Mother had its roots in Mother Mistro music, a publishing company set up early in 1969 by Mike Collier - previously with Campbell Connelly - to handle the interests of a production company 'set up by a top DJ' ('Record Retailer', 15th January 1969). It took a while to come into being: it was not until the 15th of August 1970 that 'RR' reported that Mother Mistro was launching its own label, 'Mother'. Distribution was to be by Polydor, and 'Run Baby Run' b/w Sheila Lee' by Amazon Trust was to be the first Mother single. That record duly came out, but it did so on Polydor with a Mother Records logo; the actual Mother label didn't appear until December. 'RR' (12th December 1970), reporting on the label's eventual launch, said that it was a joint venture between manager Henry Henroid, Milton Samuels's 'Beacon Records', and Emperor Rosko - presumably he was the DJ associated with Mother Mistro in the 'RR' article referred to above. The first two singles were to be issued that week. In the event Mother came and went in the first four years of the 1970s, leaving behind it a handful of singles and one very collectable album: Moonkyte's 'Count Me Out' (SMOT-1; 1971). As with Beacon, distribution was by EMI, Lugton and Clyde factors for the most part. Numbering was generally in a MOT-0 series, though the final single, David McWilliams's 'Gold' - from the soundtrack album of the film, also on Mother - was numbered MOT-101. That record came out some months after the last of the MOT-0s, at a time when the main Beacon label had moved from EMI to CBS and was enjoying a brief revival, and it had an orange label in a different, plainer, design (2) similar to the new one adopted by its parent - thanks to Nicholas Hough for supplying that scan. Singles in the MOT-0s have matrix numbers that are taken from Beacon's main 45-000 series. Mother records are uncommon, several of them very much so; perhaps, as the company's punning slogan proclaimed, Mother was 'A Head' - ahead of its time, at least.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.