need to mince up singles just sat on warehouse shelves.

Which decent soul 45's fell victim to this policy, has it been determined in the past ?

Which soul 45's suffered from poor pressing quality due to the use of recycled vinyl ?

Also some 45's must just have been produced in limited run promo copy form. If they didn't then garner any radio plays or get favourable music mag reviews, that would have been the end of that proposed release. I guess many of these have been ID'ed too.

  

Edited September 20 by Roburt

[Mickey Finn]

Years ago I heard an interview with jazz trumpeter Eddie Henderson who said that his run of albums on Capitol came to an end in 1979 due to the second oil crisis affecting vinyl production costs and forcing record companies to cut back on releases.

 

[Kenb]

Major Bill Smith saw vinyl shoratges as a blessing, because it 'culled out' a lot of amateurs. And i do wonder how many ( if at all) of my 45's have blended vinyl that's a fraction of the pure 100% because suppliers cut back.

[Modernsoulsucks]

Visited Trax Records in Chicago in the 90's.

Melting down 45s then.

[Geeselad]

1 hour ago, Modernsoulsucks said:

Visited Trax Records in Chicago in the 90's.

Melting down 45s then.

Larry Sherman was notorious for it apparently. Some of the track pressings I have are a dark grey colour and are awful pressings 

[Mal C]

13 hours ago, Geeselad said:

Larry Sherman was notorious for it apparently. Some of the track pressings I have are a dark grey colour and are awful pressings 

Yeah there a few notorious releases on Trax that you never find nice copies of. That said allot are perfectly fine, all the early releases are better, it’s the later stuff by say 89, when Sherman started to heavily cut his production costs, he really didn’t care as long as the presses kept going.

* actually I think he was just also trying to keep up with demand, which was mental to say the least.

[Mal C]

Should we mention Mercury’s efforts to produce the thinnest styrene 45s possible, why bother with vinyl if you can use a different cheaper material to press with. Did styrene ever get used outside of the USA? I Can’t say I’ve ever come across a foreign styrene 45. 

[Soulfulhound]

I remember a mate of mine, who was a pal of Martin Koppel, telling me that on his first visit to Coachmans in Detroit, a truck carrying thousands of singles was just leaving to be recycled.

[Geeselad]

On 21/09/2024 at 13:36, Mal C said:

Should we mention Mercury’s efforts to produce the thinnest styrene 45s possible, why bother with vinyl if you can use a different cheaper material to press with. Did styrene ever get used outside of the USA? I Can’t say I’ve ever come across a foreign styrene 45. 

Aren't some Jamaican 45's styrene? Plenty of them are poor pressings anyway 

[Roburt]

In Jamaica, they always used recycled vinyl .. including bits of old paper labels just to add extra rubbish into the mix. It's also said that they'd sweep the pressing plant floor & all that rubbish would also go in the vinyl bin.

 

[Roburt]

Was the Carstairs 45 one that suffered due to the vinyl shortage or was it just coz Chess was going thru hard times generally & was 'pulling back' ?

When Red Coach lost their Chess Records /GRT distribution in 1973, the 45's release was pulled after the promo stage. Gene Redd later issued the record himself via his own Red Coach/Red-Lite Records set-up, but that was well after the vinyl shortage was over.

 

[Rick Cooper]

There is an advert from The House of Sounds in Billboard magazine around 72 to 74 wanting to buy ex juke box singles (can't find it now as a search has 7000+ results) At the time I couldn't understand why they would need these as they had a warehouse full of records and juke box records would be worn out and unsellable. Would this have just been for the vinyl? House of Sounds pressed up quite a few old singles and some LPs. I remember the singles were all quite thin and had very fine short scuff marks on the surface. I suspect Ed Balbier of Global Records used House of Sounds to press up some northern titles for the UK as the quality was terrible.

When I was at Global we used to import a lot of the US labels golden oldies issues. All the major labels had a comprehensive catalogue of past hits, often as back to back titles. Some had OK northern titles- Willie Tee, Major Lance, James Carr and the Motown Yesteryear series plus the pop hits by the likes of Brian Hyland, Bobby Goldsborough, etc were issued as oldies. Orders were placed about every two or three weeks and I think the number of titles out of stock was very low and titles were rarely deleted. So it seems that the majors could still find vinyl for oldies. Could it be that there was no risk of unsold stock and costs had been recouped years ago. The exception to this was a few smaller labels whose   oldies seemed to be out of stock for months and months. These were Specialty, Laurie , Brunswick and a couple of others, could they have found the vinyl shortage meant they had to wait for their orders?

[Solidsoul]

On 23/09/2024 at 09:53, Roburt said:

 

When Red Coach lost their Chess Records /GRT distribution in 1973, the 45's release was pulled after the promo stage. Gene Redd later issued the record himself via his own Red Coach/Red-Lite Records set-up, but that was well after the vinyl shortage was over.

 

He didn't issue the record for the USA.  He just pressed up a 1000 copies on a special order using the old Chess distributed Red Coach number 802 that the white demo used in 1973.

They where all shipped to the UK Northern Soul scene.

