An independent label from Dudley, in the West Midlands. Graduate started off a record shop, around 1970-71, and was owned by David Virr. Several other shops sprang from the parent, and then in 1978 the company took its first step towards making its own records. 'Music Week' of the 19th of August reported that after having been in retail for seven years Virr was looking for bands, singers and writers for production deals. By that time, as James Denholm has been kind enough to point out, Graduate had already placed a single with Lightning Records (q.v.): 'TV Adverts' b/w 'Sex Education' by The Nerves had come out in April as GIL-520, with a credit to Graduate Records as producer. Towards the end of the year 'MW' of the 9th of December was able to report that Graduate had released the first single on its own label, 'Motorbikin'' b/w 'City Lights' by Eazie Ryder (GRAD-1), and that others were expected before Christmas. That expectation was not met, but a second single saw the light of day in May 1979. By that time the company had diversified further: 'MW' of the 17th of March broke the news that Graduate had set up a one-stop wholesale operation covering an area of some fifty miles around Birmingham and offering van deliveries within 24 hours. Three more singles followed in November 1979, and then in March 1980 the company scored its first success: a single by Reggae band UB 40, 'King' b/w 'Food For Thought' cracked the Top 5 in the Charts. The band's two subsequent singles made it into the Top 10 and gave Graduate two more hits.
With these new developments the record shops seem to have become less important. 'MW' of the 13th of September 1980 said that four of the five shops had been sold and that Virr and his wife Sue had built up the wholesale and distribution side of the business as well as running the record label. According to the article Spartan was sharing the job of distribution, and pressing was being done by an independent company in the UK - until that point many of Graduate's singles had been pressed in France, as was the case for many small companies, a lack of available manufacturing capacity in this country being to blame. Late in 1980 U.B.40 moved on to start their own label, DEP International, but Graduate continued to release records and it managed to get another single in the Chart in 1982, on its new 'Ready, Steady Go!' offshoot: The Maisonettes' 'Heartache Avenue' b/w 'The Last One To Know' (RSG-1; 11/82) reached the comparatively modest No.39 spot. Three less successful Ready Steady Go! singles followed in 1983, and one Graduate each in 1984, 1985, 1987 and 1990, after which the record business side of things seems to have ground to a halt.
The label design varied initially. The first single had a 'swirl of diamonds' on it (1), and the following two featured a large paper plane (2). From then on things settled down: the plane shrank in size and became a logo, both on the French injection moulded issues (3) and on the black-on-white (later white-on-black) paper labels of the 1980s. Thanks to Simon Hughes for the second scan.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.