State Records received its first mention in the trade press in 'Music Week' of the 23rd of November 1974. The article broke the news that Polydor managing director John Fruin had left that company after five years in order to form State with Wayne Bickerton, who had been Polydor's head of A&R. 'MW' of the 21st of December claimed that licensing arrangements for the new label were to be finalized that week; and the issue of the 25th of January 1975 was able to reveal that Polydor had beaten off competition from EMI and CBS and had signed a three year licensing deal with State. The Rubettes and Mac & Katie Kissoon were to be placed on State because of their strong connection to Wayne Bickerton, the latter article added, but they were to remain Polydor artists. The Rubettes gave State its first Top 10 single with its first release ('I Can Do It' b/w 'If You've Got The Time'; STAT-1; 2/75) and followed that with five more Top 50 hits. Mac and Katie Kissoon managed a Top 10 record with 'Don't Do It Baby' b/w 'Hold On' (STAT-4; 4/75) and followed that with a couple of lesser Chart placings; in addition there were several one- and two-hit artists on the label. An astute piece of business saw State picking up Gary Benson's 'Don't Throw It All Away' b/w 'This House' from the liquidators of B&C / Mooncrest ('MW', 26th July 1975); reissued as STAT-10 it tickled the Top 20.
When the licensing agreement with Polydor expired, in May 1977, State chose not to renew it; it switched instead to a distribution deal with WEA and began to do its own marketing ('MW' 14th May). The Rubettes stayed with Polydor, and their current album and single on State remained available from that company for some time after the switch ('MW', 4th June 1977). Sadly, apart from a solitary effort by Rokotto, 'Funk Theory' b/w 'Get On Down' (STAT-80; 6/78), the hits dried up. State seems to have spent much of 1980 in limbo; it issued just two singles in that year, both of them in November, through a new distributor, PRT, and with a new label design. The following two years saw a reasonable number of releases and several more changes of label design; they also saw moves to RCA and then to Pinnacle for distribution. Success remained elusive, however, and January 1983 saw State's final single, STAT-119, coming out. Somewhat belatedly the company put out STAT-120 in July 2012, in the form of a CD single by The Life, 'Every Road I Take'.
Initially manufacture, sales and distribution of State records were by Polydor under the licensing deal, and its singles had typical Polydor / Phonodisc family injection-moulded labels (1). Some popular singles from the Polydor years can be found with paper labels; these were contract pressings - the example shown was made by EMI (2). When WEA took over distribution paper labels became the norm. As was the case with other WEA-family labels some had a small black 'A' on the appropriate side (3), others did not (4); the 'A' does not indicate a promo copy. Manufacture during the WEA period appears to have been by CBS until at least the end of 1978, with possibly another company - WEA itself? - taking over at the start of 1979. The design of the company sleeve remained basically the same thoughout the '70s, but at the time of the switch a credit to Polydor as marketers, at the bottom (5), was replaced by one to WEA as distributors (6). The discography below only covers the 1970s.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.