Deram Records was a
record labelIn the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
set up by
Decca RecordsDecca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; later the link with the British company was broken for several decades...
. It was active from 1966 until 1979.
Decca established Deram Records initially as an outlet for its 'Deramic Sound' recordings, which allowed for more space between instruments, rendering these softer to the ear. The first releases (with a DSS logo on the label and sporting 7xx catalogue numbers) were easy-listening albums with 'smooth' sounds.
Deram Records was a
record labelIn the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
set up by
Decca RecordsDecca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; later the link with the British company was broken for several decades...
. It was active from 1966 until 1979.
History
Decca established Deram Records initially as an outlet for its 'Deramic Sound' recordings, which allowed for more space between instruments, rendering these softer to the ear. The first releases (with a DSS logo on the label and sporting 7xx catalogue numbers) were easy-listening albums with 'smooth' sounds. The label was soon moulded into a home for 'alternative' or '
progressiveProgressive rock is a form of rock music that evolved in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility."...
' artists and received 1xxx catalogue numbers to mark the change in direction. The roster now included British jazz and folk as well. Some of the more progressive jazz musicians of the late 1960s were released under the Deram imprint including Mike Gibbs,
John SurmanJohn Douglas Surman is an English jazz saxophone, bass clarinet and synthesizer player and composer of free jazz and modal jazz often using themes from folk music as a basis...
and
Mike WestbrookMichael John David 'Mike' Westbrook is an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces.-Early work:Mike Westbrook grew up in Torquay...
.
Deram albums bore a DML prefix for mono and an SML prefix for stereo releases. As with other UK Decca subsidiary labels, Deram's U.S. counterpart was distributed under the
London RecordsLondon Records is a record label headquartered in the United Kingdom, originally marketing records in the United States, Canada and Latin America from 1947 through 1979, then becoming a semi-independent label.-History:...
arm. Decca positioned it against
Island RecordsIsland Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in England for many years, but is now owned by Universal Music Group and is operated in the United States through The Island Def Jam Music Group and in the UK through Island Records Group...
,
Harvest RecordsHarvest Records was a record label created by EMI in 1969 to promote progressive rock music and to compete with Philips' Vertigo and Decca's Deram labels, initially under the direction of Malcolm Jones and Norman Smith. Harvest was distributed in North America by EMI's US arm, Capitol Records...
(launched by
EMIThe EMI Group is a British music company. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major publishing arm- EMI Music Publishing- based in New York City...
) and
Vertigo RecordsVertigo Records today is a UK-based record label operated by Mercury Music Group .-History:Vertigo Records was the name Philips Records chose in the sixties for its record sub-label to counter the progressive labels of its rivals EMI with Harvest Records and Decca Records with Deram Records.-...
(launched by
Philips RecordsPhilips Records is a record label that was founded by Dutch electronics giant Philips. It was started as Philips Phonographische Industries in 1950. During much of the 1950s, it served to distribute recordings made by the US Columbia Records and Columbia Masterworks Records labels in the United...
), but it failed to compete long-term. An 'extra' progressive series with SDL prefixes did not improve the situation.
From the start, Decca placed pop records alongside progressive artists on Deram.
Cat StevensYusuf Islam , best known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is a British musician. He is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam....
found early success on there before moving to
Island RecordsIsland Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in England for many years, but is now owned by Universal Music Group and is operated in the United States through The Island Def Jam Music Group and in the UK through Island Records Group...
and
David BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. Active in five decades of popular music and frequently reinventing his music and image, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
's first album appeared on the label. Three of Deram's earliest hits,
Procol HarumProcol Harum are a British rock band, formed in the 1960s, who contributed to the development of progressive rock, and by extension, symphonic rock...
's "A Whiter Shade Of Pale,
The MoveThe Move were one of the leading British rock bands of the 1960s from Birmingham, England, and were among the most popular British bands to not find any success in the US....
's "Night Of Fear" and "I Can Hear The Grass Grow" were not artists actually signed to Deram; they were part of a deal with Straight Ahead Productions, who moved their acts to EMI and had them released on the reintroduced Regal Zonophone imprint.
In 1969, Decca launched a true progressive label called Nova, which lasted less than a year. This caused further confusion as simultaneous releases on "Deram Nova" and "Decca Nova" appeared.
Decca released Justin Hayward (of Moody Blues fame)'s
Songwriter (1977) and
Night Flight (1980) vinyl albums on Deram. Deram was briefly revived in the early 1980s, when its roster included
BananaramaBananarama are an all-female pop group who have had success on the pop and dance charts since 1982. Although there have been line-up changes during the years, the group enjoyed its most popular success as a trio, made up of lifelong friends Siobhan Fahey, Keren Woodward and Sara Dallin...
