American, out of New York. Crewe was owned by songwriter / producer Bob Crewe, and was the successor to his Dynovoice and New Voice labels. 'Billboard' of the 12th of July 1969 reported that Crewe had set up the Crewe Group of Companies, which covered records, publishing, management, and TV and film productions. CGC Records was to be the group's record arm, with Vito Samela as its vice president and general manager. The first single and album came out that same month, under the Crewe banner rather than CGC. 'BB' of the 23rd of August added that Rocco Scaramone was to be CGC Records' president and that its singles were to be stereo. A couple of months later the Crewe Group of Companies gained another label, in the form of Larry Maxwell's 'Maxwell Records', a Soul imprint. 'BB' of the 18th of October, commenting on the development, said that Maxwell and Crewe were to act as producers for each other's label. A Rock / Contemporary label, Generation, was added to the CGC stable early the following year ('BB', 10th of January 1970). By that time Crewe had had what turned out to be its biggest hit, 'Jean' by Oliver reaching the #2 spot in the Hot 100 the previous September.
CGC had ambitions for expansion. 'Billboard' of the 7th of February 1970 revealed that the company was looking for a deal with Decca or some other major in the UK; the issue of the 21st revealed that several overseas deals had been completed, with Pye ending up as the UK licensee. July saw the introduction of another label, 'CGC', which debuted with a single by Van McCoy and an album by the Bob Crewe Generation. Sadly it and its siblings were destined not to survive for very long. 'BB' of the 16th of January 1971 broke the news that CGC Records was negotiating a distribution agreement with Bell; in passing, the article reminded its readers that as an independent producer Bob Crewe had enjoyed a long string of hits with a wide variety of artists. In 'BB' of the following week label president Rocco Scaramone claimed that CGC had had to abandon arranging its own distribution because of the near impossibility of collecting money from the distributors concerned. The claim was vigorously contested by the owner of one of those distribution companies, Norman Wienstroer of Roberts Record Distribution, who replied in 'BB' of the 20th of March 1971 that CGC owed his company in the region of $8,000, and that the move to Bell had left Roberts Records with some $7,000 of unsaleable CGC records on its hands. He was of the opinion that his firm was not the only one to be left in that position.
The agreement between CGC and Bell proved to be short-lived. 'BB' of the 19th of June 1971 broke that news that Crewe Productions had filed for bankruptcy; CGC Records and Maxwell Records were included. Crewe's publication arms - Saturday Music, Tomorrow Tunes and Genius Music - filed for bankruptcy separately. The final Crewe single came out in America in July. September brought what must have been a bittersweet award, when Oliver's 'Jean' earned a gold record.
In Britain, Crewe's deal with Pye yielded just three albums and four singles, all of them in 1970; the singles by Ben E. King and Faith Hope & Charity had been on Maxwell Records in the States. The Faith Hope & Charity one had been a moderate hit in America but neither it nor 'Jean' troubled the Chart compilers here. Numbering of the singles was in the CRW-0s; manufacture and distribution were of course by Pye, with demos being in the usual yellow-labelled Pye style of that period (2).
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.