Ata Records

Australian labels: Green ATA inside Red Square mid to late 60's. Black ATA inside Orange Square late 60's to early 70's Black ata inside circle on blue sky background late 70's Associated company is ATA Records Pty. Ltd ATA Records is one of the longest-lived Australian independent labels, and is still operating today, decades after most of its contemporaries have vanished. ATA was established by pioneering Australian singer Col Joye (Colin Jacobsen) and his brothers Phil and Kevin. ATA Records was launched in May 1966 with Col Joye's single "I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine" and it continued through the late '60s and '70s to the present. Not surprisingly, ATA's catalogue featured by recordings from the members of the so-called "Bandstand Family" -- Col, Brian Henderson (8), The Joy Boys, Judy Stone, Little Pattie and Sandy Scott (2). ATA released over 200 singles between 1966 and 1981, averaging about 14 releases per year, although the label's output dropped sharply after 1977. Although much of the repertoire tended towards a "middle of the road" style, ATA's catalogue covers a very wide range of material. ATA had few "rock" releases, although the 1972 single by Friends (25) released on ATA, [r5058118] is widely acknowledged as a landmark Australian progressive rock. ATA also released country, 'folk' and jazz recordings, including early singles by singer-songwriters Mike McClellan and [a374128], two country singles and two LPs by '60s star Laurie Allen (ex Bobby And Laurie), and many singles and albums by veteran country performers The Webb Brothers (2). There were also instrumental and jazz singles by renowned pianist [a3398640], Bob Barnard's Jazz Band and the The Ray Price Quintet, a one-off single by pioneering Kiwi rockers Johnny Devlin & The Devils. There was the occasional 'novelty' item, like the single by 2SM DJs John Torv and [a1224467], and recordings by club and variety performers like actress-singer-TV personality Hazel Phillips, actor-singer [a2671891] (of Division 4 fame), religious personality Roger Bush (2), and former '60s popster and DJ Donnie Sutherland, best remembered as the host of the popular music video show Sounds. Laurie Allen and [a374128] were significant to the label both as recording artists and writers. Both artists released singles on ATA -- including Laurie's remake of the Bobby And Laurie hit [r10050579] -- and Col Joye recorded a number of their songs over the years. It was Col himself who recorded ATA's most successful local release, the national #1 hit [r5987758] (1973), which took him back to the top of the pop charts for the first time since the early 1960s won the Country Music Association of Australia's award for "Top Selling Record" in 1974. One of ATA's discoveries in the country genre was "Cowboy" Bob Purtell, who released several singles on the label, collaborated with Col, Laurie and Jim Cooper (10) on the LP Truck Stop (1976) and won the CMAA "New Talent of the Year" award in 1976 for his 1975 ATA single "Motivatin' Day", and the song also won its writer Laurie Allen a 'Golden Guitar' at the Tamworth Country Music Festival. ATA continued to release around a dozen singles each year until 1978, after which its singles output dropped sharply. From that point on it released only a handful of singles each year -- so far we have identified only four in 1978, three in 1979, five in 1980 and three in 1981 and one in 1982. At present we have no information on ATA releases after 1982; documents on the ARIA website indicate that the company was still operating in 1996, but it is not known if the label still operates today. For many years the label's offices and recording studio were co-located at 96 Glebe Pt Rd in Glebe, in Sydney's inner west. One of the longest-running independent recording studios in Sydney, they were originally known as ATA studios and then Studio 96, and finally Glebe Studios. It is known that leading engineer Bruce Brown (2) worked there for some time and in 1970 he and Ron Patton did the final mixing and editing at ATA for the debut album Song To Raymondo by Sydney pop-rock band Autumn (17). The Glebe studio evolved over a long period of time. According to a recent ABC interview with Col, ATA built its own 4-track, 8-track and later 16-track facilities. Engineer and studio historian Colin Abrahams records that the original studio had a special reverb chamber built under the control room with a speaker and microphone mounted on tracks to adjust the delay. They built their own mixing console and also built Australia's first 16-track recorder out of an old Univac computer deck. The tape had to be wound with the oxide facing out to work with this machine, and an assistant had to stand next to the machine and help turn the spools when it got close to the end of the reel! Many hit records were recorded on this machine, including Kevin Johnston's much-covered "Rock and Roll (I Gave You The Best Years of My Life)". By 1990 the studio was fitted with an MCI 24-track recorder, plus 8-track and 16-track Tascam recorders. As well as enabling the studio to run up to 48 tracks, the 8-track and 16-track machines allowed the studio to accept tapes from other studios in virtually any format. Glebe Studios was still in operation when this article was revised in late 2007. ATA's first two single releases were catalogued ATA-001 and ATA-002, but the second single (by Bandstand host Brian Henderson (8)) was simultaneously issued with a new "ATAK" prefix and a four-digit catalogue number, to fit in with the cataloguing system of the distributor, Festival (Festival's own singles were prefixed "FK" and singles from its subsidiary Infinity were prefixed "INK"). As a result, subsequent ATA releases did not run follow a strict numerical sequence. The ATAK prefix remained in use until 1973, and the last single with this prefix was Col's hit "Heaven is my woman's love". With the next single -- Little Pattie 's "What's Your Mama's Name" (Aug. 1973) -- the numbering changed again to conform to Festival's new "K" series, which took place around the same time that Festival's signed a distribution deal with the newly-established Mushroom label.