An oddity. For a label which released records by the well-known artists Clinton Ford and Ronnie Hilton, C.V.Y.'s products have proved frustratingly difficult to track down. An EP featuring tracks by those two artists as well as the bands Lazy Daisy and Stonecreek gives the catalogue numbers of albums by all four, but the only trace of any of those recordings online is a reference in a Clinton Ford discography by Spencer Leigh, which gives the release date of his 'Mi Amigo' as 'late Seventies' and says that it was cassette-only. If the other three releases were also cassette-only, that would go some way towards explaining why they're apparently Google-proof: cassettes seem to be less durable, and less collectable, than vinyl LPs. There's no date on the EP, but it appears to be a 'taster' for the four albums; if the Ford cassette came out in the late Seventies it seems reasonable to guess that the EP may well have done the same, which would qualify C.V.Y. for this site. Stone Creek are apparently still performing together (2018), though they are doing only one gig a year; they were described in the 'Pontefract and Castleford Express' of the 17th of November 2011 as "a big name band in the '80s", which suggests that their cassette or LP shouldn't be impossible to track down. All I could find out about Lazy Daisy is that they played a gig at Barnard Castle Cricket Club in 1987. If it wasn't for the Ford discography giving the 'late Seventies' for the 'Mi Amigo' tape I'd have been inclined to place the EP and the other recordings in the early-to-mid '80s, but Clinton Ford himself helped to put the discography together and I'm prepared to go along with what he says. As the label indicates, C.V.Y. was based in Louth, Lincolnshire. It seems to have set out to be an outlet for British Country recordings, but if it managed more than the four mentioned on the EP there's no sign of them. The EP had a catalogue number of CVY-211-R; in addition to the tracks shown on the scan it offered 'Vaya Con Dios' by Ronnie Hilton (from 'Hilton In The Country', CVY-112) and '1st Step' by Lazy Daisy (from '1st Step ... S', CVY-114). If anybody can shed any light on the recordings or on C.V.Y. itself I'd be glad to hear from them.
Copyright 2018 Robert Lyons.