An outlet for material sourced from American concern Dunhill Records. Dunhill was formed by Lou Adler and Bobby Roberts in March 1964 as a production company. It enjoyed successes with tracks by Johnny Rivers and Jan & Dean, which it licensed out, and after some fourteen months or so it launched its own label, Dunhill, with Jay Lasker coming on board as president ('Billboard', 8th May 1965). It was to remain independent for a little over a year. 'BB' of the 14th of May 1966 reported that ABC-Paramount Records had purchased Dunhill in its entirety - the label, production arm and associated publishing company, Trousdale Music. Roberts left, but Adler and Lasker stayed on as vice presidents and would continue to run Dunhill. The two companies were given a new joint name, ABC/Dunhill, but Dunhill preserved its separate label identity until July 1968, when the ABC logo began to appear beside Dunhill's own. From December 1974 the logos swapped places, with ABC's coming first; and then in the summer of the following year the Dunhill name disappeared and its artists were transferred to the main ABC label.
In Britain the situation was a little more complicated. The new and independent Dunhill signed a licensing agreement with RCA Victor for this country, which led to records by its artists appearing on RCA Victor here initially - The Mamas & The Papas were the most successful Dunhill act here. The agreement remained in place after the purchase of Dunhill by ABC-Paramount, as it still had a year or so to run. ABC-Paramount's product was licensed to EMI and came out on EMI's Stateside label, so when Dunhill's deal with RCA Victor expired, in the summer of 1968, the logical step was for it to join ABC at EMI, which it did. Instead of being lumped in with the other Stateside records, however, Dunhill's were given their own label design, featuring the Dunhill logo under that of Stateside (1, 3). There was also a company sleeve (5). In addition, Stateside Dunhill records had their own numerical series - SS-8000 for the singles, as opposed to the current SS-2000 of the main Stateside label.
The new label soon ran into unforseen difficulties, as tobacco company Alfred Dunhill owned the registered trademark of 'Dunhill' in this country. 'Record Retailer' of the 11th of June 1969 revealed that EMI intended to replace the Dunhill logo with a reference to Dunhill Records; in order to retain a separate identity for Dunhill singles the orange company sleeve would be kept but the logo would be removed from that as well (6). The change was made in January 1970; the logos duly disappeared, as expected, but in addition the label colour changed to orange (2, 4); the first single to appear with the orange label was SS-8035. Then in the summer of that same year, when ABC / Dunhill renewed its licensing deal with EMI it revealed that it intended to use its hitherto unsuccessful 'progressive' album-only label Probe as an outlet for records from both of its main labels - another trademark clash, this time with ABC Cinemas, prevented the use of the name ABC at the time ('RR', 22nd of August 1970). The development took place in October and left Stateside Dunhill redundant. The final records on the label came out in September 1970, after which its artists moved to Probe.
Despite the fact that there were some famous names on Stateside Dunhill, it registered surprisingly few hits. Steppenwolf's 'Born To Be Wild' b/w 'Everybody's Next One' (SS-8017; 5/69) tickled the Top 30, and 'Mama Told Me Not To Come' b/w 'Rock And Roll Widow' by Three Dog Night (SS-8052; 7/70) improved on that considerably by getting to No.3, but they were the only singles to trouble the Chart compilers. Not even The Mamas & The Papas, individually or collectively, could add to the total, despite the fact that they had enjoyed six substantial Chart successes during 1966-67. See also ABC, Paramount, and Probe. Thanks to Nicholas Hough for the demo scans.
Copyright 2014 Robert Lyons.