SARNIA

    

Either a small independent label, or a custom recording concern.  Sarnia appears to have had two different bases: one at 88, Brooklands Road, Sale, Cheshire; another at Retour du Tertre, Rue De Tertre, St. Andrews, Guernsey.  Alan Martin produced several of the records; if the 'AM' part of the 'AMX' prefix is derived from his initials, which seems probable, that would suggest that Sarnia was at least partly his company.  Mike Crawford has been kind enough to send in a scan of AMX-5007, 'Cupid's Arrow' b/w 'Something Keeps Calling Me Back' by Roy Mosley (2), which was another Alan Martin production, but the identities of AMX-5001 to 5004 and from 5009 upwards remain a mystery at the moment.  If they exist at all, were they on Sarnia or on some other label?  There was also an EHX-7000 series too, which seems to have been for material originating in the Channel Islands, though again I have only managed to track down three issues.  Engineer for all three was Edward Huntley, whose initials presumably provided the first part of the prefix.  Happily two of those records have been dated, enabling us to place Sarnia firmly in the '70s.  Of the other Sarnia records that I have seen listed, 'I'm Following Sheffield United' by Alan Martin himself had a catalogue number of SAM-1712, which merely serves to complicate matters further.  The only records on Sarnia that I have actually seen in the vinyl have been British Homophone pressings; as the scans show, the label went through a variety of designs.  See also 'Rosina'.

Copyright 2009 Robert Lyons.