This piece is mainly about the variations of C&J’s first two LPs, but there's a bit on Columbia and Capitol as well.

Picture this: it is mid-1964, the British Invasion is in full swing. The Beatles have taken America by a storm, and Peter & Gordon, the Dave Clark Five, and others have proved that they are not an isolated fluke. You’re a small record label in Pittsburgh. In fact, you’re so small that you’ve only ever released twenty singles and one LP in your history. Yet, you can smell the sales. Everyone seems to be getting into the act, and you are hungry for a piece of the action. Problem? Yes. All of the "name" UK artists, from Gerry and The Pacemakers to the Billy J. Kramer already have US recording deals, and most everyone who owned a guitar in Liverpool seems to have been signed by April. So, what do you do? You take a chance on an obscure well-educated folk duo from London, who have had one minor hit, “Yesterday’s Gone”, produced by John Barry for Jeffrey Kruger's Ember label in the UK. By doing this, World Artists not only ended up improving their cash flow situation greatly, but also prevented Chad & Jeremy from becoming (as they ended up in the UK) just another in a long line of one hit wonders.

Anyone familiar with the Beatles releases on VJ records knows what happens when a major artist is on a tiny label. The label is forced to increase production to previously astronomical levels. Inevitably, this rush to production leads to sometimes significant variations in manufacture, labels, and other factors. Chad & Jeremy’s time on World Artists is an excellent (and underdocumented) example of this “small label/big group” phenomenon.

World Artists' first foray into C&J was to issue “Yesterday’s Gone” as a single in the US. It did well on both the pop and (for a time at least) the country charts. In fact, it did well enough for C&J to make an exploratory visit to the US (as the Rolling Stones also did in 1964) to appear on TV and test the waters for their potential there. C&J (unlike the Stones) came off as they were - sophisticated, intelligent young men who just happened to be British and have long hair. In fact, “Yesterday’s Gone” was actually the most “rocky” of any of their songs yet recorded, and so C&J were appealing to teenagers, yet delightful and non threatening to parents and adults. World Artists saw this, and rushed to issue an LP as soon as C&J left the US. Lou Guarino, the head of the label, hired famed producer Shel Talmy to record enough sides for an LP, and off they went. By the end of June (less than a month after recroding), the LP was in stores. They even managed to get Dean Martin to write a letter which ended up on the back cover!

The initial copies of the “Yesterday’s Gone” LP were quite distinctive. Instead of bearing the now-familiar white cover, the border was of a tannish brown color. Also, the box which is superimposed onto the cover picture on later copies, reading “Included In This LP - A Summer Song” is not present. After the success of C&J during their US visit, World Artists set up a Los Angeles office, and, apparently, these “brown border” copies originate from there, as they are still today much more prevalent on the West Coast (though they are still uncommon), but are a rarity in the rest of the country. This was likely done as World Artists really had no real experience in manufacturing and distributing LPs. This LP was, as most World Artists LPs were, constructed of a wrap around front slick (meaning that the sheet with the cover continues around to the edges of the back side), with a small slick on the back.

World Artists decided to mark the release of the LP with a second single - “A Summer Song”. As a side note, this like all C&J World Artists singles appeared on either a bright yellow label, or a thicker, darker yellow label. (There is also a rarer black label with silver print, apparently meant for Canada) There are also at least two variations in font on the titles of most C&J World Artists 45s. “A Summer Song” ended up a big hit just as production of the “Yesterday’s Gone” LP was kicking into gear for the East Coast, out of the home plant in Pittsburgh. So, what did World Artists do? They rethought their LP cover.

The ‘new’ cover for “Yesterday’s Gone” changed the brown border to white (and thus had to change the white text song titles to black), and added a small red box with white writing which read “Included In This LP - A Summer Song”. Pittsburgh manufactured copies of this LP bear the address of the company on the back cover, while California copies of the LP (both brown borders and the soon to be discussed “California white border”) do not bear any address at all.

