The record label of Worldwide Artists Management. WWA had a fairly long and complicated birth. The first signs of a new label came in 'Music Week' of the 26th of August 1972, which broke the news that management and publishing company Hemdale, owned by David Hemmings and John Daly, had signed a management deal with Black Sabbath. It was intended that the band would join Yes - another Hemdale client - in spearheading a new label, 'Hemdale', which was to be launched through the company's 'Worldwide Music' subsidiary, possibly via WEA. By November the plans had changed; 'MW' of the 18th of that month said that Hemdale had consolidated its music division under a new firm, Excellency Music & Records, which was to be run by John Velasco. There were still plans for a new label, this time possibly to be called 'Excellency' and a distribution deal was being sought. However, further changes were only months away. 'MW' of the 13th of January revealed that Hemdale and Worldwide had been bought by a company called Equity Enterprises, and Equity was looking to buy a pressing plant and a record company to serve as a base for the launch of its own label.
The new owners were not slow to reorganize things. 'MW' of the 7th of April 1973 reported that Worldwide had set up a new subsidiary, Tweedrye Management, and five companies had been brought under the Tweedrye umbrella, including the projected new record company, Heat Records. Ken Mewis, who had previously been label manager of Immediate Records (q.v.), was to carry out the same function with Heat. A distribution deal was being sought, and the label was expected to be launched within the next couple of months. Two months passed but there was still no Heat label; instead 'MW' of the 16th of June broke the news that Worldwide - which was still Hemdale's music division - was undergoing 'several reorganizations', with full details expected soon. Those details emerged a month later: 'MW' of the 14th of July was able to state that Worldwide was to introduce not one new label but three: WWA for new artists, Heat, and 'Roller Coaster', which would be for records by Black Sabbath and Gentle Giant. All were to be handled by Phonogram. The first Heat album was scheduled for release on the 9th of September, and was to be a solo album by Tony McPhee; an album by Groundhogs would follow. Almost inevitably, things didn't go according to plan. In the event the Roller Coaster label was dropped altogether, and all of the company's records were issued on WWA. Heat was mentioned as production company and / or publisher on records by Tony McPhee and Groundogs (2, 3) and also on singles by Jeff Phillips and by Bandy Legs, but it never achieved label status. Excellency was named as the production company and publisher of Black Sabbath's 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' LP, and also received production and / or publishing credits on two albums by Snafu as well as on singles by Captain Zahl and Scott English.
At last things settled down. 'Music Week' of the 15th of September 1973 was able to give a date for the release of the first WWA LPs - the 21st of that month - and WWA records finally began to hit the shops. The company issued a dozen albums and fourteen singles over the course of the next twelve months or so, and also reissued several Black Sabbath LPs. There were some well-known names on the roster: in addition to Gentle Giant and Black Sabbath there were Medicine Head and Scott English, who had enjoyed Chart success previously. Sadly, however, no WWA single ever entered the Top 50. Despite the lack of hit singles, things seemed to be going smoothly enough, but in the autumn of 1974 Equity appears to have hit terminal financial trouble. The last WWA single came out in September, after which the label expired, reportedly amidst a fair amount of legal hassle. There was even a question asked in Parliament about the company: in 'Hansard' of the 12th of July 1976 an MP revealed that Equity had last lodged accounts on the 29th of November 1974 and that dealings in its shares had been suspended in April 1975. The last mention of WWA in 'MW' came in the issue of the 20th of September, which said that the label's entire catalogue had been acquired by NEMS (q.v.)
WWA was handled by Phonogram throughout its existence, with manufacture and distribution being by Phonodisc. Usually singles on labels associated with Phonogram were numbered in various 6000-000 numerical series, but for some reason WWA stuck with a simple WWS-000 one. The label came in one design throughout (1), and singles were injection moulded, as were most other 7" Phonodisc pressings. There were no demo copies as such, but some records can be found with 'Alsatian' stickers on them, Alsatian being the name of an independent promotion company which handled Phonogram's marketing for a time (2).
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.