The label of a Christian organization called Evangelical Communications Home and Overseas. The organization was set up in the mid 1960s by Helmut Kaufmann and Don Feltham, with the aim of recording Christian music. Initially it was based in Polegate, Sussex, but it it moved along the county to Eastbourne in 1970. It had a rather basic recording facility, Echo Studios. The first EPs on the Echo label came out in 1969 or thereabouts and were numbered in the ECR-450s. Unusually many of them were pressed in Germany, which lent them a rather exotic appearance (2); at least one was pressed in the UK by Orlake (1) - thanks to Sporiduim of the 45Cat site for permission to use that scan here. There appear to have been seven such EPs released, of which two came out in our decade: a six-tracker by The Sheppard Family, 'The Sheppard Family Sings' (ECR-456), and 'Young Sweden Sings' by the Swedish Christian Youth Team 1970 (ECR-457), which offered 'Happy Am I' and four other devotional songs. From that point Echo seems to have concentrated on albums.
Kaufmann and Feltham ended their partnership in the mid '70s, and the final credit to Echo Studios that I have been able to find featured in the credit notes to an LP from 1975. Kaufmann continued to operate the studio, which was known as ICC from that point, the initials standing for 'International Christian Communications'. It was eventually updated; its client base widened to include secular artists, and its functions were broadened to include a busy and successful tape duplicating plant. The Echo label continued to be used as an outlet for sporadic releases until 1980, with a new logo (3). They included a 1977 7" of two songs written by I. M. Sabharwal, 'Adesh' (ECR-4501), and an album of the same name featuring songs in Hindi and Urdu (ECR-502). ECR-501 was an album of Polish devotional songs, 'Jezuz Zyje!' by Miriam Wojnar, so the 'Overseas' and 'International' were not unjustified.
Copyright 2024 Robert Lyons.