Maiden Music was associated with music publishers the Valentine Music Group. It concentrated on Spoken Word material, aimed mainly at the Children's market. In 1977 it produced a short series of EPs for the Hallmark greeting card company, which came out on the 'Charmers' (q.v.) label as flexi-discs packaged with birthday cards. That same year it placed a couple of albums with EMI: 'Toad's Army (Volume 1)' (EME-6503), and 'Toad's Army (Volume 2)' (EME-6505). Produced and co-written by Barry O'Keef, the albums came out as part of EMI's 'Talking Tales' series. Around that time it began to put out LPs on its own label, 'Maiden'. They were numbered in an MR-100 series; the lowest number that Googling brings up is MR-113, which came out in 1978. Three of them offered Science Fiction stories, but MR-116 told the tale of 'The Enchanted Orchestra'. A white-labelled promotional 7" with excerpts from the album on one side and the main theme on the other was pressed, but as it wasn't available to the general public it wasn't enough to qualify Maiden for this site. Fortunately for our purposes Maiden Music put together a vinyl EP telling the story of 'Blink The Belisha Beacon And The Sweeties' for the Bassetts confectionery company, and that was available to the (young) public. It had a catalogue / matrix number of MMS-2, which prompts the question of what MMS-1 was (if there was one), and it was pressed by RCA.
'Billboard' of the 11th of November 1978 described Maiden Music as a specialist in children's records. It revealed that under managing director Barry O'Keef the company had just set up a six album deal for the USA and Canada, and that another deal - this time a three album one - had been signed with Phonogram for product based on the Arabian Nights stories, featuring the Maiden Theatre Company and actor Roy Kinnear. In addition a further deal had been signed with German concern Satellite Records for twelve book / LP combinations which were to include fairy tales and children's stories along with some Science Fiction items. The article said that some three years ago O'Keef had been on a visit to America and had seen that children's records sold well there. Inspired, he had returned to London and had started Maiden Music, aiming it at the childen's market here. There's no sign of the Kinnear or Satellite records online, which suggests that they never reached the shops, but the company does seem to have licensed several Dutch-language versions of children's stories to Bovema Negram of Holland - they came out in 1978 in a series of Children's LPs. The Hallmark / Charmers card-and-record series also came out in a Dutch version. In 1979-80 an attempt to turn 'The Enchanted Orchestra' into an animated film ran into terminal money-supply troubles. I haven't found any Maiden Music productions dating from after 1979, so it may perhaps be that the financial situation meant the end of the company.
Copyright 2021 Robert Lyons.