American, from Chicago. Mainstream was founded in the spring of 1964 by producer Bob Shad. Previously he had worked at Vogue Records and at Mercury, where he was responsible for the Jazz arm EmArcy. After leaving Mercury he set up the Junior label, which morphed into Shad Records; the Shad label expired in 1960 but its stable-mates Time and Brent were still on the scene when Mainstream arrived. 'Billboard' of the 11th of April, commenting on Mainstream's arrival, said that it was intended for Jazz and that its first releases, a batch of eight LPs, consisted mainly of reissued material from the lately acquired Commodore label. 'BB' of the 13th of February 1965 reported a slight change of direction: Mainstream was moving into Pop, and had featured some in its release package for that month. According to the article singles were still intended to be basically promotional items for LPs, and the intention was for the label to be 'A class album line'. Despite the shift to Pop, 'BB' of the 11th of June 1966 noted that Mainstream was pushing its Jazz and Soundtrack lines.
In the summer of 1966 Mainstream began to give more attention to singles, including stand-alone ones. 'BB' of the 20th of August took note of the development and reminded its readers that Shad had enjoyed several singles successes on his Time and Brent labels awhile back. The change gathered pace over the following year as the company broadened its musical spectrum. Several Rock acts were signed, including Big Brother & The Holding Company with Janis Joplin, and it was hoped that singles would give them exposure. The relevant article, in 'BB' of the 3rd of June 1967, added that there was to be no diminuition in the number of album releases and pointed to the twenty Soundtrack albums that had been put out over the past year. By the end of 1967 Mainstream had seen its Big Brother album spend fifteen weeks in the Chart and was hoping to gain more exposure for its other Rock acts, with 'Underground' radio stations playing cuts from their LPs. The Amboy Dukes, including Ted Nugent, were on board by that point, as were several other exotically named groups, such as the Jellybean Bandits, the Bohemian Vendetta, and the Tangerine Zoo ('BB', 30th December).
1970 saw a production deal with Red Lion of Miami and Belle Rain of Houston, the aim being to bolster Mainstream's singles push. Other deals were expected, and the aim was to see which artists had the potential to transfer successfully into the album field ('BB', 30th May). A new label design incorporating the Red Lion logo was introduced for that company's productions. After the end of 1970 Red Lion appears to have been responsible for all of Mainstream's singles, with the old plain Mainstream label returning to its Jazz roots. 'BB' of the 19th of June 1971 broke the news that Mainstream was dropping all of its plans for Pop releases in order to concentrate on 'contemporary improvisational' material, some of it new, some reissued. Renowned singer Sarah Vaughan was signed towards the end of that year, and an advert in 'BB' of the 29th of April 1972 claimed that Mainstream's Jazz was 'As contemporary as its makers'. The Mainstream / Red Lion singles tended to steer in the direction of Jazz / Funk.
Mainstream had its eye on overseas markets as well as the American one. 'Music Week' of the 31st of March 1973 reported that it was to be launched in the UK in May, under its own logo, by Pye, and 'BB' of the 18th of August added that deals had been done for ten more countries. Success seems to have been limited, however, and there were problems. 'BB' of the 5th of April 1975 reported that Sarah Vaughan, who was still under contract, was suing the company and wanted to set up her own publishing and production firm. Then 'MW' of the 20th of March 1976 revealed that Pye was not renewing its licensing deal. Late in 1976 the Time and Mainstream catalogues were licensed to a company called Audio Fidelity Entertainments, in America. Finally, in 1978, Bob Shad retired and closed Mainstream down. That wasn't quite the end of the story, for in the early 2000s, after Mainstream had passed through the hands of several owners, Shad's family bought it back.
In Britain, Mainstream arrived late on the scene. A handful of Time and Brent singles came out here on first the Top Rank and later the Oriole American labels, and a couple of Mainstream singles by Big Brother & The Holding Company came out here, on Fontana ('Bye Bye Baby' b/w 'All Is Loneliness', TF-881; 11/67) and London ('Down On Me' b/w 'Call Me', HLT-10226; 10/68), but that was all until the licensing deal with Pye in 1973. The first Mainstream single to be issued through Pye, Afrique's 'Soul Makossa' b/w 'Hot Mud', came out on Pye International as 7N-25616 in May with an originating credit to Mainstream (1); it is possible that the missing MSS-301 number in the discography below may have been intended for that record. Mainstream's first own-label single didn't arrive until August. Being primarily album-orientated the company issued some forty-odd albums over here, but only six singles, which were numbered in the MSS-300s. One label design served throughout, the one that was used for Red Lion Productions in the States but without the Red Lion logo (2). Only the final two singles had 'demo copy' labels, which were marked with a small black 'A' and the appropriate text (3). A round white sticker with a black 'A' on it was used to denote demos of MSS-304, while a large ink-stamped black 'A' was used on those of MSS-305. Mainstream never troubled the British Chart compilers in its own right, but Kevin Johnson's 'Rock And Roll (I gave you the best years of my life)' b/w 'There's Nothing I'd Rather Do' (MSS-304; 1/74) was a hit in 1975 when it was picked up by Jonathan King and reissued on his UK Records (UKR-84; 11/74).
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.