Westwood Recordings

Westwood was based in Montgomery, Mid Wales, UK. It was run by directors Gordon Davies (2) and his wife, Gwen, and according to 'Music Week' of the 22nd of March 1975 it was formed in 1971 with the aim of giving a recording break to British Country acts. The article added that custom pressing plants were used and that the artists were partly responsible for selling and distributing their records, along with Westwood itself; the deals were for twelve months and gave Westwood full rights to the material. A separate publishing agreement gave the company and the artists 50% each, and a stipulation in the contract was that the artists could not re-record their tracks for other companies for two years after the recording was issued. A couple of years later, 'MW' of the 19th of March 1977 revealed that Westwood was to start doing tape-lease deals: Gordon Davies was quoted as saying "Too many groups have split shortly after we recorded them. As the majority of the LPs were intended for sale on the road the result was not very healthy economically." He added that the company would continue to record its established artists without money upfront. An advert for Westwood in 'MW' for the 29th of April 1980 claimed with some justification that it was 'Britain's leading Country Music label', and the company continued to release records until c.1983. True to its stated intention Westwood concentrated on Country & Western records, though some Folk ones came out as well; the vast majority were LPs, though several EPs and at least one single were issued. It released more than one hundred and sixty records, admittedly in what seem to have been limited pressings. LPs, EPs and singles all shared the same WRS-000 numerical series. The label design remained basically the same, but the colour scheme varied: 7" records can be found with black-on-yellow and silver-on-orange labels as well as tother colour schemes. A couple of minor companies, Real (c.1975-c.76) and Sîr, had their records made through Westwood - the relationship appears to have been a close one, as the Davises produced albums for both of them. Recording was frequently done at the September Sound Studios studios of Look Records (3), in Golcar.