RECORDS
CBS Records was founded in 1961 by CBS Inc. It was set up to distribute releases from their US labels outside of the US. This was mainly for the Columbia releases. CBS Inc. couldn't use that brand outside the US because EMI owned the rights of the Columbia brand in the rest of the world.
CBS Inc. set up a number of companies to market the CBS releases. Examples are CBS Records S.A. in France, CBS Grammofoonplaten BV in the Netherlands and CBS Schallplatten GmbH in Germany. These companies also used the CBS label to release records on that were made by local artists. CBS used three different labels during the 60s And 70S. The first, plain orange, one had been used, with minor variations, throughout the '60s, initially with silver printing, later - presumably for the sake of legibility - with black. It lasted into the early '70s but was replaced in 1973 with a rather brighter orange-and-yellow design. Several different company sleeves were used. On occasions the company issued batches of its hit records, on its various labels, in distinctive sleeves, under a collective name. 'Hall Of Fame Hits' (1139-1168; 1973) featured artists as dissimilar as Andy Williams and Sly & The Family Stone; a second 'Hall Of Fame Hits' series in 1976 featured several singles from the first series with the same numbers but orange-and-yellow labels instead of the plain orange ones. It also included several records which had been hits since the first series came out - the new singles were numbered in the 3944-3967 block. The two series had different sleeves, the earlier being orange, the second white. Singles in both series had the words 'Hall of Fame Hits' on the labels. The 'Disc-O Doubles' series (4879-4906; 1977) was for records that had proved popular in the discotheques, and was pressed in blue vinyl while 'Number Ones' (5951-5975; 1978) featured reissues of singles that had reached No. 1 in the Charts. Singles in these series had no special label markings. There were at least four different designs of labels for promotional records in the '70s. One unusual feature of many CBS-group labels during the '60s and '70s was that the artist credit appeared at an angle of ninety degrees to the rest of the lettering; a trait shared by several of President's labels. During the '60s - and the '70s? - it was possible for companies in other lines of business to license CBS records to give away with their own products; these specially-pressed records had their own 'CBS Special Products' label and their own catalogue series, WB-700. The catalogue numbers of CBS singles started off with AAG-101 in 1961, reaching the AAG-200s in 1964; there was also an AGG-32000 series for EPs. Manufacture and distribution during this period were by Philips. In 1965 there came a change of numbering, to 201700, and the prefix was dropped, presumably these occurred when CBS started doing its own manufacturing and distribution. Shortly after 202642 came out, in 1967, the first two digits were dropped and the numbers became simple four-digit ones, still with no prefixes stereo releases had an 'S' in front of the number. Prefixes finally reappeared in 1971, when the numbers jumped from 5500 to 7000; logically enough, CBS singles were prefixed 'CBS'. The letter 'S' for stereo issues remained, separating prefix and number. The jump in numbers was necessary because the 6000 series had already been used, for a parallel series of EPs; these were prefixed 'EP'. Another jump followed at the end of 1972, this time a large backwards one from CBS-8500 to CBS-1000; at this point the 'S' for stereo moved in front of the prefix. For the remainder of the decade the numbers proceeded smoothly through CBS-2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, and so on. This state of affairs lasted into the 1980s, during which decade the prefix changed from 'CBS' to 'A' and I lost interest. Singles on CBS, Epic, Monument, Philadelphia International, etc, had different prefixes but a single shared numbering system, which doesn't make life easy for the would-be discographer. To complicate matters further, reissues of singles which originally had four-digit numbers sometimes kept their original numbers and at other times were given new ones. In addition, reissues of singles which originally had 200000 numbers lost the first '20' to reduce their numbers to four digits - for example, Bob Dylan's, 'Like A Rolling Stone', originally numbered 201811 in 1965, was re-numbered CBS-1811 when it was put out again in 1974. All the other CBS-1800s date from 1973. Manufactured And Distributed By. CBS Records. Thanks To Robert Lyons For The Info.
A FULL DISCOGRAPHY OF THE CBS AAG SERIES 1962 to 1964 CAN BE FOUND HERE
A FULL DISCOGRAPHY OF THE CBS 20 1000 SERIES 1965 to 1965 CAN BE FOUND HERE
A FULL DISCOGRAPHY OF THE CBS 20 2000 1965 to 1967 SERIES CAN BE FOUND HERE
A FULL DISCOGRAPHY OF THE CBS 20 3000 1967 to 1969 SERIES CAN BE FOUND HERE
A FULL DISCOGRAPHY OF THE CBS 4000 1969 to 1970 SERIES CAN BE FOUND HERE
