Crown Records- The Pocket guide to Budget Record Collecting: Part 2

                                          Crown Records.

Crown was just beginning in 1957, its catalog was filled with stars such as B.B. King at the beginning, later it would make all sorts of knock offs, and many big band and background records and others stuff budget labels liked to issue (think generic 50's music, show tunes, pop hits, etc).

A great resource for this label is here; this site has a history (in far more depth than I can write here) and a discography (for those who want more information on the various 650+ releases).

The first release looked like this.

This album featured many wells know rock and roll artists such as the Jacks and the Cadets.

You see, Modern was a Blues and R&B label before it went budget and began issuing these Crown records. The first 25 releases were top-notch in every way; each album was star-studded (Kay Starr, Joe Houston, B.B King, etc.). Then release CLP-5026 comes along and looks like this...

Yep, it is a Glenn Miller tribute album; they didn't even mention the studio group's name on the first issue! Until this album was reissued in 1958 under a different catalog number (CLP-5073), they even bothered to make up a name (it was Phil Martain & His Orchestra)!

Crown then proceeds to issue budget records up into 1972 (again, for more information, go to the website I mentioned above). I will now proceed to show you a couple releases of note. By the way,  if you see any B.B. King release from Crown records at a thrift store, pick it up and guard it (B.B. King albums are very collectible)!

 

CLP-5046, this release featured Crown's most provocative cover ever! 

CST-164/CLP-5161, best Christmas background album ever!

CLP-5233/CST-241 the one of the closest knock-off cover art I have ever seen!

Any Twist album (CLP-5244/CST-247-CLP-5255/CST-255)

Starting at CST-268 (mono issue is 5268, so the last three digits are the exact same), Jazz albums start being released with covers like this.

It was a short-lived series that lasted less than a year.

Then starting at CST/CLP-321 to CST/CLP-429, we have the "Fazzio" covers. Fazzio was the artist's name that airbrushed photos of the featured stars to look like oil paintings. This series Crown releases older material from many artists that you most likely would be familiar with, such as the above "Ahab The Arab" album. However, the trick to these albums would be that the featured artist's (older, not the style the artist was known for) material would only make up two to four tracks, and the rest would be filled up with no-name studio groups and other no-name singers. Many of these "name" albums were reissued in the early '70s to cash in on the 50's nostalgia going on at the time. Those albums ended with the third reissue of the Dave Clark Five album Crown had put out.

Then at CST/CLP-430 Crown's approach to record jacket covers change and also Crown put out a new logo. For the most part, the new covers featured pretty women (make that beautiful woman) and cowboys (for all Crown's country knock-off albums).

Crown issued knock-offs and other generic music albums. However, the greatest knock-offs crown produced had to be the Mexicali Brass albums between 1965 and 1967. The first album The Mexicali Brass put out was the above album; the last Mexicali brass release is so obscure  I have only had the pleasure to see a photo of it only a handful of times. Below are all the other Mexicali Brass covers.

Reissue of the above album, "The Lonely Bull," replaced with "Espana Cani." I happen to own both the original release and this reissue.

After this, the releases are rather scarce, then at CST-571 Crown stopped making mono counterparts and started and made the only stereo releases only (which make collecting easier because I will always find the stereo version from this point on, that's if I can find them).

At this point, Crown is either reissuing or making county and pop knock-off albums. This one is CST-584, which is a reissue of CLP-5035. Below is a series of "Pop" albums that Crown put together between 1968 to 1971. The albums issued in 1972 (the last year that Crown Records) was in operations will be covered shortly.

The Beatles was the top rock band in the '60s and had quite a few hit songs. Crown covered three Beatle tunes, "I Want To Hold You Hand"(CLP-5399/CST-399), " Michelle" (Mexicali Brass CLP-5503/CST-503), and now "Hey Jude" by The Underground Electrics. The studio group was apparently not that great, and I quote from a fellow blogger, "the group would have been kicked out of most bars for being so incompetent."