,
The Mo-dettesThe Mo-dettes were an all-female punk band, formed in 1979 by Kate Korris, an original member of The Slits and brief member of The Raincoats.-Biography:...
and
SplodgenessaboundsSplodgenessabounds is an English punk rock band formed in Keston, Bromley, Kent. The band is associated with the Oi! and Punk Pathetique genres. Their frontman is Max Splodge.-Career:...
. Deram has also been used as a reissue imprint for the Decca/London catalogue.
Artist roster
- Aardvark
- Johnny Almond Music Machine
- Amen Corner
Amen Corner was a successful British pop group, formed in late 1966 in Cardiff, Wales.-Career:The band was named after The Amen Corner, a weekly disc spin at the Victoria Ballroom in Cardiff, Wales, where every Sunday night Dr...
- Lionel Bart
Lionel Bart was a writer and composer of British pop music and musicals, best known for creating the book, music & lyrics for Oliver!-Early life:...
- Beefcake
- David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. Active in five decades of popular music and frequently reinventing his music and image, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
(debut albumDavid Bowie is the eponymously-titled debut album by rock musician David Bowie, released in 1967 by Deram Records, a Decca offshoot. Its content bears little overt resemblance to the type of music that later made Bowie famous, such as the folk rock of "Space Oddity" or the glam of The Rise and Fall...
)
- The Alan Bown
- Brotherhood of Man
Brotherhood of Man are a British pop group who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1976 with "Save Your Kisses for Me".The group was created by songwriter and record producer Tony Hiller in 1969 and scored a worldwide hit with "United We Stand" the following year. By 1974 the line-up had changed to...
- Pete Brown
Peter Ronald Brown is an English performance poet, lyricist and musical producer.Best known for his collaborations with Jack Bruce, Brown also worked with The Battered Ornaments, formed his own group Pete Brown & Piblokto!, and worked with Graham Bond and Phil Ryan. Brown also writes film scores...
- Camel
Camel are an English progressive rock band formed in 1971. An important figure in the Canterbury scene, the group has been releasing studio and live recordings steadily, with considerable success, since their formation.-1970s:...
- The Camerata Contemporary Chamber Group
- John Cameron Quartet
- Junior Campbell
Junior Campbell , is a Scottish composer, songwriter and musician. He was a founding member, lead guitarist, piano player, and singer with the Scottish |band, Marmalade and co-wrote and produced some of their biggest successes including "Reflections of My Life", "I See The Rain" and "Rainbow".He...
- Caravan
Caravan are an English band from the Canterbury area, founded by former Wilde Flowers members David Sinclair, Richard Sinclair, Pye Hastings and Richard Coughlan. Caravan rose to success over a period of several years from 1968 onwards into the 1970s as part of the Canterbury scene, blending...
- Michael Chapman
- Chicken Shack
Chicken Shack are a British blues band, founded in the late 1960s by Andy Silvester and Stan Webb , with Alan Morley and later joined by Christine Perfect ,-Career:...
- Clouds
Clouds were a 1960s Progressive rock band that disbanded in October 1971. The band consisted of Ian Ellis , Harry Hughes and Billy Ritchie .- Early Days: The Premiers :...
- Shirley Collins
Shirley Elizabeth Collins MBE is a significant contributor to the English Folk Revival of the 1950s and 1960s...
- Curved Air
Curved Air are a pioneering British progressive rock group formed in 1970.-History:The group evolved out of the band Sisyphus, and was named after the piece "A Rainbow in Curved Air" by contemporary composer Terry Riley...
- Terry Durham
- East of Eden
East of Eden was a British progressive rock band, who had a Top 10 hit in England with the single, "Jig-a-Jig", in 1971. The track became something of a stylistic albatross around the band's neck, since it did not resemble their usual sound or anything else they normally played...
- Egg
Egg were an English progressive rock band formed in January 1969. The founding members of the group were Dave Stewart who played organ , Mont Campbell on bass and vocals and drummer Clive Brooks. The band emerged from an earlier quartet formed whilst at City of London Boys School called Uriel with...
- Eyes of Blue
- Bill Fay
Bill Fay is a singer, pianist and songwriter from England. He made one single and two albums for the Deram label between 1967 and 1971. These recordings did not sell well: poor promotion and distribution were blamed...
- The Flirtations
- The Flower Pot Men
- Frijid Pink
Frijid Pink is a Detroit area hard rock/blues band formed in 1967, best known for their version of "House of the Rising Sun", released in 1969....
