Mega Records

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Mega Records was an American record label based in Nashville , Tennessee . It was founded in 1970 by Brad McCuen and Harry Pratt.

history

Brad McCuen (1921-2002) was A&R Director and Jazz Coordinator at RCA Records from 1948 to 1969 . There he worked with Chet Atkins and Elvis Presley, among others . In 1969 he left RCA and moved to Nashville, where he founded Mega Records with Harry Pratt.

Right from the start, the label had its greatest successes with the country singer Sammi Smith . Their first single on Mega Records, He's Everywhere (Mega 0001), which was released in August 1970, was the label's debut. Sammi Smith's next single, Help Me Make It Through the Night (Mega 0015), a track written by Kris Kristofferson , peaked at number 1 on the country charts . The song won the 1972 Grammys for Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. From 1971 to 1976 Sammi Smith released fourteen more hits on Mega Records, all of which were listed in the charts.

Other artists who signed the label from 1971 onwards were country singer Mack Vickery, whose live album Mack Vickery Live! At the Alabama Women's Prison , modeled on Johnny Cash , was admitted to a women's prison; Bill Black's Combo , whose records were no longer any notable successes without Black, who died in 1965, or the more successful country duo Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan, who recorded five singles with chart placement on Mega Records; the country singer and songwriter Glen Sherley , and Henson Cargill , who previously had a chart success with Monument Records with Skip a Rope and has now released four successful singles on Mega Records.

Mega Records landed a hit with the Bach interpretation Joy (Mega 0050) by the British instrumental group Apollo 100 , which made it to number 6 in the US charts in 1972 . However, it remained a one-hit wonder , further releases of the band were not successful.

In January 1972 McCuen negotiated with Bob Thiele , the owner of Flying Dutchman Records , a contract for five albums, the so-called Flying Dutchman Series (M51-5000) from. The series presented artists such as Larry Coryell , Benny Goodman , Bernard “Pretty” Purdie , Leon Thomas and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson . Since Thiele did not sign another contract with Mega Records, it stayed with this series. None of the albums became a chart success.

From 1972 Mega took on other country artists with Don Bowman , Ray Pillow and Patsy Sledd . With a comeback of the British singer Julie Rogers , McCuen hoped to achieve a new pop chart success for Mega Records, but it did not succeed. A new album by the successful musician Phil Harris in the 1940s and 1950s also failed . In April 1972, Mega Records became a subsidiary of Zemarc Ltd, a Pennsylvania holding company .

The executive producer Bruce Davidson left the label in August 1972 to start his own company, but that didn't stop him from continuing to design covers for Mega Records. He designed the humorous motif for the second, Master Pieces , album by Apollo 100, which shows the man with the gold helmet staring from his frame at a naked woman with wide eyes.

In September 1973 Mega Records was sold to the Californian Torrance label Zodiac Records. Dave Bell became the new manager and Brad McCuen left the label. Soon after, Mega Records was taken over by Pickwick Records as the Division of Pickwick International, Inc. of Woodbury, NY . Under the new management, Mega Records only had a few moderate hits with titles by Sammi Smith, including the hit Today I Started Loving You Again , which made it into the top 10 of the country charts in 1975. In the spring of 1976 Mega Records became insolvent. Sammi Smith switched to Elektra . Mega Records' catalog and master tapes have been sold to various reissue labels .

Web links

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  1. ^ Brad McCuen Collection. Retrieved March 24, 2012 .
  2. ↑ a b c Mega Records Discography. Retrieved March 24, 2012 .
  3. ↑ Man in a Gold Helmet , cover of the Apollo 100 album Master Pieces , 1972