Red Domino was a sister-label to Domino (q.v.). Both were owned by the Ditchburn Organisation, of Lytham, whose main business was the supply of juke boxes and vending machines. The fare offered by both labels was usually pub-singalong stuff of the type which was popular in the late '50s and early '60s. There doesn't seem to be any difference between the sort of material which came out on Red Domino and that which surfaced on the parent label, but the fact that Red Domino records featured tracks which were licensed from EMI and the Domino material came from other sources - including Pye, Rediffusion and Ditchburn themselves - may well have something to do with it. Be that as it may. Red Domino had the same label design as Domino, apart from the addition of the word 'RED' above the logo. Singles were numbered in an RD-100 numerical series, and there were just three of them, all from 1971. Domino records were pressed by Pye, but Red Domino ones weren't; I haven't been able to pin down the firm that was responsible for their manufacture, but it looks as though EMI did the mastering and some other company did the pressing. Distribution of Domino records was by Pye to the music trade and by Ditchburn to juke box operators (according to 'Record Retailer' of the 20th of June 1970 the records were sold in pubs and other places which had juke boxes, as well as in record shops); it seems reasonable to suppose that the same arrangement applied to Red Domino. The rarity of records on the label suggests that they didn't sell particularly well. All three Ditchburn labels - the other one was Spiral (see 'Spiral [1971-72]') - had effectively bitten the dust by the end of 1972.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.