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Spin Records was an Australian popular music label, active in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Spin Records was established in late 1966 by Clyde Packer, the elder son of publishing and broadcasting magnate Frank Packer, and the older brother of Kerry Packer. The label's first A&R manager was Nat Kipner (the father of musician-songwriter-producer Steve Kipner), who produced several early Spin releases. Most Spin recordings from the late 1960s and early 1970s were produced by Festival Records house producer Pat Aulton.
Launched in late 1965 with the single "Someday" by former Aztecs guitarist Tony Barber, the label was originally called Everybody's, which was also the name of the popular teen magazine published by the Packer family's Australian Consolidated Press. According to Australian historian Bill Casey, the overt cross-promotion reportedly met with resistance from commercial radio, so the label was re-badged as "Spin" after only four singles.
By January 1966, Everybody's had been re-launched as Spin Records and the parent company, Spin Records Production Pty Ltd, now included two new partners—NZ-born, Sydney-based entrepreneur Harry M. Miller, and Nat Kipner, who was originally hired retained as A&R manager, but later bought a financial interest in the label. After abortive negotiations with the Australian division of EMI Records, Spin Productions signed an exclusive ten-year distribution agreement with Festival Records and the first three Spin singles, released to coincide with the re-branding, were Ray Columbus' "We Want A Beat", Jeff St John & The Id's debut recording "Lindy Lou", and Marty Rhone's "Nature Boy".
Spin releases played an important part in Festival's business in that period, releasing successful albums and singles, including the 1969 hit single "Mr Guy Fawkes" by the Dave Miller Set, and the original Australian cast recording of the rock musical Hair , which became the first Australian cast recording to earn a Gold Record award. Through Kipner, Spin was also able to secure the lucrative Australian release rights to the Bee Gees' Polydor recordings from 1967 until the Spin label folded in 1973.
The early Spin releases were produced (or co-produced with Ossie Byrne) by Nat Kipner, or by noted producer-arranger Bill Shepherd, who accompanied the Bee Gees to the UK in 1967 as their musical director. From 1967, following the collapse of Ivan Dayman's Sunshine label, its acquisition by Festival, and his subsequent appointment as a Festival house producer, musician-composer-producer Pat Aulton took on a central role in Spin's productions, and he produced a large proportion of the label's output in the late '60s and early '70s.
In 1966, Spin played a pivotal role in the Bee Gees story, issuing the group's final batch of Australian singles, including their first major Australian hit, "Spicks and Specks", released in September that year. It was one of Spin's most successful singles, spending 19 weeks in the Sydney charts, where it peaked at #3. It went to #1 in other cities including Melbourne, and reached #1 on the newly established national Top 40 in Go-Set magazine, which also named it "Best Record of the Year".
The Bee Gees had originally signed to Festival's subsidiary Leedon Records, established by promoter Lee Gordon in the 1950s, and which Festival had acquired after Gordon's untimely death. According to Bee Gees historian Joseph Brennan, Festival was on the verge of dropping The Bee Gees from Leedon in late 1965, after eleven successive chart failures, although the band, and their manager and father Hugh Gibb, felt that much of the blame lay with Festival itself, and that the company had done little to promote their recordings. (It is notable that several other Australian performers had scored local hits with songs written by the Gibb brothers during the same period.) Hugh Gibb also questioned the legality of the boys' contract—they were all under 18 when they signed with Leedon—but Festival managing director Fred Marks negotiated a compromise, agreeing to release the trio from their Leedon contract on condition that they transfer to the Spin label. It was at that point that Nat Kipner briefly took over from Hugh Gibb as the Bee gees' manager, until they moved back to the UK at the start of 1967, when they signed a new management contract with Robert Stigwood and the NEMS organisation.
Once signed to Spin, Nat Kipner's support and guidance proved invaluable to The Bee Gees' career, as did the production skills and support of independent producer and studio owner Ossie Byrne. Over several months during mid-1966, Byrne gave the Gibb brothers virtually unlimited time in his St Clair Studio in Hurstville, Sydney and the Gibbs have acknowledged that Byrne's generosity and guidance were crucial in enabling them to find their feet as studio artists.
Despite Festival's earlier misgivings, the deal proved lucrative for both Spin and Festival. After they arrived in Britain, The Bee Gees signed with Stigwood's RSO Records (distributed by Polydor) for the UK, and Atlantic Records in the US, but Spin (and therefore Festival) retained the exclusive rights to distribute The Bee Gees' recordings in Australia for the better part of a decade. The first Bee Gees single released under that arrangement was their international breakthrough hit "New York Mining Disaster 1941" (1967).
Spin released some of the best local and international singles of the late Sixties, including all of The Bee Gees late '60s UK recordings. Artists on the Spin roster included former Aztecs guitarist Tony Barber, Steve & The Board (led by Nat Kipner's son and future hit songwriter Steve Kipner), Ronnie Burns, Toni McCann, Ray Columbus, Jeff St John, Marty Rhone, Tony Summers, Chris Hall & The Torquays, The Sunsets (later renamed Tamam Shud), The Ram Jam Big Band, Janice Slater, The Dave Miller Set, and expatriate Hungarian fusion group Syrius, which featured legendary Australian jazz-funk bassist Jackie Orczarsky. Harry M. Miller's interest in the label also led to Spin releasing the highly-successful Australian cast recording of Hair in 1970, the first Australian stage cast recording LP to be awarded a Gold Record.
