ROSPEL



Apparently a one-off label, and one of the Plastic Fantastic family.  Googling suggests that an EP by Hush featuring 'Lily Ann' and three other tracks was Rospel's only release.  There's no date on the label, but the vender from whom I bought my copy had it dated as 1978, which, given the involvement of Plastic Fantastic and Pye, is not improbable.  The catalogue number, PFE-101, indicates the Plastic Fantastic link: labels associated with the company generally had 'PF' as part of their prefixes.  The EP appears to have been a DIY affair: producer Robert Pelosi is thanked on the reverse of the picture sleeve (which is a lavish one, for a home-financed record) and is addressed as 'Dad'.  The music, which is falsetto-voiced Pop / Rock, is a cut above the usual Club / Cabaret fare.  Bass player and lead vocalist Renato Paoli, who wrote two of the tracks, went on to be a director of Hush Music Publishing, of Eastbourne; so that name lived on, if Rospel's didn't.  His Linkedin page states that he started the band Hush in August 1978 after leaving a group called 'Appianova', which suggests that this EP could well have come out in the second half of that year.  As the label states, manufacturing was by Pye.




Copyright 2012 Robert Lyons.