In California, the production of the “brown border” LP was stopped to incorporate the new cover design, but something else was altered. Not only do the “California white border” copies not bear the Pittsburgh address of World Artists, they also (unlike any other C&J World Artists variation) changed the construction to a wrap around back slick. Meaning that the back cover now came around to cover the corners of the front of the LP, with a smaller front cover slick covering the rest. It is very odd that this change was made, especially considering the fact that the California plant had earlier made the wrap around front slick “brown borders”.

Meanwhile, the LP was proving to be a moderate success, and World Artists continued to release singles on a regular basis, all generally whith the same variations as described for “A Summer Song”, though, notably, there was a massively widely distributed white label promo for “If I Loved You”.

One difficulty for small labels in the 1960s was making two versions of an LP available at once (a mono and a stereo). Many labels resolved this problem by only issuing a mono, or later issuing small numbers of an LP in stereo. It appears World Artists may have opted for the second plan, although small quantities was not something the label became known for with C&J. The wrap around front slicks for both versions of “Yesterday’s Gone” allowed for the possibility of a future stereo release, and one can see that this is true by looking in the top left on the back cover of these LPs, under the white back slick. There, clearly, will be the word “Stereo”. Evidence suggests that either World Artist chose initially not to issue stereo copies or that somebody forgot to tell the printers, who cut a number of mono covers which later bore two inch wide orange stickers pressed which read “Stereophonic”, pasted to the top right corner of the LP covers. Oddly, these can be found either on the actual cover itself, or on the outer plastic seal wrap. This practice means that frequently stereo copies end up in what appear to be monophonic jackets, as the sticker was on the outer plastic and long since disposed of. Stereo copies marked in the traditional way (printed stereo on the left hand top of the sleeve) seem to be not the norm for this LP, although some "brown borders" (supposedly replaced by the "white border") have cropped up with conventional stereo markings, and Pittsburg labels! Also of note, though the “brown border” covers were supposedly superceded very early on (and presumably before too many stereo copies of the LP were produced - stereo still being a novelty), there was apparently a backlog of monophonic versions of these covers, most California stereos appear to be “brown borders” with stickers (or sometimes not) to designate “stereophonic”.

Now, you might ask, enough about covers, can you tell me about the disc labels? Well, dear reader, I certainly can! There were much more obvious differences between World Artists LP labels than their single labels. Unfortunately, these differences appear to not be universal, but work very well as general rules. The first is simple. California copies (both “brown borders” and “California white borders”) are on a gray colored World Artists label, with a large World Artists symbol on the top of the label, and a line under the words “World Artists” (below the symbol, but above the spindle). On either side of the play hole are the side designation (to the left) and the catalogue number (to the right). Below the playhole is the artists name (written in all capital letters as “Chad And Jeremy”), the name of the LP in bold, and, underneath that, the song titles and times. However, some late production "California white borders" had Pittsburgh-style labels. Remember that even if you come across and LP that violates this rule, it doesn't make it worth a retirement check, as records can easily be switched from different covers, and, just as importantly, there is not enough interest in C&J to make these label differences carry much of a premium at all.

Pittsburgh labels, in my opinion, looked much nicer. They featured a two tone light blue version of the World Artists symbol, taking up the whole of the label, with print set over it. A World Artists symbol is in a box, which also has a small typed “World Artists”, at the top of the label. The LP title (again, in bold) and group name (in the same manner as on California copies) are above the playhole. to the left of the spindle is the catalogue number. Below is the track listing and timings. These labels have perimeter print across the bottom which reads “World Artists Records. Pittsburgh, PA Made In U.S.A.”. Most stereo copies of this LP appear to be from the Pittsburgh plant, and they all have an interesting addition to the above label. To the right of the spindle, there is a small ovular logo which reads “Weiss Sherman Productions”. Some late mono "California white borders" can be found with multicolor Pittsburgh-style labels that include the "Weiss Sherman Productions" logo. And, just to make life even more difficult, at some point, World Artists did begin producing stereo brown borders designated by actually using the printed word "stereo" on the cover. These must be very late ones, as, like some later Californias, they use Pittsburg label. But why the wrong cover slick? Are these early examples of the record from the initial run, or (more likely) was a batch of records incorrectly printed with the wrong sleeve at some point later in the run when stereo was more prevalent? The mind boggles.

