An obscure label from 1972. According to 'Music Week' of the 22nd of December 1973 Aries was owned by the man behind Majestic Studios of Clapham, guitarist Mike Morton. An earlier edition of 'MW' (17th November 1973) had said that Mike Collier, who seems to have been the joint-owner of the studios in partnership with Morton, was one of the company's directors. Aries appears to have started out two years earlier, in 1971. Morton had enjoyed success with albums of cover versions of popular hits, which were released by Plexium Records (q.v.), and Aries ploughed the same sort of furrow. It concentrated on LPs, which were credited to the Mike Morton Congregation or Sound ('Non Stop Hits' was the main series), but it also issued three singles, all of them in the first half of 1972. Two were by the Mike Morton Congregation; the other, 'The Day I Found Myself' b/w 'Super Star', was by a group called The Moochies. According to Robert Bowes, who was kind enough to bring Aries to my attention and to supply the scan, the Moochies' record is middle-of-the-road Pop with female vocals. Catalogue numbers of the singles were in an MCC-0 series. Aries signed a six-month pressing and distribution agreement with RCA in October 1971 ('MW', 2nd October), and the relationship between RCA and Morton was to get closer. In June 1972 RCA took over Aries's 'Non Stop Hits' series of albums, issuing them on the budget-priced RCA International label and starting the numbering again at Volume 1 (it had reached Volume 6 on Aries). The International series ended with the release of Volume 8, in August 1973, and the next two Mike Morton LPs, Volumes 1 and 2 of 'Non Stop Party', saw the Aries label back in action, again through RCA. There don't seem to have been any Aries releases after 1974. The Hit Covers site has a handy list of Mike Morton LPs, and indeed of other budget issues.
Copyright 2008 Robert Lyons.