A Reggae label; apparently a DIY one. All of the MSR singles that I've seen in the vinyl have had a large spindle-hole, presumably to give them a Jamaican appearance, but Robert Bowes kindly sent along a scan of a small-holed copy of 'Do Good' by Tyrone & The Mighty Soul Rebels, so singles with small spindle holes do exist. Anyway, as far as I have been able to ascertain there were at least seven releases on MSR, one of which was only available as a 12" single. Five of them of featured the Mighty Soul Rebels or the Soul Rebels (reportedly a precursor of that band); presumably the label belonged to one or more of the band members. Numbering is confused: two of the singles were numbered in the MSR-000s, another was numbered MSR MA-1, and two others had no numbers at all. The latter two did however have Lyntone matrix numbers, as indicated in the discography below. Similarly, dating is generally absent, but MSR-001 had a year on the label, 1976, and the Lyntone numbers enable us to date two of the others to 1977, which gives us a reasonable idea of the span of the label's operations. The Rebels were from London; founder member Leon Leiffer went on to be one of the Blackstones.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.