This LP (in all its myriad forms) sold rather well. In fact, it sold better than many collectors assume it must have, as they sometimes go to great lengths to get very common copies, working on the natural assumption that because it was issued on a very small label it must have been pressed in inordinately small numbers. This is simply not true, though there are many times more copies of these LPs floating around today than in the early 1970s, but more on that later.

With the “Yesterday’s Gone” LP taken care of, the ‘golden age of variations’ really comes to an end for Chad & Jeremy. Still, it is useful to take a look at their second World Artists LP, “Sing For You”, to see what we can see. The first thing that you will see is what you don’t see. And that is California produced LPs. World Artists were apparently only making LPs in California on a temporary basis, and “Sing For You” was only made in Pittsburgh. This is the simple explanation (other than lower sales and less interest) for why “Sing For You” is a bit harder to find on the West Coast. This time, a stereo issue was made the old fashioned way, by using a different cut to expose the printed “Stereo” on the top of the LP cover. Also, the back slicks, which for “Yesterday’s Gone” were made featuring both catalogue numbers (for stereo and mono), these were made to be cut, with the top denoting stereo, and the bottom denoting mono. The odd aspect of this LP is that, though production was done only in the Pittsburgh plant, which, for “Yesterday’s Gone” only produced a very professional looking two color label, many labels for this LP are a flat, one color light blue, but carry the same layout as the previous Pittsburgh labels. Also, oddly, the LP only lists an artist (“Chad & Jeremy”), and the title “Sing For You” is not mentioned anywhere on the LP itself. Rare in the 1960s (but part of warehouse finds in the late 1970s and early 1980s) were the blue two tone labels (like on the Pittsburgh “Yesterday’s Gone” labels), which, all in one line, call the LP “Chad And Jeremy Sing For You”. These copies may be later than the one color blue labels, which apparently were produced before the LP title was finalized. Also, the stereos of this do not bear the “Weiss Sherman Productions” logo.

Shortly after the release of this LP Chad and Jeremy bolted to Columbia Records, where for the first time yet, they would actually be paid for recording. Here, there were no real entertaining label variations though some copies of their “Before And After” LP have a notably different back cover. The new task for collectors of the Columbia stuff becomes getting the monos and stereos of the first four, and any copy at all of “The Ark” or “Three In The Attic” (both of which were only issued in stereo). The only real variations of note for the Columbia years are few and rare. The early back cover copies of "Before And After" were almost all promos, and on their label, instead of stating "mono" on the bottom of the label, they say (in very small black print) "guaranteed high fidelity". For the first three Columbia LPs, there are ultra rare DJ white label promos. "Distant Shores" has reissues from around 1969 with the Columbia label of that era (red with a gold "Columbia" written around the perimeter of the label). There are title strip DJ copies of all five LPs, and a nice Capitol Canada copy of "Three In The Attic" with the "rainbow colorband" label. Probably the most sought after of all Columbia LPs must be copies of "The Arc", as it was spelled on the very first printings.

On the other hand, the Columbia 45s had such frequent and myriad variations (particularly for promo copies) that they merit an article to themselves, but in brief: every Columbia single has a white label promo. "Before and After" has a white label red vinyl promo. There are dual a side promos of "Paxton Quigley's Had The Course" and "Painted Dayglow Smile" released to promote "The Ark", and several singles feature font variations.

