A Reggae label, initially an offshoot of Lee Gopthal's B&C company and latterly associated with the Trojan group. Amalgamated served as a vehicle for Joe Gibbs productions. It received what appears to have been its only mention in the Music Trade press in 'Record Retailer' of the 3rd of January 1968, which described it as one of two new labels that were being started by Musicland (the retail arm of B&C), the other being Blue Cat. The article added that Musicland also ran the Coxsone label. The attribution to Musicland may have been a misunderstanding, as an advert in 'Billboard' of the 25th of May 1968 listed the three labels plus Action and Tabernacle (q.v. both) as members of the B&C Group and said that Musicland, with its fourteen shops, was the company's retail division. According to the advert distribution was by Island and Philips at the time. Neither Coxsone nor Blue Cat lasted into the '70s but Amalgamated survived until the spring of 1971, when it was succeeded by Trojan's 'Pressure Beat' label (q.v.) - there was a couple of months overlap between the two.
One basic label design served throughout but the logo grew: it started out silver-on-blue (1), became blue-on-silver (2) in August 1968 with AMG-821, and gained a silver surround (3) in 1969, with AMG-847 - the second type made a brief return in August / September 1970 with AMGs 865 and 866. Catalogue numbers were mainly in an AMG-800 series, but there was a short-lived 'Sacred Series' with numbers in the SS-000s. As is the case with most early Reggae records, Amalgamated's singles are very collectable. Manufacture seems to have been generally by Orlake, as it was for B&C's other labels during that period. Thanks to Dr. Doom of the 45cat site for the use of the first scan here. The discography below only covers the 1970s.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.