A prominent, prolific and long-lived Reggae label, most of the history of which is outside the scope of this site. Greensleeves started life in 1975 as a Reggae & Soul record shop, run by Chris Sedgwick and Chris Cracknell, and it moved into the field of making records in 1977. 'Music Week' of the 3rd of December of that year noted that the label was being launched; it described Sedgwick as a chartered accountant and said that he was the owner of Greensleeves Records & Tapes, but for some reason it omitted any mention of Cracknell. Distribution of Greensleeves records was to be via Island's van service and Mojo as well as direct. According to the article a second label, dedicated to Soul music, was planned for the following year, but in the event it failed to materialize. 'MW' of the 18th of March 1978 was able to report a development: Greensleeves had signed a pressing and distribution deal with Island, and its entire catalogue was available from EMI. Specialist shops would continue to be served by Mojo. The article described the label as an extension of the shop and mail order business, and again named Sedgewick as the owner. By that time Island had sold its own manufacturing plant to WEA, so presumably the 'pressing' agreement merely meant that Island would get the records made.
1979 saw more developments. One was the arrival of a label dedicated to Lovers Rock, 'Cool Rockers' (q.v.); material on Greensleeves tended towards the Roots area, so the establishment of a separate outlet for gentler stuff would have made sense. Another was a change of distributor from Island / EMI to Spartan. 'MW' of the 28th of July alerted dealers to the move, which it said would be effective from the 30th of that month. The third and perhaps most important development was Greensleeves's abandonment of the 7" single in favour of the 12". Towards the end of the '70s 12" singles had become the most popular format for Reggae, and Greensleeves had responded to this by running its own 12" series alongside its 7" one. From February 1979 the 7" series was more or less abandoned, with only the occasional release surfacing, and the company concentrated its efforts on 12" singles alongside a selection of LPs.
Greensleeves flourished throughout the '80s and '90s, with a mix of licensed material and records by local talent. Its catalogue featured some established names on the Reggae scene, such as The Heptones, Johnny Clarke, Linval Thompson, Keith Hudson and Junior Delgado, and they were eventually joined by others who were soon to become established, for example Dr. Alimantado, Yellowman, Beenie Man and Shaggy. It started putting out 7" singles again in 1985, and it managed to score in the Singles Chart on several occasions, its successes including Tippa Irie's 'Hello Darling' (TIPPA-4; 3/86), which reached No.22, and, most impressively, Shaggy's No.1 hit 'Oh Carolina' (GRE-361; 1/93). The company is still going today, albeit under new management - it was sold to the Zest Group in March 2006, and Cracknell, who was head of A&R, left amicably in 2007. Sedgwick continued on as managing director.
One label design served from 1977 until into 1987, with minor changes. The first scan above, which appears by kind permission of Charlie Chalk of the 45Cat site, served for the first four singles; the move to Island / EMI led to EMI getting a distribution credit at 3 o'clock on subsequent releases. For GREs 6 and 7 it read 'Available from EMI' (2), while for GREs 5 and 9 to 13 it read 'Distributed by EMI Records' , sometimes with a 'Ltd.' (4), sometimes without (3). That credit disappeared after Spartan took over distribution (5). If they were needed, extra production credits or album details were placed in the red part of the 'ribbon' (4). Catalogue numbers began at GRE-001, in 1977; the two noughts were dropped after the first four releases. 12" singles, of which there were many more, were numbered in the GRED-0s. Pressing of GREs 6, 8 and 13 appears to have been done by Pye or possibly WEA. The discography below only covers 7" singles from the 1970s.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.