Circle International began life in the middle of 1973 as an agency / management / promotion company, and was run by Reg McLean. It moved into the area of record production and in 1974 placed a couple of singles by the Doyley Brothers with President ('Let It Be Me', PT420; and 'God Knows I've Tried', PT-424). In that year McLean started Safari Records (see 'Safari 1974-77'), and in January 1977 he added the Circle International label to it. 'Music Week' of the 22nd of January said that the company was Chiswick based, that it intended to concentrate on new talent, and that while it was currently handling its own distribution it was negotiating a deal with one of the majors. Mark Griffiths adds that it operated out of a record shop in Chiswick High road. Catalogue numbers suggest that Circle International issued five singles, but I've only been able to track down three, all of them from 1977, and it seems likely that the missing numbers were not used. Pressing of the records by Marie Pierre and by The Coolnotes was done by Orlake. 'MW' of the 2nd of April reported that Circle International had linked up with Calendar Records (q.v.) for greater market penetration, but both it and Safari had disappeared by the end of the year; according to 'MW' of the 14th of January 1978, McLean had left the Circle International / Calendar partnership in order to look after the A&R side of Saga Records (q.v.). That same year he introduced another new label, Voyage International (q.v.), which featured recordings by some familiar names from the Safari and Circle International catalogues.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.