The short-lived 'Progressive' subsidiary of Les Reed's 'Chapter One' label. According to an article in Billboard magazine of the 26th of September 1970 Reed and musician Tony Reeves - bassist with John Mayall, Colosseum, Greenslade and others, during the course of his career - were planning to launch a 'prog orientated' label called RAM at some time in the following year. 'Music Week' of the 19th of that month added that no distribution had been fixed as yet but that the first artists signed to the label were to be 'Hot Soup'. RAM received another mention in 'MW' of the 6th of March 1971: Reed was setting up a company to cover his record and publishing concerns. It would cover Chapter One and the new label, which was going to be run by Reeves and was tentatively going to be called 'RAM' or possibly Greenwich. A couple of months later the Greenwich name had been decided upon: 'MW' of the 22nd of May carried the news that the new label had been licensed to Decca for five years and would be launched in the middle of June. According to the article one of the first fruits of the deal was to be an LP by John Walker, produced by Bill Wyman. There was a slight delay, as the actual launch - consisting of a batch of three LPs, by Open Road, Day Of Phoenix, and Samurai - was not reported by 'MW' until the 14th of August.
Sadly, Greenwich was to last for only long enough to add a fourth album (by the Woods Band) and three singles to its catalogue. Reeves left the company in May 1972 to join a band, and 'MW' of the 22nd of July revealed that Reed was going to phase the label out. According to the article the acts which were still with the company were to be transferred to Chapter One; the Bond & Brown album 'Two Heads Are Better Than One' from which the Greenwich 'Lost Tribe' single was taken duly appeared on that label. The first three Greenwich albums were deleted in June '74; the Woods Band one was still listed in the Decca catalogue for 1977, but not that for 1978.
One label design served throughout, with demo copies being marked accordingly (2, 3). I like it myself, but the lack of space led to the credits occasionally looking rather cramped, particularly when the demo markings were added. The singles were numbered in a GSS-100 series; GSS-101 seems not to have been issued. The John Walker LP never saw the light of day, though a single from it came out in America, on the Greene Mountain label in 1973, 'Good Days' b/w 'Midnight Morning' (GMM-416). Perhaps that may have been intended as GSS-101? Records on the Greenwich Gramophone Company label are rarely met with nowadays, which makes the claim in 'MW' (15th September 1974) that it was 'dropped last year due to lack of success' sound credible; the albums are collectable.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.