There was a UK / Irish label called 'King', but it didn't issue any singles after 1969 and it is therefore beyond the scope of this site. The King which concerns us was a leading independent label from America. Founded by Syd Nathan in 1943 it grew rapidly, and it eventually included publishing, pressing and artwork arms as well as a distribution network. It was acquired by Starday Records in 1968, after Nathan's death, and both Starday and King were sold to Gusto Records (q.v.) in 1974. In Britain, King's products were licensed to other companies and could be found on the Vogue, Parlophone, London, Polydor and Mojo labels. It did however make an appearance in this country in its own right in 1979, when, as the result of an agreement between Gusto and a UK company called Midland Record Distribution, two of its singles were specially pressed in the States for sale here ('Music Week', 20th October 1979). The records concerned were Wynonie Harris's 'Bloodshot Eyes' b/w 'Confessin' The Blues' (45-4461) and 'Seventeen' b/w 'My Boy - Flat Top' by Boyd Bennett & His Rockets (45-5374); they duly appeared in MW's 'Releases' list for the 9th of November. Another Harris single, 'Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee' b/w 'All She Wants To Do Is Rock' (45-4304) was listed as a Gusto / Midland release in 'MW' of the 5th of January 1980; it has the same kind of label. That issue of 'MW' also mentioned a Bull 'Moose' Jackson, single, 'Bowlegged Woman' b/w 'I Can't Go On Without You' (KG-514) - I suspect that copies with a blue label but a different logo were pressed for the UK, as their American counterparts appear to have had a peach-coloured label. The catalogue numbers were mainly taken from King's 1950's - 1960's series. King singles in the second half of the '70s were numbered in the K-500s; the Jackson single has one of these. Earlier King issues of those singles in the USA had a different logo, with the company's name and a crown at the top of the label. The style shown appears to have come into use in multicoloured form in the USA 1975 and to have turned blue a couple of years later. All four records were reissued on Gusto in the USA in 1979, though 'Bloodshot Eyes' had a different 'B' side there, 'Lovin' Machine', so it may well be that in this particular form, on the King label, they were intended for UK release only.
Copyright 2016 Robert Lyons.