American, one of a pair of labels founded in 1969 by Frank Zappa and Herb Cohen, the other being Bizarre. The idea originally was that fairly straight records would appear on the Straight label, with more off-the-wall stuff coming out on Bizarre, but that didn't always apply. In Britain, the Straight label was pressed and distributed by CBS, and its records shared the common CBS numerical series. Just two singles were issued: 'Happy Time' by Tim Buckley (4799; 4/70 - CBS used no prefixes at this point) and a now sought-after first single by Alice Cooper, 'Eighteen' (STR-7209; 4/71). Straight and Bizarre were replaced by DiscReet (q.v.) in 1973. Full marks for an eye-catching design.
Copyright 2008 Robert Lyons.