One of several Soul bootleg labels from the early '70s. Green Light had links to Soul record shop / importers / wholesalers Selectadisc, which was run by Brian Selby and John Bratton. Selby and Bratton had worked in Syd Booth's record shop, in Mansfield, but they opened their own shop, Selectadisc, in Nottingham in 1969. With a lot of rare Soul records being in demand (thanks to exposure in the clubs) but being hard to get, Selectadisc began to make and sell unlicensed pressings of some of them. Three such singles came out on the Green Light label in or around 1971, numbered in the GL-2000s. Despite their large centre holes they were pressed in the UK. The Little Anthony record shown above appears to have been cut by Lyntone but pressed by British Homophone; its matrix numbers are LYN-2201 and 2202 but the way they have been impressed into the run-off is typical of British Homophone. There were no dates on the labels but the Lyntone numbers enable us to pin the Little Anthony single down to 1971, which ties in with Green Light receiving a mention in 'Billboard' of the 11th of September of that year. The article mentioned it as being a source of pirated Soul singles, but claimed that it was from the Leicester area. Also mentioned were Green Light’s sister-label B.J.D. and the Soul Source label, which was from Leicester and was in the same line of business. According to correspondence on the 'Soul Source' site Selectadisc was also responsible for a third bootleg label, Magic, and it stocked bootlegs made by other people on labels such as Soul Source, Soul Fox and Soul Galore (q.v. all the above). Justice eventually caught up with Green Light, at least to a certain extent: 'Music Week' of the 7th of April 1973 reported that after releasing the Little Anthony / Homer Banks single unlawfully Selectadisc had had to apologize to Liberty / United Artists and pay compensation. Selectadisc eventually went legitimate, launching its 'Black Magic' label (q.v.) in 1975.
Copyright 2022 Robert Lyons.