Blue Horizon
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Blue Horizon was a British blues record label founded by Mike Vernon in the mid-sixties.
Its roots lay in Vernon's mail order label Purdah Records, which released just four 7" singles; including "Flapjacks" by Stone's Masonry (featuring Martin Stone, later to join Savoy Brown and Mighty Baby); and another by John Mayall and Eric Clapton; plus one each by "Bernard Jenkins", and "Lonely Years". Only 99 copies of each are thought to have been pressed - limited, apparently, to avoid purchase tax - although it has also been said that the number was as high as 500.
After briefly forming the Outasite label, Vernon switched to Blue Horizon in 1966, issuing singles and a small number of now-unobtainable albums by U.S. blues artists, including Doctor Ross. A licensing and distribution deal with CBS heralded the glory years of the label. Starting with two 7" singles with combined CBS/Blue Horizon stamps featuring Fleetwood Mac and Aynsley Dunbar there followed a string of singles and albums by both British and U.S. blues artists, both licensed and newly recorded. Some releases featured Mike Vernon-produced recordings of U.S. artists like Otis Spann and Champion Jack Dupree, backed by the cream of the British Blues scene including such luminaries as Peter Green, Rory Gallagher, Paul Kossoff, Stan Webb, Pete Wingfield and Duster Bennett.
The label produced chart single hits for Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack and a string of albums in imaginative sleeves, though most sold poorly. The distinctive blue label singles eventually gave way to red and then no-centre white labels as the blues boom died away. The label ceased production around 1971, and all its titles are highly collectible today. Later vinyl re-releases by both Sire Records and Line Records kept interest alive, but CD reissues were very limited until Vernon himself re-emerged in the 21st Century to remaster the best material and do justice to the Blue Horizon legacy.