CST-593

CST-594

CST-600

CST-625

Then In 1972, Crown issued their last albums; these albums were issued to answer the 50's nostalgia scene that was going on in the early '70s.

CST-641

CST-642

CST-644

CST-644 was the final release for Crown Records, as far as I know. This was the second reissue of "The Dave Clark Five and The Playbacks," which was originally issued in 1964 (CST-400), so eight years later, crown was scraping the proverbial bottom of the barrel for things to reissue, and I guess that this album was it. Shortly afterward, the Bihari brothers split up and went their separate ways. So, my friend, that is Crown Records in a nutshell.

Doug Elliot Sings "Songs That Al Jolson Made Famous"

Doug Elliot was one of the many victims vocalists who had to record covers of songs that only the original stars made the song famous could make sound right. I have uploaded this whole album on Youtube (which takes some time as I only post a track or two a day so that each selection get an equal chance of being viewed by my loyal subscribers), and this poor artist had a lot of "virtual" rotten tomatoes thrown at him. The jacket features (a now politically incorrect picture) a man, perhaps Doug Elliot himself, in black face (again now considered very racist and not politically correct).

The selections feature some famous Al Jolson tunes and some old Steven Foster standards such as "Old Folks At Home" and "Camptown Races."

 The liner notes were supposedly written by the artist to hear singing (or hacking to death the Al Jolson style by some of my Youtube subscribers). Note that is album was quickly dropped from the Crown catalog; very shortly after this album's initial release, it was dropped off the list of "Albums Available On Crown Records."

Robert E. Lee (First selection)

The rest of the album can be found in this playlist that you can see by clicking here.

The Vienna World Symphony Orchestra presents: Brahms Symphony No. 1

Crown's first couple of years were hectic. A large catalog with a little bit of everything was essential for a then small budget label like Crown. So the research department (most likely just one of the Bihari brothers) decided that Crown needed more classical music for the ever-demanding record-buying public. Thus, this album was born from an unknown studio orchestra in Europe. This record was issued in monaural only, as many budget record label releases of the day (stereo was just around the corner for Crown) were. I present to you the complete album CLP-5059 or Brahms Symphony No. 1.

1st Movement

2nd Movement

3rd Movement

4th Movement

The Pocket Guide To Budget Records (Introduction or Part 1)

As you flip through the stacks at the local thrift store, you keep seeing names like Pickwick, Tops, Grand Prix, Design, Crown, Coronet, Halo, Royale, Varsity, etc. If you don't already know, these are budget records. What's a budget record, you ask? Budget labels are record labels that specialized in producing low-cost records.

I'll make such assumptions:

1. I assume you know some basic vinyl record terminology.
2. I assume you have some experience with these records.

How do you identify a budget label product? That is simple; first off, the name of the label gives it away. I could give you a lengthy list of labels; however, that would take a long time, as there were dozens of budget labels out there in the golden age of budget labels (the 1950s-1970s).

Features of the standard budget label jacket

• The back cover features little to no liner notes, and if it gives you some liner notes, the back slick will feature mostly a list of albums produced by that label.
• Liner notes are written less to inform, but more to sell the album to someone unsure about purchasing the record.
• The artist's credit will be a generic or obviously fake name.
• The jackets will have generic photos, generic artwork, or a cheesecake photo (A picture of a pretty woman).
• Jackets will be cheaply made; they are prone to splitting and are often found split, The only exception to this rule is the albums made by Royale, Halo, and much of the Eli Oberstien owned labels,
• Famous "name" artists are in large letters, and any "filler" artist is in much smaller letters or not even mention at all.
• The album cover is exceptionally appealing, despite the fact the album contains easy listening music or the like.

Let's use a couple examples to prove these "rules" were the standard for budget label jackets.

This is an example of a pre-1957 budget release. Note the lack of a color photograph and the heavy emphasis on the artist. 

The back of this particular record only lists other releases Royale releases, or in other words, a catalog back…. a practice that only budget labels employed.

Let's try another 50's release.

A typical Halo back slick, note how the cardboard wraps around the back slick; these jackets seldom split. I have only seen one or two with even a split!