However, we’re not through with the World Artists LPs yet. The story of World Artists officially came to an end in 1966 (ironically, the same year VJ, who gave us such fun Beatles variations, went under) and the rights to the catalogue were bought by Capitol. Capitol issued a greatest hits LP with this material very quickly in 1966, and it became a huge catalogue seller for the rest of the 1960s. Meanwhile, Guarino's Fidu "label" (this was the only release) put out another LP to compete with Capitol's disc, entitled "10+5=15", with quite a few embarrassing (or fascinating, depending on your point of view) interim mixes with scratch vocals and missing overdubs, and even including the then unreleased “The Nearness Of You”. The Capitol issues of this material are just as boring, if not more so, than the Columbia LPs, variations-wise. All thats out there are "rainbow colorband" and (equally plentiful) "all black" label copies from 1966-1967, and 1967-1970 "red and white target" labels.

As the 1970s became a reality, interest in record collecting began in earnest. By the mid 1970s, the two Chad & Jeremy LPs on World Artists were considered fairly hot commodities. Who could go wrong with a hit British record on a tiny defunct US label? Prices for the LPs reached the then astronomical (for a non major group) $40 by the late 1970s. Then, depending on your outlook, either disaster stuck or we hit oil. A large 1,000 plus copy cache of both LPs was uncover, sealed, in a record distributor’s warehouse. Both LPs, in their Pittsburgh stereo and mono pressings, began turning up in pristine sealed condition, quickly meeting the demand for the LPs, and causing a drop in their prices down to the $10 range, where they remain today. Similar finds, smaller finds occurred several more times into the early 1980s. The were now more sealed copies of the World Artists LPs on the market than at any time since 1966, but with two major disclaimers: There were no new "Yesterday’s Gone" 'brown borders' or 'California white borders' in circulation; and the stickers designating 'stereophonic' on the "Yesterday’s Gone" LPs were almost all found on the outside of the plastic wrap, not on the actual covers (unlike most 1960s distributed copies).

There are several lessons to be learned from this very long story. Firstly, never overpay for a World Artists LP. They simply are NOT rare, regardless of what some price guides and many (sometimes genuinely misled, but frequently intentionally misleading to you) dealers may tell you. The exception to this rule is a “brown border”. These are, in general, pretty hard to find (especially on the East Coast), but again, you should not have to pay very much of a premium at all, as the record pricing establishment is on the West Coast, as are most major dealers. To them, the 'brown cover' isn’t very difficult to find at all, so you should be able to get them at around $15 whether you live in Kalamazoo or Miami. This is especially true now that ebay and the internet have broken down so many traditional barriers to collecting label variations. Also, expect many dealers to automatically raise the price of a stereo copy to around $15 to $20. They usually do this out of ignorance, and if you don’t want to pay that take a little time and find it for around $10.

The other lesson from this is that there is no reason at all to buy a VG or less copy of these LPs. There are mint sealed copies all over the place, just look around for a bit and you will find them. The exception to this rule (other than the 'brown borders') is the 'California white border'. It can frequently only be found in VG+ or so, so take it like that. It is not reasonable though, for a dealer to charge a premium for a 'California white border', as it is a very minor variation for a group that is not very actively or widely collected. Remember, there are sealed Pittsburgh monos and stereos of both LPs out there in large quantities, so don’t pay a ton for a sealed copy. If given a choice between a sealed stereo “Sing For You” at $40, and a sealed mono “The Best of Chad and Jeremy” at $80, take the Capitol disc, it is a much better deal.

One more caveat: When buying sealed Columbia LPs from before 1967, keep in mind that sometimes it is only the record itself, in a small plastic bag, that is sealed. There is not a cellophane seal on the cover itself. Other Columbia LPs, which use a paper bag to hold the LP, were usually sealed on the outside cover. Also, beware of the counterfeit (I kid you not) "Before And After" which is on really thin white stock, and screams "made in 1985" to anyone who has been collecting records for very long.

Good luck, and remember to enjoy collecting, whether you choose to get this manic about it, or you just like the idea of having a nice old record to look at from time to time whilst you listen to your shiny new CD.

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Copyright 2007  Frank Jason Rhoden.