KOALA
A small independent
company from Hull. 'Billboard' of the 18th of December 1976
described Koala as a new label and said that it was run by Richard Mackenzie. The
report stated that 'New Faces' winner Eve Adam had signed to the label, and she did
indeed release a single on Koala, Old Fashioned Love'
b/w 'Dreams Of Yesterday' (KOA P-18 S). Some eight months after the mention in 'Billboard'
'Music Week' of the 27th of August gave Koala's address as 220 Beverley
Road, Hull, and confirmed that Richard Mackenzie was indeed the man behind the
company. According to the article he had previously run a demo disc production company, and his
label was aimed at the 'Pop end of the MOR market'. LPs
by Bryan Smith were expected, and two albums of Christmas carols, 'Carols
At Kirkgate', had been licensed to Peerless Records for the
Christmas market; distribution of Koala's own records was also by
Peerless. There's no trace of the Bryan Smith records but 'Greetings -
Carols At Kirkgate' duly appeared, as Peerless DT-025, credited to
the York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir with the Beckfield School Choir. Tracks from the set appear to have previously
seen the light of day in 1974 on an album, 'Carols At Kirkgate' on Pollen
Records (q.v.) as PBM-002 - the sleeve carried a credit to Koala, which indicates that the company wasn't quite as 'new' as
'Billboard' thought.
Koala's own first two singles, the Eve Adam one and
'My Imagination' b/w 'I'm Nearly Over You' by Patrick Mower (KOA R-20 S),
were listed in both 'Music Week' and 'Music Master' as coming out in October
1977, with distribution by Lugton and H. R. Taylor, who presumably handled
Peerless's other records. Their catalogue numbers suggest that there should
be a good number of other records on Koala before them, but as yet I have only managed
to track down a couple, both of them highly collectable LPs.
The earliest, from 1975, was 'Visions' by Robin Keith, Grace, and the Adrian Hall Set (KOA
P-004); the second was 'Some Other Morning' by Christian Folk band Cair Paravel (KOA
P-16; 1976). The google-proof nature of the rest suggests that they may
not exist, or that they were pressed in very small quantities. Presumably the 'R'
and the 'P' at the end of the prefixes had some
significance, and the 'S' at the end of the number indicated a single.
Koala had another stab at the Singles
market in
1979, in the form of a couple of records by '60s hitmaker Carol Deene. 'Angel In
Your Arms' b/w 'Oh Babe' (KOA-101; 3/79) was marketed and distributed
by Rediffusion and had a reference to that firm on its labels (2), while 'Nativity Song' b/w 'The
Sun Ain't Gonna Shine' (KOA-102; 12/79) was made through custom recording firm
SRT (q.v.) - it had a matrix number of S/79/CUS-583
- and was distributed by Lugton. As can be seen, these singles shared a new
numerical series, KOA-100. 'Nativity Song' was re-released the following year, through
Pinnacle, and received a mention in 'MW' of the 6th of December 1980. Earlier
that year, in June, there had been another
Koala single, 'Your I's Are Too Close Together' b/w 'That's My
Baby' by a Rock / Pop band from Leicester, The Elevators; it was numbered
KOA-401, and was made through another custom recording firm, Ellie Jay (q.v.). It boasted a
new label design, which was practically identical to the 1980 Ellie Jay
label. Manufacture of the first two
singles looks as though it was done by Linguaphone; the third was a Lyntone
pressing. If you know of any Koala records other than those mentioned above
I'd be pleased to hear about them.
Copyright 2006 Robert
Lyons.