A Pop-orientated label from 1976-77. Paladin was a division of London Tunesmiths, a music publishing company specializing in TV jingles. It succeeded the Birds Nest (q.v.) label, only for Birds Nest to make a return when Paladin expired. Paladin's first mention in 'Music Week' came in the issue of the 12th of June 1976, when an article stated that the new label was looking for material for its first release schedule. It was asking for tapes to be submitted, and was offering an 11% royalty to uncontracted artists and on uncontracted material. 'MW' of the 26th of June reported that the 11% offer had generated a lot of interest, and that the company had added to it: any major act signing to the label would receive a royalty of 16%. Just over a month later 'MW' of the 31st of July revealed that the first singles were scheduled for release that week - around 100 tapes had been sent in, and Paladin had made firm offers for 13 of them. The following year, 'MW' of the 5th of March 1977 broke the news that the company had merged its music interests with Artsworld International Management and would be concentrating on in-house production of contracted artists rather than on the lease-tape deals which had been its staple up till that point. The Paladin label as such, however, only had a few more months of existence left: towards the end of the year it was discontinued, and a rejuvenated Birds Nest replaced it, apparently under new management. Paladin's singles came with two different labels and two different catalogue number prefixes: earlier releases had a multicoloured label (1) and were numbered in the PAL-0s, while later ones had a green-on-white label and PAL-5000 numbers (2, 3). The numbers ran consecutively, 013 being followed by 5014, but a couple seem not to have been used. PAL-5023 appears to have been the last release. Demo copies were marked by a black 'A' (3); for the 5000 series they gained a release date (4). None of Paladin's products ever bothered the compilers of the Singles chart. Manufacture and distribution were by Pye.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.