MAIDEN MUSIC
Maiden Music was
associated with music publishers the Valentine Music Group. It
concentrated on Spoken Word material, aimed mainly at the Children's
market. In 1977 it produced a short series of EPs for the Hallmark
greeting card company, which came out on the 'Charmers' (q.v.) label as
flexi-discs packaged with birthday cards. That same year it placed a
couple of albums with EMI: 'Toad's Army (Volume 1)' (EME-6503), and 'Toad's Army
(Volume 2)' (EME-6505). Produced and co-written by Barry O'Keef, the
albums came out as part of EMI's 'Talking Tales' series. Around
that time it began to put out LPs on its own label,
'Maiden'. They were numbered in an MR-100 series; the lowest number
that Googling brings up is MR-113, which came out in 1978. Three of
them offered Science Fiction stories, but MR-116 told the tale of 'The Enchanted
Orchestra'. A white-labelled promotional 7" with excerpts from the album
on one side and the main theme on the other was pressed, but as it wasn't
available to the general public it wasn't enough to qualify Maiden for this
site. Fortunately for our purposes Maiden Music put together a
vinyl EP telling the story of 'Blink The Belisha Beacon And The Sweeties'
for the Bassetts confectionery company, and that was
available to the
(young) public. It had a catalogue / matrix number of MMS-2, which prompts the question
of what MMS-1 was (if there was one), and it was pressed by
RCA.
'Billboard' of the 11th of
November 1978 described Maiden Music as a specialist in children's records. It revealed that under
managing director Barry O'Keef the company had just set up a six album deal for
the USA and Canada, and that another deal - this time a three album one -
had been signed with Phonogram for product based on the Arabian Nights stories, featuring the Maiden Theatre
Company and actor Roy Kinnear. In addition a further deal
had been signed with German concern Satellite Records for twelve book
/ LP combinations which were to include fairy tales and children's stories
along with some Science Fiction items. The article said that some three years ago O'Keef had been on a
visit to America and had seen that children's records sold well there. Inspired, he had returned
to London and had started Maiden Music, aiming it at the childen's market here. There's
no sign of the Kinnear or Satellite records online, which suggests that they
never reached the shops, but the company does seem to have licensed
several Dutch-language versions of children's stories to Bovema Negram of
Holland - they came out in 1978 in
a series of Children's LPs. The Hallmark / Charmers card-and-record series also came out in
a Dutch version. In 1979-80 an attempt to turn 'The Enchanted Orchestra'
into an animated film ran into terminal money-supply troubles. I haven't found any
Maiden Music productions dating from after 1979, so it may perhaps be that the
financial situation meant the end of the company.
Copyright 2021 Robert Lyons.