When the Record Company guy messes up ...

[jsmith]

Are you sure this has been assigned to the correct label ? ...

[jsmith]

Whereas this is OK ...

[Motown Eddie]

Are you sure this has been assigned to the correct label ? ...

Truly a misprint. And it's worth noting that Motown Records turned down the The 5th Dimension in the '60s and would sign a later edition of the group [without Billy Davis, Jr., & Marilyn McCoo] in 1978. Good find JSmith, thanks for posting.

[Philles/Motown Gary]

The incorrect label [[above top) credits Mark Gordon as co-producer. That's most likely why the record-label error occurred, as Marc Gordon, along with Hal Davis, handled Motown's West Coast business/recording affairs. Makes you wonder if the misprinted label pressing is worth anything in the collector's market.

[mysterysinger]

The incorrect label [[above top) credits Mark Gordon as co-producer. That's most likely why the record-label error occurred, as Marc Gordon, along with Hal Davis, handled Motown's West Coast business/recording affairs. Makes you wonder if the misprinted label pressing is worth anything in the collector's market.

It sells for £3.16 on Discogs. However, I'm not convinced that this is an error - I think it may have been a genuine issue on Tamla Motown in South Africa - maybe via a licensing deal. In a similar way, Bob and Marcia's "Young Gifted and Black" was issued on Tamla in the USA. The clue is the fact that it has been allocated a proper TMJ number [[correct for South Africa). There was also a Letta album - "I'll Never Be The Same" - issued only on Motown in South Africa. There were 2 Letta singles on Tamla Motown as well [[TMS-379 and TMS-393). There is a history of strange releases by Motown.

[mysterysinger]

Here's an example or two [[but note that these don't have Motown allocated numbers).

- George Michael's "Faith" album issued on Motown in Zimbabwe.
https://www.45worlds.com/vinyl/album/ksf3170zw

- Pink Floyd on Motown? You got it. https://www.45worlds.com/vinyl/album/asf3168

- Depeche Mode - https://www.45worlds.com/vinyl/album/mut2008

[copley]

From Motown Treasures

It's a South African release from 1967, and it is listed on Discogs ....

https://www.discogs.com/release/2933...ther-Heartache

Presumably, through some obscure licensing agreement the people who had the rights to the recording in South Africa were able to release it on Tamla Motown ... if someone has £30 to spare they can buy it to see for themselves.

Even more bizarrely there were LPs by Pink Floyd, Depeche Mode and George Michael released on Motown in Zimbabwe in the late '80s!! The consensus of opinion seems to be that the Zimbabwean record company used spare labels to save money. ;D

https://www.45worlds.com/vinyl/label/motown-zw

[bradsupremes]

Truly a misprint. And it's worth noting that Motown Records turned down the The 5th Dimension in the '60s and would sign a later edition of the group [without Billy Davis, Jr., & Marilyn McCoo] in 1978. Good find JSmith, thanks for posting.

I just have a hard time believing Motown would turn down the 5th Dimension yet signed people like Little Lisa and Tony Martin. Something isn't adding up here...

[Sotosound]

From Motown Treasures

It's a South African release from 1967, and it is listed on Discogs ....

https://www.discogs.com/release/2933...ther-Heartache

Presumably, through some obscure licensing agreement the people who had the rights to the recording in South Africa were able to release it on Tamla Motown ... if someone has £30 to spare they can buy it to see for themselves.

Even more bizarrely there were LPs by Pink Floyd, Depeche Mode and George Michael released on Motown in Zimbabwe in the late '80s!! The consensus of opinion seems to be that the Zimbabwean record company used spare labels to save money. ;D

https://www.45worlds.com/vinyl/label/motown-zw

Back in the 70s, Jamaican singles were pressed from almost endlessly recycled vinyl of very poor quality, and the cardboard boxes for holding 25 copies were often made from recycled cardboard packaging. Such boxes were plain on the outside but covered with random artwork on the inside.

Funnily, one of my original copies of "Dreadlock Holiday" by 10CC is a Jamaican pressing. Polygram UK had run out of pressing capacity and farmed out some pressings to Jamaica.

IIRC, in the record wholesaler where I was working at the time, these Jamaican copies turned up in those classic recycled cardboard boxes. Also, the pressing quality is pretty rough when compared with UK pressings.

I suspect that someone in manufacturing in Polygram had a sense of humour.

[mysterysinger]

I just have a hard time believing Motown would turn down the 5th Dimension yet signed people like Little Lisa and Tony Martin. Something isn't adding up here...

Motown signed Gladys Knight & The Pips instead - personally I think that was a great signing. Plus they already had The Elgins and The Monitors as girl / boy combos. Little Lisa and Tony Martin were pretty much over at Motown by the time The Versatiles changed their name to 5th Dimension.

[jsmith]

Another strange South African label assigned to a record ... Philly Int not ...

[mysterysinger]

The O'Jays release isn't really that strange since the parent company for Date was CBS so what otherwise might have been released on CBS in the UK got released on Date in South Africa [[such as the "Back Stabbers" LP). That included Sly & The Family Stone, The Glories, Dr Hook, Edgar Winter etc.

In the UK Philadelphia International releases were initially on CBS [[Harold Melvin, O'Jays) and releases by The Intruders, Johnny Taylor, Bobby Taylor etc released on EPIC - another CBS label.

[robb_k]

The incorrect label [[above top) credits Mark Gordon as co-producer. That's most likely why the record-label error occurred, as Marc Gordon, along with Hal Davis, handled Motown's West Coast business/recording affairs. Makes you wonder if the misprinted label pressing is worth anything in the collector's market.

I doubt very much that that is a labelling error. Marc Gordon left Motown in late 1966 to form Soul City Records, with Johnny Rivers. Clearly, that was a Soul City 1967 production. They were distributed then, by Liberty Records in USA, and Liberty, in turn by United Artists. I'm guessing that UA didn't have much of a presence in South Africa back then, and the distribution of most US music that came there was handled by UK distributors. Tamla-Motown's product was distributed by EMI, one of the handful of largest UK record distributors. As I recall, E.M.I. distributed Liberty Records in The UK. So, it seems natural that E.M.I. would market and distribute American Soul music also in South Africa. Maybe the didn't sell much of Liberty's product there during the late '60s, as The O'Jays had already moved off Liberty/Imperial to Bell. So they put Soul City's product on their South African Tamla-Motown label, because they were selling lots more Motown product there than all of the UA/Liberty records. UA/Liberty had to have signed off on that. They would get a lot more money out of this situation than having EMI market them on Liberty or UA there, IF either of those labels even existed in South Africa back then.

[jsmith]

Other South African 45 releases on Liberty ...

[robb_k]

Other South African 45 releases on Liberty ...

Liberty issued "Stone Soul Picnic" by The 5th Dimension, which, almost certainly, would have sold a lot more than "Another Day, Another Heartbreak" issued on Tamla-Motown. So, my theory doesn't seem very plausible. It must have been labeled incorrectly, after all.