A product of the American firm Pickwick International, a company which specialised in budget-priced LPs. The Mr. Pickwick label was aimed at children; it issued a series of EPs featuring re-recordings of popular songs which were deemed to be of interest to pre-teens. At least sixty-one of them were released, in an MP-9000 numerical series, though the series was shelved for five years after the release of MP-9048 in 1975. 1980s issues, from MP-9049 on, had injection-moulded labels. All the singles came in picture sleeves. Many of the tracks were taken from Hallmark's 'Top Of The Pops' series of budget LPs, Hallmark being the British label of Pickwick International.
Hallmark / Pickwick International took the Mr. Pickwick series seriously enough to pay for a couple of full-page adverts in 'Music Week' of the 25th of June 1973, announcing the launch of the label. The adverts covered the first batch of thirty-six EPs and gave their price as 30p. Anyone ordering seventy-two EPs was entitled to a free display case. Much smaller additional batches came out in 1974 and 1975, after which there came the five-year gap mentioned above. In the 1970s distribution was by CBS and the British Independent Record Distributors group - Enterprise, Lugton. H.R. Taylor, Clyde Factors and Solomon & Peres - with CBS also undertaking a lot of the manufacture. Some of the EPs have the 'bullseye' pressing marks which were a feature of many CBS pressings in the '70s (1). Copies of several EPs, suitably stickered, can be found as American pressings. Pickwick International is reported to have expired in the early '80s; presumably the Mr. Pickwick label perished with it. The discography below only covers the 1970s.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.