The reissue department of Chiswick Records (q.v.); the name was borrowed from Ace Records of Mississippi, with their permission. Ace was launched in late in 1978, with record fan Ray Topping as consultant, at a time when the Chiswick label itself was licensed to EMI. The two companies had previously co-operated on a reissue of Frankie Ford's 'Sea Cruise' b/w 'Alimony', which came out in April of that year as NS-38 on the Chiswick label with an 'Ace Records' logo added (1). The new label received its first mention in 'Music Week' of the 11th of November, but its first singles didn't come out until February of the following year. Ace went on to gain a reputation as a diligent, informative, comprehensive and knowledgable reissue company. Catalogue numbers were in an NS-0 series, which was shared with sister-label Big Beat (q.v.); earlier it had been used for singles on the actual Chiswick label. Distribution was initially by Chiswick themselves but from March 1979 Pinnacle took on that responsibility; it soon passed to Swift Distribution. Manufacture of at least some of the records was by Lyntone. The discography below only covers the '70s. Ace 7" records continued to appear quite frequently until the start of 1982; there were a couple in November of that year, followed by one in 1987. After that there was a gap till the 2000s. The rate of issues picked up again in 2013, with the revival of interest in vinyl.
Copyright 2008 Robert Lyons.