The label was very productive, releasing 116 singles, 35 EPs and 38 LPs over the eight years between May 1966 and May 1974. Spin typically released 2-3 singles per month during its peak years. All Spin recordings were manufactured and distributed by Festival Records. Up to 1973, all singles distributed by Festival were catalogued in a consecutive four-figure series, with the different labels identified by prefixes. Festival's own releases (and some of the overseas recordings it released under license) were identified with a "FK" prefix (e.g. FK-1340). Spin singles were identified by the prefix "EK", an artefact of its original incarnation as "Everybody's". The final Spin single release, one of only two in Festaival's new "K" series (1973–74), was the Bee Gees' "Mr Natural".
Spin's EP and LP releases were similarly catalogued; Festival catalogued all EPs in its consecutive '11000' series, prefixed with a two-letter ID prefix (Spin's was "EX"). Spin LPs were initially catalogued in Festival's '30000' series and identified with an "EL" prefix". That series changed to Festival's '930000' series ca. 1967. Early Spin LPs were released in mono; Jeff St John & The Id's Big Time Operators (1967) was Spin's first stereo LP, and one of the first stereo pop music albums by an Australian group. The original Australian cast recording of The Boy Friend (Sep. 1968) was the last Spin LP to be released in mono. Spin's last two LPs—The Bee Gees' compilation Double Gold, and Mr Natural (1974) were issued under Festival's new L series catalogue.
Spin Productions went into liquidation in mid-1974 and the company's catalogue was subsequently purchased by Festival. The Spin name was revived briefly in 2000 for what was planned as an extensive series of commemorative CDs that were to have been issued to mark the company's 50th anniversary, but the project was cancelled after only a few releases, due to cost-cutting and restructures. Despite those measures, Festival Mushroom went into liquidation in mid-2005 and its entire recording archive—including the Spin catalogue—was sold to the Australian division of Warner Music in October 2005, for a reported AU$10 million.
The Bee Gees were a musical group formed in 1958 by brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio were especially successful in popular music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers in the disco music era in the mid-to-late 1970s. The group sang recognisable three-part tight harmonies: Robin's clear vibrato lead vocals were a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. The group wrote all their own original material, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists, and are regarded as one of the most important and influential acts in pop-music history. They have been referred to in the media as The Disco Kings, Britain's First Family of Harmony, and The Kings of Dance Music.
Stephen Alan Kipner is an American-born Australian songwriter and record producer, with hits spanning a 40-year period, including chart-topping songs such as Olivia Newton-John's "Physical", Natasha Bedingfield's "These Words", and Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle", for which he won an Ivor Novello Award for International Hit of the Year. Other hits he has writing credits on include Chicago's "Hard Habit to Break", 98 Degrees' "The Hardest Thing", Dream's "He Loves U Not", Kelly Rowland's "Stole", The Script's "Breakeven" and "The Man Who Can't Be Moved", American Idol Kris Allen's top 5 debut "Live Like We're Dying", Cheryl Cole's "Fight for This Love", Camila Cabello's "Crying in the Club" and James Arthur's "Say You Won't Let Go".
Tin Tin was a pop rock band, which first formed in Australia as the Kinetics in 1966. They relocated to the United Kingdom in 1969 and were renamed as Tin Tin, which comprised Steve Kipner, Steve Groves, John Vallins and Geoff Bridgford (drums). In 1970 they issued a single, "Toast and Marmalade for Tea", which was a No. 10 hit on the Go-Set National Singles Chart in June the following year. It also reached No. 20 in the United States on the Billboard Hot 100. Their next single, "Is That the Way?" (1971), peaked at No. 59 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Festival Records, later known as Festival Mushroom Records, was an Australian recording and publishing company founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1952 and operated until 2005.
Leedon Records was an Australian record label active from 1958 to 1969. It was founded by American Australian entrepreneur Lee Gordon in early 1958.
The Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs is the debut studio album by the Bee Gees. Credited to Barry Gibb and the Bee Gees, it was released in November 1965 on the Australian Leedon label. It is largely a compilation of most of the Gibb brothers' singles that had been released over the previous three years in Australia, which accounts for the many different styles of music on it.
Spicks and Specks is the second studio album by the Bee Gees. It was released in November 1966, on Spin. Primarily written by Barry Gibb, the album includes the first Robin Gibb composition "I Don't Know Why I Bother With Myself" and a Maurice Gibb composition "Where Are You".
