"The sound of quality"

Note: Release dates are based on numerous sources, including contemporary Schwann catalog dates (notorious for reconfiguring release dates to when Schwann cataloged them). Though some dates are exact, most are correct within a month or two, excepting for those howlers where one source or other conflicted or typed in the wrong year. This list provides only a good ballpark estimate, and should not be legal cause for blood feuds. Jac Holzman's excellent autobiography, Follow the music (FirstMedia Books, Publisher's Group West, avail. in cloth & paper) was an invaluable reference for titles past 1965.

Mono was phased out industry-wide beginning in June, 1967, although it would be another year before they'd completely vanish from production. I am certain a great many albums were mastered in mono but shelved, and at times some discographies relied on master tape inventories rather than production schedules, and so some albums listed elsewhere as mono releases were not actually released into the market. Columbia released both Notorious Byrd Brothers and Dylan's John Wesley Harding in mono in early 1968, but seems to have put most of their small production into the cut-out bins immediately, while Elektra released small amounts of what seems to have been their last mono, the Doors' Strange days (4014/74014) in February of that year, and Vanguard released tiny amounts of Julius Lester's Departures (9261/79261) in December of '67 as their final monaural, (after which all new Vanguards were labeled "Stereo also playable mono"). All monos not listed here are vouched for by at least two sources as well as by my semi-reliable memory of the time - which occasionally seems more reliable than other sources.

Additions and corrections are welcomed.

For more comprehensive listings, please see Jac Holzman's Follow the Music website for the Elektra Records discography or David Edwards' Elektra discography.

© 2002 by Greg Pennell