American. Reprise was started by Frank Sinatra in December 1960. It was bought by Warner Bros in September 1963 and became part of the new Warner Brothers Records - Reprise Records company, but it kept its own label identity; its output seems to the casual eye to have been more or less indistinguishable from that of Warner Bros throughout the late '60s and into the '70s. It received surprisingly few mentions in the trade press in the '70s: Music Week' of the 23rd of January 1971 observed that there were five months left of Reprise's current deal with Pye; at the end of that period it joined up with several other Kinney labels in a joint manufacturing and distribution operation with CBS, 'CBS-Kinney'. It seems to have led a quiet sort of existence, as its next mention came in 'MW' of the 3rd of July 1976; the article revealed that WEA (as Kinney was by then) was going to use it as a label for the company's MOR talent signings, with contemporary acts going on Warner Bros. The arrangement lasted for less than two years: 'MW' of the 15th of April broke the news that Reprise had been 'phased out' as a label by WEA. In the event, while many of its artists moved over to the Warner Bros label, Reprise continued to issue material sporadically throughout the remainder of the '70s and into the early '80s. Much of that material consisted of reissues of popular tracks, but there was also the occasional new release from some of the artists who had been associated with the label for a long time, such as Neil Young and Frank Sinatra himself. Happily Reprise was revived in 1986, and it has continued on as one of the Warner family.
Reprise made its British debut in September 1961 via a licensing deal with Pye, and it was handled by that firm throughout the '60s. According to 'Billboard' of the 11th of September, the agreement meant that Reprise was to have its own label identity and was be operated as a self-contained unit within the Pye organization. The contract was renewed in February 1965, at which point Warner Bros moved from Decca to join Reprise at Pye. In July 1971 both labels left Pye and moved under the 'CBS-Kinney' umbrella. They kept close company from that point, and when WEA opened its own distribution facility, in July 1977, it handled both labels. Then in 1978 came the lull referred to above.
As far as label designs are concerned the first, pink, label (1) had the artist's name at 8 o'clock until around March 1963, when it was moved to a roomier and more conventional 9 o'clock (2). In this slightly altered form the design lasted until November 1970, when a new one featuring a steamboat (3) was adopted. The steamboat design survived the move to CBS / Kinney (4) and was to remain basically the same throughout the '70s. There were however several minor adjustments: a small hollow 'A' appeared above the spindle hole from September 1974 (5), and then in August 1975 the artist's name migrated down to join the titles at 6 o'clock (6). Finally, in November 1975, a credit to Warner Communications appeared in the perimeter text, at 2 o'clock (7). To move on to promo labels: the first two shown above date from the Pye years; the white one (8) lasted until around June 1967, when it was replaced by the yellow type (9). From March 1970 the markings were changed to a hollow red 'A' below the spindle hole, and the words 'Advance Promotion Copy' above it (10). The yellow colour of the promos turned to white with the advent of the 'Steamboat' label (11); this design stayed the same during the transfer from Pye to CBS / Kinney and remained in place until November 1973. From that point until August 1974, when dedicated promo labels were largely abandoned, promos had a larger, thinner 'A' and the words 'Not For Sale' on them (12).
Pye-era Reprise singles were mainly numbered in an RS-20000 series, which reached the 21000s in 1971. Until the end of 1963 the UK numbers were the same as the American ones, but from then on the American versions dropped the 'RS' and the '2' - thus RS-20875 in the UK was our equivalent of the American 0875. An RS-23000 series, which operated from c.1965-71, featured American material which was released in different combinations here - some of the sides weren't released in 7" form in the USA, others were issued as separate 'A' or 'B' sides there. An RS-27000 series, which dates from 1969-70, featured only material originating in the UK. There was also an R-30000 series, for EPs. Starting in July 1971, after the formation of CBS-Kinney, singles on the various Kinney Corporation labels - Warner Brothers, Elektra and Reprise (Atlantic was part of the group but was still under license to Polydor at that time) - were all given numbers in various K-00000 blocks; Reprise's singles were allotted a K-14000 series, which was used for the rest of the decade. With regard to company sleeves, a blue-grey one was used for most of the Sixties (13); initially its logo was reddish (13) but it appears to have turned pink fairly soon (14). Around the start of 1970 the blue-grey sleeve was replaced by a dark-fawn coloured one with the Warner-Reprise logo and a reference to Seven Arts on it (15). This in its turn was replaced by an orange-red sleeve with white borders and the Reprise logo (16) at the time of the move to CBS / Kinney, in 1971. A 'Warner Giants' series from 1974, consisting of K-14340 to K-14351 together with some titles on Warner Brothers, had its own special sleeve (17). The discography below only covers the 1970s, and, as usual, it is full of holes. Many of these holes can be accounted for by the fact that the singles with those numbers (or the American equivalent) were only issued abroad.
Copyright 2008 Robert Lyons.