American, owned by Clarence Avant and based in Hollywood. Sussex started life in 1970, and was distributed by Buddah in the States. Its records began to appear here following year when it signed a licensing agreement with A&M for Britain; they were issued on the A&M label with a 'Sussex' logo added. The first four singles had a black logo in a box (1), while for the rest a red-black-and-white logo was used (2) - the white showed as yellow on promo copies (6). As was the case with all of A&M's records, pressing and distribution were by Pye until the 1st of April 1974, at which point CBS took over those functions. The discography below lists these singles after the actual Sussex-label ones.
The Sussex label as such (3) appeared over here in 1974, via B & C, when the company's agreement with A&M came to an end. It issued nine singles in an SXX-0 numbering series, before disappearing in mid 1975 when B&C hit terminal financial difficulties. The American label only survived its British offpring by a matter of months. Both pressing and distribution of these records were handled by EMI. Promo copies of the first six singles had the 'A' side on both sides, which was the standard B&C practice at the time, and had a small black 'A' on the label (4); promo copies of the final three singles were the same as the issues and had a large black 'A' on the appropriate side (5). Clarence Avant went on to found the Tabu label (q.v.).
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.