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The pick-up heads of wind-up gramaphones were so heavy that the needle was blunted after playing and records soon became worn and the sound distorted if played with a blunt needle.
The action of a three pounds weight concentrated into the tip of a needle running through a record's groove (there is only one!) was akin to a plough being dragged through a field. |
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Columbia used a cuople of different sleeves for their black and gold label. The reverse of these sleeves carried lists of other records available on the label.
This is Billie Anthony's version of "This Ole House", also a big hit for Rosemary Clooney and a couple or three decades later for Shaking Stevens, then only a twinkle in his dad's eye... |
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The Columbia pop 78rpm label and sleeve took the font and lack of initial capitalisation from the white and red sleeve above.
The sleeve was printed in purple and featured a young couple listening to music with records scattered about the floor - a rather dangerous habit with brittle 78s! |
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When 45s came in Columbia created a matching set of sleeves and labels. The latest records were released in both formats. These are the 78s that may be worth a little more - a Cliff Richard 78 record from this period will fetch a minimum of 30 pounds.
Left: "Side Saddle" by pianist Russ Conway was a mega hit in 1959 before the word "mega" made any sense... Russ had a string of hits playing the piano despite having lost a finger whilst in the Navy. |
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During the early 1960s the label stayed the same but there were several sleeves produced.
Columbia was riding very high in the charts with artists like Cliff Richard and his backing group The Shadows, who had many hits in their own right. Teenager Helen Shapiro had a huge hit with "Walking Back to Happiness", the recording session being filmed for one of the "shorts" that accompanied feature films in cinemas at the time. |
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During the period 1960 - 1964 there was just about a different sleeve cover every year. The label also changed as EMI exerted a greater influence and the labels of all their records started to look the same.
The dominating feature became the large silver "45rpm" logo on the right hand side of the label. |
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The reverse of the sleevs carried advertisements. Initially these were for company products such as "Emitex" cleaning material, use of which was recommended to "preserve this record and keep it free from dust ".
Later sleeves carried adverts for other companies, notably the hair dryers of Morphy Richards, whose adverts carried cartoon strips of "Fran the Fan" who was forever writing to the latest idol for autographs and photos! |
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