BLACK
BEAR
A subsidiary of Alaska Records (qv). Black Bear issued at
least ten singles, with catalogue numbers in a BLB-2000 / BLA-2000 series,
in 1977-79. It seems to have dealt in the same sort of Pop / Novelty
things which often appeared on Alaska. Its label design was almost a
negative image of that of its parent. Distribution was by President
initially (1); when Alaska moved to Anchor / CBS, c.1978, Black Bear went with
it, changing its singles prefix from BLB to BLA as it did so (2).
Early in 1979 both labels appear to have changed distributors again, this time
going to Spartan (3). Marketing at this period was by Psycho
Records. As can be seen, the design remained basically unchanged
throughout.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.