William Patrick Aulton was an Irish Australian record producer, musician, arranger, and songwriter. He is best known for the successful pop and rock singles and albums he produced for Australian and New Zealand artists in the 1960s and early 1970s on the Sunshine and Spin Records labels and as the lead vocalist of The Clefs. He also became a successful composer of commercial jingles and TV themes and was a vocal coach. He created many jingles that we still use today, such as "Oh what a feeling, Toyota" and "Aussie kids are Weetbix kids", he also helped in the writing and production of "The Lion King" themes song, "Hakuna Matata". He had five children in the meantime; Kerry, Samantha, Chelsea, Bridget, and Alexander, which led to having many grandchildren, Lydia, Taj, Maggie, Hanna, Jordyn, Ruby, Parker, Riley, Cooper, Charlie, Dakota, Stevie, Harley, Oliver, Declan, Carter and Jaycie.
Sunshine Records was an Australian independent pop music record label of the mid-1960s. It was established in late 1964 by promoter Ivan Dayman in collaboration with musician-producer-arranger-songwriter Pat Aulton and entrepreneur, producer and songwriter Nat Kipner. Although his enterprise was short-lived, Dayman was arguably the first Australian popular music entrepreneur to create a fully integrated pop music company that included artist management and bookings, record production, record labels, venue management and concert promotion.
"Spicks and Specks" is a song by the Bee Gees, written by Barry Gibb. When the song was released in September 1966, the single reached No. 4 on the Go-Set Australian National Top 40, and when the song was released in other countries in February 1967, it reached No. 28 in Germany, No. 2 in the Netherlands and No. 1 in New Zealand.
Bee Gees' 1st is the third studio album by the Bee Gees, and their first international full-length recording after two albums distributed only in Australia and New Zealand. Bee Gees' 1st was the group's debut album for the UK Polydor label, and for the US Atco label. Bee Gees 1st was released on 14 July 1967 in the UK. On 9 August it entered the UK charts; on that same day, the album was released in the US, and it entered the US charts on 26 August.
"I Can't See Nobody" is a song by the Bee Gees, released first as the B-side of "New York Mining Disaster 1941". With "New York Mining Disaster 1941", this song was issued as a double A in Germany and Japan, and included on the group's third LP, Bee Gees' 1st. "I Can't See Nobody" charted for one week at number 128 on the Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100 in July 1967.
Ivan Howard Dayman was an Australian music promoter, record producer, label owner and talent manager of the 1960s and 1970s, based first in Adelaide, then Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Although his career was brief – ca. 1964 to 1968 – he is significant in the history of Australian popular music as the first person to establish an integrated entertainment group that included artist management, a booking agency, a chain of venues in major cities, and a recording label. He is also notable for the many successful artists he managed, including his flagship act, Australia's 1960s TV Week "King of Pop", Normie Rowe, whom he managed from 1965 onwards.
"Wine and Women" is a song written by Barry Gibb, and released by Barry Gibb and the Bee Gees in September 1965 on Leedon Records in Australia. The song's B-side was Follow the Wind. The single reached #19 in Australia, marking the Bee Gees' international chart debut. They achieved this by getting as many of their fans as possible to buy enough copies to get the song into the charts at #35 and, thus, to the attention of disc-jockeys.
"I Want Home" is a song by the Bee Gees, written by Barry Gibb and released as a single in Australia in early 1966, backed with "Cherry Red". Their last single on Leedon had not been a hit, so the credit "Barry Gibb and the Bee Gees" used on the last several discs now reverted to simply "Bee Gees". Neither song appeared on any Bee Gees album until the 1967 compilation album, Turn Around, Look At Us, but both were featured on Brilliant From Birth the 1998 anthology of the group's Australian recordings.
"Town of Tuxley Toymaker, Part One" is a song written by Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb in Australia in 1966. It was recorded by Jon Blanchfield in 1966, Billy J. Kramer in 1967 and Shane in 1968.
Inception/Nostalgia is a 1970 compilation album of previously unreleased songs recorded by the Bee Gees in 1966. This double album contains a mixture of both self-penned songs and covers. The first LP in the set is titled Inception while the second LP is titled Nostalgia, hence the album title. Supposedly intended as a follow-up to the three volumes of Rare, Precious and Beautiful this set was first issued by Karussell in Germany and by Triumph in France, both being Polydor budget labels and therefore linked to their licensing deal with Festival Records. The Gibb brothers were unaware of its release until Maurice saw one during a skiing holiday in Switzerland. It did not remain in print for long but it was released by Polydor in Japan in 1972 as Inception and Nostalgia and a number of single disc releases with a varying selection of these songs appeared on a number of compilations across the world over the next few years.
"Who's Been Writing on the Wall Again" is a song written by Barry Gibb in 1965. It was first recorded by Jenny Bradley and was released in 1965 on Leedon Records.
April Elizabeth Dove Potts, known professionally as April Byron, was an Australian pop singer and songwriter. She was the first female artist to collaborate with the Bee Gees after their formation as a band, on the 1966 single "He's a Thief" / "A Long Time Ago".
Nathan Kipner was an American songwriter and record producer with a considerable career in Australia. He is remembered as the producer of the Bee Gees' first hit "Spicks and Specks". He was the father of Steve Kipner who is also a songwriter and music producer.
