TAM STUDIO / TAM THEATRE SERVICES

  

Another one of the many custom recording labels that were around in the 1970s.  Tam was run by Tony and Myrtle Batchelor, and it took its name from their initials.  It was based in Hamilton Way, Finchley, London N3.  It started life in 1954 as Tam Theatre Services, providing sound and lighting equipment for drama companies, but it eventually added a mobile recording studio and by the mid '70s it was making records.  Its first venture into that area came in 1974-75 when the Batchelors' youngest son was one of the musicians backing the choir at a local school for a concert of Benjamin Britten's work 'Noye's Fludde'.  They asked if they could tape the event; the Head of the school gave permission but asked if it would be possible to make a vinyl album for sale to pupils and parents.  The Batchelors found that it was indeed possible.  They went through the processes of making the recording, editing the tape, having a master made in a cutting room, taking the masters to a factory to get the pressings done, and providing a basic label - the school came up with a design for the album covers.  The recording was done late in 1974, and the record came out early in 1975, numbered TTS-275, with a label credit to Tam Theatre Services.
Over the course of the next few years Tam's capacities increased.  The Batchelors had a mobile recording studio, and in 1977 they attempted to buy the equipment for a cutting room.  An initial deal with Deroy fell through after the actual room had been made ready to receive the equipment; the room was used temporarily as a studio, linked to the mobile unit, but early in 1978 a replacement set of equipment was bought from Pathe Marconi of Paris.  It was brought over and installed.  The occasional record had been made during that period and had come out with the Tam Theatre Services name on the labels (1) - the earliest of them that googling reveals, an LP by the Radlett Choral Society, seems to date from 1976.  From 1978 onwards, with the added facilities available, a yellow Tam Studios label (2) was used, though several records made through the company came out on different labels, such as 'Croft' and 'Nearly Famous' (q.v. both).  The TTS prefix which Tam used for its products remained fairly constant, however.  The numbers which followed the TTS varied in form: according to Tony Batchelor, who was kind enough to send along information and corrections for this page, the prefix was applied to a lot of things - for example invoices - and not just to records, so gaps in the discography below don't necessarily mean that there was a corresponding record.  The year seems to have been a component part during the '70s, but if that was the case the practise appears to have been discontinued in the '80s, with numbers remaining in the TTS-8000s into 1984.  The pace seems to have picked up in 1979, with records being made through Tam more frequently.  I haven't been able to trace any TTSes later than the mid 1980s.  Tam was still offering mastering and duplicating facilities in 1993.  Tony and Myrtle moved to Denmark shortly after that, and set up Tam over there.  The discography below contains LPs as well as 7" records, for the sake of interest.

Copyright 2011 Robert Lyons.