▶︎ Budget labels, Embassy Records

[Updated] 

After I wrote about budget labels, I heard from Michael White, who had researched the Embassy label, the British source of Australia's Golden Fleece Top Hits label. Embassy was sold in the UK through Woolworths stores from the early 50s till the mid-60s:

• Johnny Worth who, as Les Vandyke, wrote a number of hits for Adam Faith and Eden Kane, recorded covers of his own songs under his own name for Embassy;
• Elvis Costello's father Ross McManus, a vocalist with the Joe Loss Orchestra, recorded for Embassy using the names David Ross and Hal Burton;
• Ray Pilgrim was a vocalist with the Oscar Rabin Orchestra. He also recorded for Embassy as Bobby Stevens, and recorded with Embassy groups including The Jaybirds (not to be confused with another, later band called The Jaybirds that included Alvin Lee). He also recorded for associated label Oriole.
• A song co-written by Ray Pilgrim and recorded by Dick Jordan, "Little Christine", charted Top 10 in Belgium, was covered by other Belgian artists, and was released in the US on Everest (#19360, 1960). 

Michael also wrote about Embassy artist Rikki Henderson in a thread at Vinyl Vulture [now defunct, not archived]. 

I have recently read that Rikki Henderson won his contract with Embassy through a competition run by Mirabelle magazine, but I have also seen a reference to a resident vocalist with the Denny Boyce Orchestra called Rikki Henderson (Rikki also apparently made one appearance on TV's 'Oh Boy').

Henderson's appearance on Oh Boy! on 21 February 1959 is listed at the Oh Boy! Diary website. [Archived page.]

See my links page at the website for some of the sources I've found about cheapo/budget/soundalike labels, including the British soundalike hits albums Top Of The Pops. 

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Digression: Gerry Dorsey, before he was Engelbert, also pops up in the Oh Boy! Diary. For another Oh Boy! connection see my post about Trevor Peacock.