Happy Face seems to have been the successor to Emmex (q.v.), which was run by Muff Murfin and Wally Exall. It operated from the same address as the second incarnation of Birds Nest Records (q.v.) - The Old Smithy, Post Office Lane, Kempsey, Worcestershire - so it is reasonable to suppose that there was a fairly close relationship between the pair of them as well. Happy Face put out more than forty 7" records, in various musical styles, along with thirty-odd LPs; their content, and the fact that they are fairly rarely met with, suggests that at least to begin with the company was one of those which specialized in custom recordings - making records for people who paid it to do so. It seems probable that producer Muff Murfin - who, as Eddie Hutchinson kindly points out, was the owner of the Old Smithy recording studios and the driving force behind the M&O Band - initially put custom recordings on Happy Face and proper issues on Birds Nest until the latter closed, which it appears to have done in the autumn of 1979. Years of operation seem to have been from 1974 to around 1988 but as the labels had no dates on them in the '70s assigning a year to the records from that decade is a rather hit-and-miss affair.
What appears to be the very first Happy Face single, 'Change' b/w 'Crazy Child' by Picture, was numbered MM-106; the numbering seems to have been a continuation of that which was used for Emmex, though there was also an MM-106 on that label. The Picture single was undated, but Emmex expired in 1974 and I have yet to find an example of the style of pressing marks on the record - a rough surface with a smooth narrow outer ring (1) - dating from later than December 1974. Subsequent singles and EPs were initially numbered in a MUFF-0 series. The numerical part jumped from 9 to 110, and the prefix varied between MM and MUFF, but things stabilized from MM-115 onwards. LPs were numbered in the 1000s and had MFLP, MUFFLP or MMLP prefixes.
Granted that the Picture record was Happy Face's first, the earliest label design was orange with the label name in an arc around the top (1). It was succeeded by a basic but functional white label (2), which remained more or less the same until 1980, though there were minor changes. 'Produced For' appeared above the label name after the first two EPs (3), and from time to time the artist's name moved, as can be seen on the various scans. The bold curved label name was readopted in 1980 but, with the exception of a single by the Wolves Cup Squad, the label remained white (7). Logically enough, later designs (c.1983) had a 'happy face' logo on them. Some records had their own personalized label design, as shown by the scan of the Dangerous Girls EP (6), which was supplied by Sam Mauger. Pressings were done by a variety of firms including Pye, Orlake and Lyntone. The discography below only covers the 1970s.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.