A label from Ashford, Kent. Dude seems to have been associated with the Limewood Sound Studios, and it was presumably an outlet for tracks that were recorded there. The few of its products that I have seen pictured have had John Edmed either as producer, engineer or steel guitar player, so it seems reasonable to suppose that he had a major hand both in the studio and the label. There are no dates on the labels but the cover of an EP by Bryan Rudd & The Leavers (DUD-3 or 4) tells us that it was recorded in March 1980, which makes a report that the Kelvin Henderson single shown above is from 1979 sound reliable. That single was numbered DUD-S-001, and the first album (Maurice Anderson's 'The Universal Steel Man', from March 1979) is questionably listed as DUDE-1, but subsequent releases were all numbered in the DUD-0s, albums, EPs and singles alike. Numbers reached at least DUD-18. There seems to have been a preponderance of Country material, but it was not exclusively a Country label. The few 7" Dude records that I have managed to trace are listed below.
Copyright 2016 Robert Lyons.