A Ska / Reggae label, Doctor Bird was started in 1965 by Graeme Goodall; it issued its first single in 1966 and put out around two hundred more before running into difficulties at the end of 1969. According to an article in 'Record Retailer' of the 17th of April 1968 the company was handling 25% of its distribution itself at that point, with the rest being sent out via Island. Along with its sister-label Attack and the Treasure Isle label (q.v. both), which it was handling at the time, Doctor Bird appears to have been linked with Trojan in 1970, but it managed just two or three more singles in that year, all of them from Goodall's 'Philigree' production company. 'RR' of the 8th of August 1970 revealed that there were plans to double the size of the company's studio and to add 8-track facilities in the autumn, but all was not well. The 'London Gazette' of the 23rd of September carried a notice to the effect that a winding-up petition had been made against Doctor Bird Records by MCPS, and three months later the edition of the 21st of December said that the petition had been successful. 'RR' of the 16th of January 1971 confirmed that Doctor Bird was in liquidation. It would appear that Trojan acquired the company's various labels, as it relaunched Attack in 1972 and Pyramid (q.v.), briefly, in 1973. The Doctor Bird label, however, remained on the shelf. Catalogue numbers in the first era were in the DB-1000s, ending around DB-1209. The 'discography' below only covers the Trojan era, when numbers were in a DB-1500 series. DB-1501 is listed on a few sites but there aren't any scans of it, so it may well not have been issued. Doctor Bird records are collectable, so if you see any going cheep it might be an idea to grab them.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.