A small independent company from Hull. 'Billboard' of the 18th of December 1976 described Koala as a new label and said that it was run by Richard Mackenzie. The report stated that 'New Faces' winner Eve Adam had signed to the label, and she did indeed release a single on Koala, Old Fashioned Love' b/w 'Dreams Of Yesterday' (KOA P-18 S). Some eight months after the mention in 'Billboard' 'Music Week' of the 27th of August gave Koala's address as 220 Beverley Road, Hull, and confirmed that Richard Mackenzie was indeed the man behind the company. According to the article he had previously run a demo disc production company, and his label was aimed at the 'Pop end of the MOR market'. LPs by Bryan Smith were expected, and two albums of Christmas carols, 'Carols At Kirkgate', had been licensed to Peerless Records for the Christmas market; distribution of Koala's own records was also by Peerless. There's no trace of the Bryan Smith records but 'Greetings - Carols At Kirkgate' duly appeared, as Peerless DT-025, credited to the York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir with the Beckfield School Choir. Tracks from the set appear to have previously seen the light of day in 1974 on an album, 'Carols At Kirkgate' on Pollen Records (q.v.) as PBM-002 - the sleeve carried a credit to Koala, which indicates that the company wasn't quite as 'new' as 'Billboard' thought.
Koala's own first two singles, the Eve Adam one and 'My Imagination' b/w 'I'm Nearly Over You' by Patrick Mower (KOA R-20 S), were listed in both 'Music Week' and 'Music Master' as coming out in October 1977, with distribution by Lugton and H. R. Taylor, who presumably handled Peerless's other records. Their catalogue numbers suggest that there should be a good number of other records on Koala before them, but as yet I have only managed to track down a couple, both of them highly collectable LPs. The earliest, from 1975, was 'Visions' by Robin Keith, Grace, and the Adrian Hall Set (KOA P-004); the second was 'Some Other Morning' by Christian Folk band Cair Paravel (KOA P-16; 1976). The google-proof nature of the rest suggests that they may not exist, or that they were pressed in very small quantities. Presumably the 'R' and the 'P' at the end of the prefixes had some significance, and the 'S' at the end of the number indicated a single.
Koala had another stab at the Singles market in 1979, in the form of a couple of records by '60s hitmaker Carol Deene. 'Angel In Your Arms' b/w 'Oh Babe' (KOA-101; 3/79) was marketed and distributed by Rediffusion and had a reference to that firm on its labels (2), while 'Nativity Song' b/w 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine' (KOA-102; 12/79) was made through custom recording firm SRT (q.v.) - it had a matrix number of S/79/CUS-583 - and was distributed by Lugton. As can be seen, these singles shared a new numerical series, KOA-100. 'Nativity Song' was re-released the following year, through Pinnacle, and received a mention in 'MW' of the 6th of December 1980. Earlier that year, in June, there had been another Koala single, 'Your I's Are Too Close Together' b/w 'That's My Baby' by a Rock / Pop band from Leicester, The Elevators; it was numbered KOA-401, and was made through another custom recording firm, Ellie Jay (q.v.). It boasted a new label design, which was practically identical to the 1980 Ellie Jay label. Manufacture of the first two singles looks as though it was done by Linguaphone; the third was a Lyntone pressing. If you know of any Koala records other than those mentioned above I'd be pleased to hear about them.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.