American, out of New York. Chelsea was started by producer Wes Farrell, in 1972; it hit the charts on both sides of the Atlantic on several occasions, with singles by the likes of Jim Gilstrap, Linda Carr, and Disco Tex. The magic failed, however, and the label expired c.1977. The house producer was Kenny Nolan. Chelsea got going somewhat later in the UK than in the USA. At first the company's productions came out on RCA, but in 1974 they began appearing on the Chelsea label proper, as part of the Polydor / Phonodisc stable. Numbering was in a 2005-000 series, and reached at least 2005-071 by the middle of 1976; in common with those of the other Polydor companies the labels were injection moulded (1). In November 1976 Chelsea moved to Pye for manufacture and distribution, and the numbering changed to a CHS-3000 series. The labels during the brief Pye period were paper ones (2), and were much more colourful than the Phonodiscs. The style of the demo labels resembled that used by EMI, for some reason (3) - Thank to John Timmis for that scan.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.