A specialist Electric Organ label run by brothers John and Malcolm Jackson as an offshoot of the Jackson Studios, of which their well-known disc-jockey father, Jack, was a director. Although the studios were in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, Ad-Rhythm's sales office was in North Harrow. The label received its first mention in the Music Trade press in 'Record Retailer' of the 28th of February 1968, which said the brothers were launching it 'this week', with distribution via the British Independent Record Distributors group. It was to be operated by Ad-Rhythm Productions, an offshoot of the Jackson Recording Company. A week later an advert in 'RR' of the 6th of March announced that the first single would be out on the 15th of that month. 'Billboard' of the 25th of May described Ad-Rhythm as 'Small but enterprising', and provided a few more details: it specialized in 'modern organ Pop music', and as well as putting out its own records it licensed some of its productions to majors. One of the productions mentioned in the article was the now highly-collectable 'Sallies Forth' LP by the Rainbow Ffolly, which was picked up by EMI and released on Parlophone; others were 'Love Is Blue' by the Second City Sound, and 'Music For Meditation' by Mellow Fruitfulness, which again were licensed by EMI. According to the article Malcolm was the recording and repertoire manager, while John handled publicity and promotion. There was an associated publishing company, Jackson Music, and the Jacksons had 'Already achieved sales and affiliations on a world-wide basis'. The overseas links continued to grow; subsequent 'BB's mentioned licensing agreements being made with Arne Bendiksen for the Scandinavian countries (12th December 1970), RPM Records for Africa (30th January 1971), the Carabine Music Company for France (10th March 1971), and Dureco for Holland (2nd December 1972).
Ad-Rhythm was mainly aimed at the album market. From 1968 until it expired, around 1975, it issued dozens of LPs, mainly featuring organ renditions of popular tunes - the kind of thing which nowadays tends to turn up in charity shops and car boot sales. It did however release a number of seven-inch records. A short series of rhythm-only EPs pre-dated the launch of the label proper: they came out in 1966-67 with catalogue numbers in the AR-0s (1, 2), and were intended to supply amateur organists with a rhythm accompaniment. Later came a handful of actual singles, intended for the 'Pop' buyer. Their catalogue numbers were in the ADM-500s, with the prefix becoming ADS if the record was stereo. The numbers reached ADS-516 in 1973, but a majority of them seem not to have been used - the discography below lists the singles which can be found via Google. Ad-Rhythm was also involved in a 1972 EP by the British Youth Wind Orchestra, whic was numbered BH-1 and was a product of Boosey & Hawkes (q.v.).
The company continued to plough its furrow into the mid '70s, receiving only an occasional mention in' RR' and its successor 'Music Week' as it did so. These mainly consisted of adverts for new releases and / or confirmations that the label was still being handled by the BIRD group ('RR' 15th January 1969, 17th January 1970, 23rd May 1970; 'MW' 8th December 1973), but among them there were a couple of items of news. 'RR' of the 11th of October 1969 said that Ad-Rhythm intended to release a series of spoken-word albums for children - the project seems not to have come to fruition - and 'RR' of the 9th of October 1970 reported that a couple of albums by Folk artist Alex Campbell had been released, in co-operation with producer Tony Pike of the 'Tepee' label (q.v.). Two Tepee LPs by Tim Hart & Maddy Prior were also reissued.
Two different label designs were used. The first, which lasted from 1968 into 1969, was green with a rather exuberant black 'a r' logo (3). It was replaced in 1970 with a blue one with a more sedate logo (4). The British Youth Wind Orchestra EP had a green label (5) as opposed to the more usual blue one. The only examples of Ad-Rhythm 7" records that I have seen in the vinyl were Orlake pressings. In addition to Ad-Rhythm the Jackson brothers ran the Jackson label (q.v.). Thanks to Robert Bowes for the scan of the 'Women In Love' single.
Copyright 2009 Robert Lyons.