| Albert Productions | |
|---|---|
| Parent company | J. Albert & Son Pty Ltd |
| Founded | 1964 |
| Founder | Ted Albert |
| Genre | Various |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Location | Sydney |
| Official Website | http://www.albertmusic.com/ |
Albert Productions, a division of music publishing and recording company Albert Music, is one of Australia's longest established independent Australian record label to specialise in rock and roll music. The label was founded in 1964 by Ted Albert, whose family owned and operated the Australian music publishing house J. Albert & Son.
During the 1960s Albert Productions operated like other similar companies, such as those founded by producers Joe Meek, Phil Spector or Shel Talmy. Typically, these companies discovered and signed new pop performers/groups, produced their recordings independently, then leased the finished product to established record labels, who handled their release, distribution and promotion.
Ted Albert signed two of the most important Australian groups of the mid-1960s, Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and The Easybeats. Their recordings—released through a deal with EMI's subsidiary label Parlophone -- included some of the biggest Australian hits of the decade, most of which were produced by Ted Albert himself and by Shel Talmy.
The company curtailed its recording activities in the late 1960s but was revived in the early 1970s, when Albert Productions established its own record label and a state-of-the-art recording studio in central Sydney. Early Alberts acts included Alison MacCallum, Ted Mulry, John Paul Young and Bobbi Marchini, and many of these recordings were produced by visiting British pop svengali Simon Napier-Bell. But the label's greatest success came in the mid-1970s, following the return to Australia of former Easybeats Harry Vanda and George Young.
In the last years of The Easybeats the duo had become both a powerful songwriting team and highly skilled producers, and after returning to Australia in early 1973 the became the powerhouse of Albert Productions, which quickly became one of the most successful labels in Australian music. Usually working in collaboration with engineer Bruce Brown, Vanda & Young produced (and often also wrote) a string of hugely successful singles and albums for acts including former bandmate Stevie Wright, John Paul Young, AC/DC, The Angels, Cheetah, William Shakespeare and many others.
In the late '70s and early '80s Vanda & Young also enjoyed their own successful career as Alberts recording artists, releasing a string of highly regarded albums and singles under the ironic pseudonym Flash and the Pan. These included the Australian hits "Down Among The Dead Men" and "Hey St Peter" and "Walking In The Rain", which was famously covered by Grace Jones.
The Albert Productions label is best known internationally through its association with world-famous hard rock band AC/DC. This was very much a family connection—Vanda & Young produced all the albums they recorded in Australia between 1974 and 1977, and of course the two founding members of the band, Malcolm and Angus Young, were George's younger brothers. In 2003 Albert Productions established operations in the United Kingdom and more recently has added the Northern Ireland rock band The Answer to its recording artist stable.
Albert Records does not only specialise in Rock & Roll music. Australian R&B singer, Paulini signed to Albert Records in 2009 and is still in the very present.
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