BECK

   

The label of Beck Studios, of Wellingborough, Northants.  Beck was established by Derek Tompkins in 1969, and it is still going today, under different ownership.  It was a custom recording concern, and a pretty prolific one at that, but as is the way with such businesses its products are hard to trace.  The task isn't made any easier by the lack of information on many of the labels.  Some had neither date nor year nor studio identification on them, and can be attributed to Beck only because of their matrix numbers (1).  Others had no label identification as such, and can only be recognized by means of their catalogue numbers (3).  Others at least had a reference to the studio, or a logo as in the second example shown above.  Happily, later records came with the whole set: logo, date and catalogue number (4).  Initially numbering was in the DT-000s - those are the numbers to look out for in the run-off if you want to identify a record as being a Beck; they're not to be confused with DTS-000s, which originated with DTS Studios of Rochester (q.v.).  The first '0' was dropped fairly soon, leaving just DT-00.  At least one single had a 'TOM' prefix.  By the time of the 42nd record the prefix had been changed to BECK.  There seems to have been a big leap in the numbering in the mid '70s, with records from that point being numbered in the BECK-500s to the BECK-900s.  Records with Beck numbers appeared on other labels, as can be seen in the last column of the 'discography' below; q.v. all.  Needless to say, the list is hopelessly incomplete, but it contains the few Beck 7" records that googling has yielded.  Thanks to Sam Mauger for the first scan, and to Robert Bowes for the scans two and three; thanks also to Steve Hill for bringing the label to my attention.  Nicholas Hough kindly supplied the fourth scan.

Copyright 2010 Robert Lyons.