CARIBBEAN

 

A Reggae label, unsurprisingly; owned initially by Count Shelly.  The first three Caribbean singles were numbered in a CB-00 series, and came out in 1973.  A longer-lasting CBN-300 series followed, after a gap of roughly three years, with the label being revived by Desmond Bryan and Joe Sinclair of Klik Records; these singles were marketed by Klik, and were initially distributed by Island / EMI ('Music Week', 14th February 1976).  Klik left Island and signed a licensing deal with RCA in May 1977 ('MW', 28th May); it seems logical to guess that Caribbean went with it, as Caribbean's labels continued to have a marketing credit to Klik on them.  In the event the RCA agreement seems to have been short-lived.  1977 saw a slight change in the label design, with the picture and logo becoming a touch smaller and some of the credits moving (2); CBN-311 appears to have been the first single to have the tweaked design.  Some popular singles can be found with both types of label, presumably because of re-pressings.   Numbering reached CBN-321 by the time the label expired, in 1977.  One of the many Count Shelly label designs, from 1973, had exactly the same picture as is used on Caribbean singles.  Thanks to Mark Griffiths for the ownership details.






Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.