Red Bird Records

Red Bird Records was a record label started by legendary American pop music songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1964. Though often thought of as a "girl-group" label, female-led acts made up only 40% of the artist roster on Red Bird and its associated labels (including Blue Cat Records, Tiger and Daisy). However, female-led acts also accounted for more than 90% of the label's charting records. [ Charles, Don: "liner notes to" The Girl Group Sound: 25 All-Time Greatest Hits from Red Bird Records, Varese Saradande, 2001. Cat. # 302 066 246-2]

The label's first release was "Chapel of Love" by the The Dixie Cups, which quickly reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, a feat matched later that year by The Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack." [cite web
url=http://www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=142
title=Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller - inductees
publisher=Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
accessdate=2006-12-05 ] . Eleven of the first 30 singles released by Red Bird reached the Top Forty.

History

After closing Spark Records and starting Red Bird, Lieber and Stoller brought in George Goldner, a veteran record promoter and former owner of Gee Records, Gone Records and Rama Records. [cite web
url=http://www.bsnpubs.com/roulette/goldner.html
title=The George Goldner Story
publisher=
accessdate=2006-12-05 ] They used the skillful Brill Building husband-and-wife songwriting team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who had been writing most of Phil Spector's first hits. The label was sold in 1966 as Lieber and Stoller preferred to write and produce rather than manage the business of running a label, and after they had a falling out with Goldner.cite book
first= Anthony Decurtis (Eds.)
last= Holly George-Warren &
authorlink=
coauthors=
year= 1976
title= The RollingStone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll
edition= 3rd Edition
publisher= Random House
location=New York
pages= p. 148-152
id= ISBN 0-679-73728-6 ]

A subsidiary label, Blue Cat Records, had a hit with "The Boy from New York City" by The Ad Libs. [cite web
url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=ADFEAEE67818DC49A57420EFB11E77FD9856D220F40DD4AB2A3C5253F8E43066B8076AB00EBADCD2B3FA75B235AEFF24A55805D0CAFE2781&sql=11:30d2vwpva92k~T1
title=Biography - The Ad libs
publisher=allmusic.com
accessdate=2006-12-05 ]

See also

* List of record labels

Notes

External links

* [http://www.bsnpubs.com/nyc/redbird.html Red Bird Records discography]
* [http://www.redbirdent.com/slas1.htm Story of The Shangri-Las]
* [http://www.theshangri-las.com - fan site dedicated to the shangri-las]