A Reggae label; part of the Trojan group. Harry J released more than a hundred singles during the period 1969 to 1974, and scored a couple unlikely chart successes with the Harry J All Stars' 'Liquidator' (TR-675; 1969) and 'Young Gifted And Black' by Bob And Marcia (HJ-6605; 1970) early on in its existence. Until around 1972 it concentrated on productions by Harry J himself; after that time it broadened its scope to include work by other producers. Initially singles hared Trojan's main TR-600 series, but a discrete HJ-6600 one was adopted in 1970. The first two issues appeared on plain green labels (1), as did some copies of HJ-6605, perhaps as a result of the white ones being in short supply, but the white one with a multicoloured logo (3) was the standard one. The summer of 1974 saw the use of a plain black-on-white label in the usual style that Trojan used for the simplified versions of its subsidiary labels (4), presumably as an economy measure. The black-on-white label with a logo (5) is unusual, and dates from later that year. The text 'Made in England' appeared on records from HJ-6640 onwards, though HJ-6663 lacks it. Pressing seems to have been generally done by Orlake, but the three-pronged-centre and large-spindle-holded (2) versions of popular singles were made by Phonodisc. Thanks to Col. Wolfe of 45cat.com for the fourth scan, and to Robert Bowes for the fifth.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.