A Reggae label. Sunbeam issued at least sixeen singles, with varying label designs, from c.1973-1976; catalogue numbers go up to SB-25 but some of them seem not to have been used. Bill Farley produced most of the Sunbeam singles that I have seen, so it seems a fair bet that the label was his; though Mark Griffiths points out that Laurel Aitken, who used the 'Sunbeam Music' credit on some of his releases, may have been one of the forces behind the label in the beginning - and indeed Aitken produced the first single shown above. For most of the time catalogue numbers were in an SB-000 numerical series, though one of the zeroes was dropped on occasions. The first single had a rather plain-looking label (1); the red-and-yellow type (3) was used for paper-labelled records from SB-002 to SB-011. Some issues were injection moulded, and were pressed by Phonogram or Polydor; on a couple of these the label name is given as 'Sunbeam B' (2). In early 1975 Sunbeam appears to have joined the Phonogram family, apparently for only a short time; the only record that I have seen which was released during this period was numbered in the 6121-600s, and had an injection-moulded label (5). 1976 saw the introduction of a different logo, with a '3-D' font (4), which was in use by the time SB-016 came out. In the midst of all the Reggae singles is a solitary EP by what looks like a Club / Cabaret band, Cascade, which is somewhat odd: it has a slightly different prefix, SBOO, the second 'O' of which may be a misprint for zero. The first and third scans come by courtesy of Robert Bowes. Such Sunbeam singles as googling reveals are listed below.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.