GAY TIME

 

Gay Time was a small independent label, started and owned by the comedian Freddie 'Parrot Face' Davies.  All of its records that I have seen listed were EPs; they were numbered in a GTKTEP series.  Freddie Davies was a very popular entertainer in the clubs and variety theatres, and the artists on his label seem to have been from the same kind of circuit.  Catalogue numbers reached at least GTKTEP-1009, which was Pyramid's 'I Believe In Music'; while GTKTEP-1005 was a cover version of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by a band called Black Lace who went on to have several big hits in the 1980s.  There are no dates on the labels of the records, but 'Mississippi' was a hit in the autumn of 1976, so it's a good bet that the first Gay Time record, which features Shirley & The Starlights performing that song, was from not too long afterwards; while the 45cat site gives a year of 1977 some of the later records.  The few Gay Time records that I have seen have been Linguaphone pressings.  Thanks to Simon Hill for drawing the label to my attention, to Paul Grayson for discographical input, and to Eddie Hutchinson for providing the ownership information and details of the Black Lace EP.

Copyright 2008 Robert Lyons.