A Reggae label. Attack was formed as part of Graeme Goodall's 'Doctor Bird' group in 1969. Doctor Bird (q.v.) seems to have run into difficulties towards the end of that year as several of its labels linked up with Trojan early in 1970, Attack being one of them. It seems to have served mainly as an outlet for Goodall's 'Philgree' production company until the end of 1970, at which point a petition brought by the MCPS in September of that year resulted in Doctor Bird being wound up ('London Gazette', 23rd September and 21st of December).
There were no Attack releases in 1971 but it reappeared in 1972, presumably having been acquired by Trojan from the defunct Doctor Bird company. The revived Attack proved to be one of the longest lasting Trojan labels, surviving the liquidation of the original Trojan company in 1975 and reappearing under the ownership of Saga Records as one of the two 'Ethnic Reggae' labels of the new company, Trojan Records Limited. Catalogue numbers were in an ATT-8000 series, which survived the changes of ownership. Attack's 7" releases dried up in 1978, but 'Music Week' of the 17th of February 1979 reported that it was to be redesigned and relaunched as a specialist label for 12" singles; any of those records which 'crossed over' would be released in 7" form on Trojan. In that form Attack entered the new decade.
The vast majority of Attack records came with the familiar and suitably in-yer-face red-and-yellow label (1). A couple of singles from the middle of 1974, ATT-8074 and 8075, had a plain white label design, as did re-pressings of 8070 (2). Towards the end of that year half a dozen singles appeared with a black logo rather than a red one, as demonstrated by the scan which Robert Bowes has kindly provided (4), but red-and-yellows were the norm. In September 1974 'Marketed by B&C Records' appeared at the bottom of the labels of some issues (5); from ATT-8088, in the 24th of January 1975, it became universal. The legend 'Made in England' appeared on Attack's singles from the time of the 1972 revival onwards, with the exception of ATT-8058; it had been absent from the earlier releases. Most of the few Attack records that I have seen in the vinyl have been Orlake pressings - Orlake was responsible for a lot of Trojan family records, until the start of 1975. Singles that I haven't seen in the vinyl but which look like Orlake products have been marked as 'ORL ?' in the discography below. There was an occasional 'foreigner': the second record pictured above was pressed by Pye - as can be seen it lacks the rough surface of the Orlake (1, 3) pressings. After Orlake stopped manufacturing Trojan's products the job was shared by EMI and CBS, for the six months or so before Trojan went to the wall. Saga had its own manufacturing facilities, so it was able to press Attack's records itself from the time that the label passed into its hands, in June 1975. One single, 'Notty No Jester' by Big Youth had an Action Records (q.v.) catalogue number but it can be found on Attack; presumably the Attack version was a re-pressing by Saga after Action had been discontinued. A trio of singles with a Jamaican appearance came out on an Attack label in 1976-77, through Third World; these had no connection to Trojan, and I've given them their own page (q.v.).
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.