- Galliard
- Giles, Giles and Fripp
Giles, Giles and Fripp were an English late sixties band featuring brothers Michael Giles on drums and vocals, Peter Giles on bass guitar and vocals, and Robert Fripp on guitar....
- Keef Hartley
Keef Hartley is a British drummer and bandleader.-Biography:Hartley's career began as the replacement for Ringo Starr as drummer for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, a popular Liverpool-based band...
- The Hawaiians
- Honeybus
Honeybus were a 1960s pop group formed in April 1967, in London.-Line-up:The best known line-up consisted of:*Pete Dello —...
- Clark Hutchison
- Iron Virgin
Iron Virgin were a Scottish glam rock band of the 1970s. Their early stage garb has been compared to A Clockwork Orange, with their later stage costumes similar to American football uniforms, but with added iron chastity belts....
- Chim Kothari
- Alvin Lee & Company
Alvin Lee is an English rock guitarist and singer. He began playing guitar at the age of 13, and with Leo Lyons formed the core of the band Ten Years After in 1960...
- Neil MacArthur (pseudonym for Colin Blunstone
Colin Blunstone is an English pop singer-songwriter, best known as a member of the pop group The Zombies, and for his participation on various albums with The Alan Parsons Project.-Biography:He attended St Albans County Grammar School for Boys.Blunstone's plaintive, wistful voice was one of the...
)
- Stavely Makepeace
- Mellow Candle
Mellow Candle were a progressive folk rock band. Principally Irish, the members were also unusually young, Clodagh Simonds being only 15 and Alison Bools and Maria White 16, and still at school, at the time of their first single, "Feelin' High", released in 1968 on Simon Napier-Bell's SNB...
- The Mo-dettes
The Mo-dettes were an all-female punk band, formed in 1979 by Kate Korris, an original member of The Slits and brief member of The Raincoats.-Biography:...
- The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues are an English band originally from Erdington in the city of Birmingham. Founding members Michael Pinder and Ray Thomas performed an initially rhythm and blues-based sound in Birmingham in 1964 along with Graeme Edge and others, and were later joined by John Lodge and Justin...
- The Move
The Move were one of the leading British rock bands of the 1960s from Birmingham, England, and were among the most popular British bands to not find any success in the US....
- Pacific Drift
- Principal Edwards
- Procol Harum
Procol Harum are a British rock band, formed in the 1960s, who contributed to the development of progressive rock, and by extension, symphonic rock...
- Les Reed
Les Reed O.B.E. is an English songwriter, musician and light orchestra leader.-Career:...
- Room (band)
- George "Harmonica" Smith
- Whistling Jack Smith
- Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam , best known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is a British musician. He is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam....
- Streak
- Stud
Stud is a British rock band from the early 1970s, that featured Taste bassist Charlie McCracken and two members of Family, former bass guitarist John Weider and future bass player, Jim Cregan....
- The Syn
The Syn are an English band that lasted from 1965 to 1967 and then reunited as a progressive rock band in 2004. Chris Welch, in his book, Close to the Edge: The Story of Yes wrote, "The Syn were very similar to Yes in fact...
- Ten Years After
Ten Years After is an English blues-rock band, most popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s.-History:After several years of local success in the Nottingham/Mansfield area as a band known since 1962 as The Jaybirds , and later as Ivan Jay and the Jaymen, Ten Years After was founded by Alvin Lee...
- Tintern Abbey
-History:Tintern Abbey released only one 45rpm single on Deram Records, "Beeside"/"Vacuum Cleaner" , in December 1967. Produced by Jonathan Webber, the single failed to sell, and its follow-up, "How Do I Feel Today" / "Do What You Must", was slated for an April 1968 release but never appeared...
- Darryl Way's Wolf
Darryl Way is a British rock and classical musician who, together with Francis Monkman, was a founding member of Curved Air. He is best known as a violinist although he also played keyboards with his band Wolf....
- The Web
The Web began as a jazz/blues band, with a style simultaneously related to America’s West Coast groove and UK’s proto-prog movement. Hailing from the British psychedelic scene, their style is often described as atmospheric, moody, melancholy, and dark. The powerful presence of African-American...
- The World of Oz
- White Plains
White Plains were a manufactured British pop music group, that existed from 1969 to 1976.-Career:White Plains evolved from the late 1960s pop/psychedelic band The Flower Pot Men, under which moniker Tony Burrows, Pete Nelson, and Robin Shaw together with Neil Landon toured...
- Zakarrias
External links