The second Smile label of the 1970s belonged to Steve Foley's 'Smile Studios', of Manchester. It made records from the mid '70s into the early '80s and appears to have operated basically as a custom recording concern, though in the latter decade several of its singles had proper distribution, via Spartan, and were presumably bona fide releases rather than a DIY efforts. Its products covered the spectrum of music from Folk (by the Bag O' Rags Folk Group) to Christian Rock (by 100% Proof); in other words the kind of varied fare that might be expected from a custom recording label. Albums, EPs and singles alike were given numbers in an SR-000 series, which was sometimes rendered SRO-00. They appeared from c.1976 to c.1982, and catalogue numbers suggest that there were at least thirty-nine of them. There were four different label designs. An early basic design (1) was replaced by something more ambitious (2), which came in black-on-orange for SR-008, silver-on-black for SR-011, and black-on-red for 012. From SR-013 onwards (4) the singles were pressed in France and had injection moulded labels; they came in at least three different colours (silver, blue and gold) and, as can be seen, exhibited some differences in design - thanks to John Timmis for the third scan and to Robert Bowes for the fifth. The discography below only lists 1970s releases. Albums are in brackets.
Copyright 2008 Robert Lyons.