FIREFLY
Associated
with A&M
Records, as the 'AMS' prefix hints; though it had the 5000 numbering
to itself. 'Music Week' of the 19th of October 1974 broke the
news of Firefly's formation: the people involved were John Sherry and Miles Copeland, of
management company Sherry / Copeland Artists, and Mike Stone, formerly
head of publishers A. Schroeder. Stone was to handle the day-to-day
operation of the label, with Sherry being responsible for agency direction and
new talent acquisition. Firefly product was to be licensed under the
A&M label
throughout the rest of the world. In 'MW' of the 10th of January 1976 John
Sherry gave the reasons for the label's formation, saying that
in part it had been prompted by a wish to simplify the process of
getting bands onto record - there would be no more long-drawn-out negotiations with record companies,
as there was already an established link with a company that
the label put its trust in. Some six months later, however,
'MW' reported that Sherry had taken his roster of acts and
set a a new agency inside the NEMS organization, ending a
three-year association with Miles Copeland. The move also appears to have
ended Firefly.
In the event, Firefly turned out to be mainly a vehicle for records by
Rock group Hustler, who were responsible for two albums and fours singles; Movies,
who went on to record for GTO as 'The Movies', added an album and a single
to the catalogue. Early copies of the first single, Hustler's, 'Get Outa My 'Ouse' b/w 'Happy Days' (AMS-5001) had the standard A&M label with
a Firefly logo (1); later pressings had the standard Firefly label (2).
Subsequent singles had a black 'A' on the appropriate
side (3); the presence of that letter doesn't indicate a demo copy. As indicated above, numbering
was in a dedicated AMS-5000 series, but a scratched-out AMS-7138 in the run-off
of 'Get Outa My 'Ouse' suggests that initially singles may have been intended
to share A&M's main AMS-7000 series. CBS handled
manufacturing and distribution, as they did for all A&M product at the
time.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.