An odd name to choose, for a company which seems to have specialized in Calypso music. Be that as it may; Motorway Sounds records were a product of a company called 'Timebest', which was based in Steele's Road, London NW3. It issued at least five singles in or around 1974, the first of which was 'Grenada - May God Bless You', by Charlie & The Kalabash (MSL-1). None of them had dates on them but Grenada gained its independence in 1974, so it seems likely that that single was from that year. In addition, Orlake was responsible for many of the pressings and the marks on the labels show that all of the singles were released between 1973 and 1976, so 1974 sounds like a reasonable starting point. Numbering was usually in the MSL-0s, though the final single gained a '0'.
Several different label designs were used: the first single can be found with a very plain white one, with just 'Motorway Sounds' at the top (1), and also with a more decorative one featuring a speedometer (2). Matrix numbers indicate that the plain kind was the earlier. The second single can be found in three different forms: with the 'speedometer' label, with a generalized view of a motorway (3), and with a 'speedometer' type with light blue sparks emanating from a centre of the same colour (4) - thanks to CharlieChalk of the 45Cat sit for permission to use that scan here. The third single seems to have just had 'motorway picture' labels, while Keeley Marshall's 'We Are Happy People' (MSL-4) had either a fawn-on-yellow version of the 'sparks' or a black-on-yellow version of the 'speedometer' (5). MSL-06 returned to the red-on-white 'speedometer' type. For some reason both sides of 'Grenada - May God Bless You' can be found on another label, Kalabash Production (q.v.), credited to Casimir Pitt. Pitt was involved with all the Motorway Sounds singles, which suggests that the label may have been his, but Mark Griffiths writes that it belonged to Ray Williams, who also owned Vasko (q.v.). The 'Spice Music' label had a rather similar appearance to that of Motorway Sounds and also involved Casimir Pitt, suggesting that the two concerns were related.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.