A Reggae label. The first mention of Sugar in 'Music Week' came in the issue of the 30th of April 1969, which said that Mike Collier of publishers Mother Mistro Music was going to launch the label in the summer. It was to be aimed at the Rock Steady market, and Charles Ross would be producing acts for it. At that point no distribution had been arranged, but 'MW' of the 21st of May was able to reveal that a deal had been signed with Pye. Ashley Kozak and Ronnie Oppenheimer were now named as co-owners with Collier, and Charles Ross's Jamaican record company Flame was credited as being Sugar's 'parent company'. According to the article the first three singles, by Tony Kingston, Joe White and Frenz, were due out at the end of June. There seems to have been a slight hiatus shortly afterwards, as the Kingston single failed to appear; it was replaced by one by Claude Sang. An article in Billboard magazine (16th August 1969) said that Sugar was formed to help provide international exposure for the music of the West Indies, and that the material on it was recorded there under Ross's supervision or by him personally. After the first four releases there was a revamp: 'MW' of the 6th of December revealed that Sugar was to be relaunched in January, switching from Pye to Decca and being given a new logo. The change took place, the Pye-era 'sugarlump' label (1) being replaced by a pink one that bore a strong resemblance to Decca's own Deram label (2) - promo copies had white labels rather than pink ones (3). The catalogue numbers changed also, from an ESS-100 series to an SU-100 one. 'MW' of the 17th of January 1970 reported that the first two singles under the new arrangement were due out on the 30th of that month, and they duly emerged. Sadly the revamped Sugar doesn't seem to have been much more successful than the old version, and its final single (of six) came out in April of that year. It did however manage a couple of albums, both of them by Claude Sang, 'The World Of Reggae' (SUS-1 stereo, SUM-1 mono; 1970), and 'The World Of Reggae, Vol. 2' (SUS-2; 1970). A final mention in 'MW', in the issue of the 30th of May 1970, gives the owners as being Charles Ross and Ashley Kozak at that point.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.