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.