MAPLE ANNIE
Maple Annie was owned by producer / songwriter Phil
Wainman. It received its first and only mention in the Trade press in
'Record Retailer' of the 6th of November 1971: the article said that Maple Annie
would make its debut the following week, through Island Records (q.v.), and that
its products would be "solidly Pop". Sure enough, the material on
offer turned out to be commercial Pop, though Paul Ryan's, 'Natural
Gas' b/w 'Hellow Hellow' (MA-107) was an interesting piece of Bolanesque Glam
Rock. As an actual label Maple Annie seems to have come and gone in
1971-72, though a couple of its later productions - 'Tip Of My Tongue'
b/w 'I Love Everything About You' by Brotherly Love (CBS, CBS-1403; 4/73) and
Good Foot's 'Toes In The Water' b/w 'Robert The Robot' (Polydor, 2058-373; 6/73) - were
placed with other companies and featured a Maple Annie logo on their
labels (3). It seems possible that the agreement with Island was a twelve-month one and that it
was not renewed when it expired, a policy of licensing out individual records
being referred. Brotherly Love's next single for CBS, 'Public Enemy No.
1' b/w 'Here Stands A Better Man' (CBS-1737), came
out in September 1973 and was also a Phil Wainman production but it had
no mention of Maple Annie on its labels, so perhaps the company had
been shelved by that point. It may be that as the producer
of Sweet's run of big hits in the early / mid '70s
Wainman had other things demanding his attention. Manufacture of Maple Annie's singles was
by EMI, through Island, and distribution was by Island. Catalogue numbers were in
an MA-100 series; MA-105 appears not to have been used. Promo copies had a medium-sized 'A' on them (2), after
the fashion of labels associated with Island at that
time; thanks to Nicholas Hough for that scan. There was no identification
on the company sleeve, just a stylized maple leaf (4). Judging
by the fact that records of some other Island-related labels can occasionally be found in that sleeve,
it looks as though overstocks of it may have led to
Island using it for singles on some of its other labels, such
as Grape (q.v.).
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.