An Irish label. Ruby was owned by Des and John Kelly, once of the Capitol Showband; Des was also the manager of several artistes, including Planxty. The vast majority of its records were released only in Ireland, but in the early 1970s several of the most popular singles were licensed for the UK by Shannon (q.v.) and were issued here with their original Irish catalogue numbers. The UK labels came in three different kinds. The first Ruby single to be released here had Irish labels with the 'Made in the R. of Ireland' at 3 o'clock blocked out (1); subsequent releases had a design very similar to the Irish one but in somewhat different colours (2). 'If Those Lips Could Only Speak' by Dermot Henry & The Virginians (RUB-115; 1970) can be found with that type of label or with a paler one which has 'Made in England' added to the circumference text and lacks the line around the logo (3); the latter kind give the publisher's credit as 'Ruby Music' rather than 'Shannon Music', which suggests that they may perhaps have been pressed in the UK for the Irish market - the 'Ruby Music' credit appears on the Irish issue. Shannon was also responsible for UK pressings of Irish records on the Release, Play and Target during 1970-72 (q.v. all); on those, again, the publishers' credits were changed every so often. Pressing of the examples that I have handled was by Pye. Thanks to Fokeman and BigTom of the 45cat site for bringing the Ruby label and the Dermot Henry single to my attention.
Copyright 2016 Robert Lyons.