Rick Cooper on here said a while ago he ordered them while working at Global Records. Then I think Gene Redd pressed some more copies for other UK dealers.

His Red Coach label that was distributed be Red Lite was up to at least release number 808 by 1975, when the so called issue was pressed.

Edited September 25 by Solidsoul

[Roburt]

29 minutes ago, Solidsoul said:

He didn't issue the record for the USA. 

I didn't say he did.

[Solidsoul]

7 minutes ago, Roburt said:

I didn't say he did.

That's right you didn't, and you have started a very interesting topic on lost 45 records, but I thought it a point worth clarifying.

[Roburt]

Adding further info on the crisis which unfolded very quickly during October 1973. The war kicked off on October 6th. Western countries (US, UK, etc.) soon jumped in to support Israel. On October 17th Arab countries increased the price of their oil & cut production. Nixon was in power in DC but consumed by the Watergate scandal, but he decided helping Israel in the war would distract from Watergate. So he started sending $millions / arms / etc. to Israel. Angered by this, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia retaliated on October 20,  placing a total embargo on oil shipments to the United States. He was quickly joined by just about all of the other oil-producing Arab states. By 1973, US oil production had dropped below current consumption, so the US instantly had a shortage.

So by the beginning of November 73, it was obvious to anyone using oil / petrol (gas) / petroleum products that things were gonna get tough very quickly & costs were going to shoot up for things like vinyl. This occured right in the pressing plants busiest period of the year (Sept to December -- to meet the Xmas sales rush). WHAT WERE THE PRESSING PLANTS TO DO  ....

they had multiple existing orders to meet, were quickly using up their existing stock of vinyl, were being quoted increased costs for new product + were warned that supplies would likely run out soon into 1974.

It would be great to know what pressing plant bosses decided to do when faced with the above. . . just carry on regardless, meet all current orders in full & face the prospect of having no supply of vinyl left by January 74 ... or did they go back to their (favoured) clients and come up with a joint proposal to reduce the planned numbers of each 45 currently under order. That way, they'd have vinyl left & would be able to press up later releases for those same record companies. 

I guess they'd go with the later, as if they had 'new releases' available in the initial 3 months of 1974, when many other labels couldn't get their singles pressed ... then they'd get additional publicity for their 1974 releases + increased radio plays (less new 45's being made & therefore less sent out to radio stn DJ's).

It also seems likely that they'd plump for a lesser number of promo copies of each new 45 (just enough to service music mags, radio & club DJ's) ... AND THEN ... would only get issue copies pressed up in quantity of those 45's that got good radio audience response.

MEANWHILE, no doubt, there were outfits out there seizing the opportunity to make money by pulping unsold warehouse 45 stock, thereby producing recycled vinyl for the pressing plants to buy & use.

So not only were some proposed new 45 releases abandoned, but lots of existing soul 45's pressed up over the period between (say) 1969 and 1972  were destroyed. Again, resulting in potential future collector's items being lost completely or being reduced to just a handful of copies remaining.

For NS fans, this situation no doubt came about a couple of years too late to have a major effect on their 'rich vein of released singles' but for MS fans it must surely have reduced the number of big sounds that would become available to them.           

  

Edited September 26 by Roburt

[Roburt]

A few bits from US music mags that relate to this topic ... 

the vinyl shortage continued past July 1974 BUT for the big labels (who got the best service from pressing plants), it was mainly LP releases & LP pressing quantities that suffered the most. The likes of 20th Century Records was cutting some releases, not putting out product on lesser selling acts & not signing any new acts. 

Little indie labels struggled a lot more to get their product (including 45's) pressed up as they required.

Which potential releases actually failed to see the light of day is very hard to determine as no record label boss was gonna admit in public that they were cutting product on this or that act. To do so was the surest way to ensure that act got out of it's contract with your company & signed a deal with a new one. 

 

[Happy Feet]

On 21/09/2024 at 13:36, Mal C said:

Should we mention Mercury’s efforts to produce the thinnest styrene 45s possible, why bother with vinyl if you can use a different cheaper material to press with. Did styrene ever get used outside of the USA? I Can’t say I’ve ever come across a foreign styrene 45. 

I have a copy of Labi Siffre ,( Something Inside ) So Strong on China Records ( a Chrysalis label ) 1987, address on the picture sleeve Queensdale Place , London , the thinnest Styrene I've ever seen , but to be honest doesn't look like a UK release due to the large hole .

[Happy Feet]

19 minutes ago, Happy Feet said:

I have a copy of Labi Siffre ,( Something Inside ) So Strong on China Records ( a Chrysalis label ) 1987, address on the picture sleeve Queensdale Place , London , the thinnest Styrene I've ever seen , but to be honest doesn't look like a UK release due to the large hole .

Extended search reveals a US copy , vocal & instrumental.

[Roburt]

Canada; November 73 ... you know things must have been getting bad when free-wheeling biz's like record labels started calling for government intervention.

Edited October 3 by Roburt

[Mickey Finn]

During the mid 70s majors like Columbia (Herbie Hancock) along with locals like EastWest released a lot of straight jazz in Japan, much of it recorded in the US. Japan seems to have had enough crude to avoid the rationing apparently happening elsewhere.