An obscure but collectable label. Deroy Sound Services seems to have been primarily a custom recording-and-pressing concern. It was owned by Derek Marsh; in addition to putting out dozens of cinema- and theatre-organ records he recorded some very desirable Folk and Rock albums, by the likes of Parameter, Forever Amber, and Dark, all of which were given extremely limited pressings. Frequently Deroy records came with labels upon which the details of artist and title had to be handwritten (1), or with blank white labels; artists could add information themselves (4) or paste their own, more informative, labels on their records, as has been done with the Thurlstone Bells and Kinghorn Singers EPs shown above (6, 8). The additional label of the Thurlstone record, which has been pasted on rather roughly, claims that it is a Sonroy recording, so I have included it under 'Sonroy' as well as putting it here. Other records had more conventional labels pressed on to the disc, as is the case with the John Hall EP shown above (10). The matrix number of the 'B' side of that record, ADM/EP-76/3 - just visible, for once, on the scan, at the bottom - appears to be an earlyish one (the matrix number of the 'A' was ADM/EP-75/3).
Records actually issued by Deroy had a proper printed label with a Deroy logo it; it bore a strong resemblance to the label which RCA used for its LPs. It seems to have come into common use for everything made through or by Deroy from around 1975 onwards, and can be found on at least one EP (9). It also appears to have been used by records made by Deroy for other companies - LPs in that style with Deroy numbers can be found on West Coast Sound and Gowanbank, among others, and there were a couple of singles on S.R.W. (q.v.). Previous to that, custom recordings seem to have mainly had the 'Deroy Sound Services' label (2) until around 1970, after which albums tended to have a 'A Deroy Production' on their labels while 7" records were often blank white (4). Going by the few examples that I have seen, the company's 7" products are often only identifiable by means of their catalogue and / or matrix numbers, as exemplified by the single by the Blackburn Rovers F. C. squad for the season 1972-73, 'By Gum We'll Make It A Day', DEROY-880 (5) and the split single by Frank Wappatt / Cathy Wilkin single 'It Took A Miracle' (DER-1153; 1975?) (7). At least one such single, by Lanercost, had a label unique to that record (10) - thanks to John Timmis for that scan. While many of the company's records had a DEROY prefix others were prefixed 'ADM' - 'ADM LP' for albums, 'ADM EP' for EPs, and plain 'ADM' for singles, the initials standing for 'A. D. Marsh'. Both DEROYs and ADMs seem to have shared the same numerical series, but each side of an 'ADM' record had its own number. The studio offered a tape-to vinyl service; these pressings, presumably, could be in single figures, and some - such as the 'Caren and the Triplets' record shown above - don't seem to have been given numbers.
As for dates of operation, 'Tape Recorder' magazine of November 1965 says that the Deroy Sound Service offered tape-to-disc and tape-to-tape services from an address in Hest Bank, Lancaster, and had 'twenty years experience', which suggests a start in the mid '40s. The article also says that transfer of tapes to 78rpm records was available, which again suggests a pre-1960s origin. An album exists of a December 1960 Mass from St. Alban's Church, Blackburn, with the Hest Bank address on it; while the material on the 'Caren & The Triplets' record shown above (2) was recorded in October 1961 according to the person who was doing a commentary on it - it is just a record of parents talking to their young children and the children responding. At what point these were actually transferred to vinyl remains open to question, but it seems likely that it was done not long after the original recordings were made.
By the end of 1966 Deroy's labels had a new address on them, 'Little Place, Moss Delph Lane, Aughton, Ormskirk, Lancs'. Early '70s labels indicate another change of address, to Carnforth, Lancashire (3). 'Billboard' of the 10th of June 1972 has '1966' in brackets by the company's name, which suggests that it underwent some sort of structural change in that year. That same article gives the company's director / studio manager as A.D. Marsh, with the chief engineer being G. Crompton (the 'G' stood for Gerald); G. Crompton and B. Marsh are listed as 'mixers'. 'Music Week' of the 1st of May 1976 gave Deroy one of its rare mentions in the trade press when it reported that the company was in the process of moving to Kilcreggan, on the Clyde coast, and was cutting down on equipment. According to the article Deroy would then have a pressing plant in Northumberland and a plating operation in Leicester; at that point it was cutting masters for Scottish labels BGS (q.v.) and Emblem. The mastering facility had been mentioned in 'MW' of the 27th of May 1972, which observed that it was a service which most provincial firms didn't offer - they generally just cut acetates.
I don't know what the matrix numbers started at - ADM-1 seems a not unreasonable guess - but the highest to which I have seen any reference was DEROY-1486, an album of music played on the Hooghuys Fair Organ, which came out in 1979. One advert for Deroy's services says that the company cut discs: demo discs - presumably acetates, or cut on blanks - were available within twenty-four hours, while vinyl pressings took from three to four weeks. A small advert in 'Studio Sound' magazine of March 1974 claims that discs in quantities of one to twenty could be delivered within four days, while quantities of twenty-five upwards again took three to four weeks. It would appear that small orders of vinyl records were pressed 'in house' while larger ones were pressed elsewhere: the few Deroy products that I have seen in the vinyl have had matrix number styles suggestive of British Homophone or (later) RCA products. Thanks to Jason Mills, Paul Jones, Stephen Small, Steve Brady, Andreas Koch, and Christophe of Inoxydable Records for help with the discography; thanks also to Barry Adcock for supplying the 'Hest Bank Lane' scans and to Stephen Small for the Kinghorn Singers' one. The few Deroys that I have stumbled upon are listed below. Some have Deroy matrix numbers but labels or catalogue numbers from other companies: see the column on the right, and the corresponding pages. Needless to say, there are many more gaps than entries. For the sake of 7" enthusiasts, 7" records are filled-in in grey.
Copyright 2008 Robert Lyons.