Parlophone R series

From ScrapingTheBarrel

This is not part of the main catalogue here, but seemed a potentially interesting appendix.

1 About Parlophone
2 List of Parlophone R Series singles since 1955

About Parlophone

Ex-Beatles on Parlophone

Parlophone has a long history as a record label. Below is a table listing as many of the records as I can find information about, in the "R" series which was used for all Beatles (and most solo) singles between 1962 and 1975. It is fairly complete for the 60s, 70s and 80s, less so for the 50s, where information is more scarce, and more recent years, where the explosion of formats makes things complicated. I offer it here in incomplete, embryonic form: if anyone wants to help complete it, please get in touch.

The first of the Apple-labelled Parlophone singles was Hey Jude (R5722) in 1968. The last was George Harrison's This Guitar (Can't Keep From Crying) (R6012) in late 1975. Crocodile tears, I suspect: I don't think George had any regrets when his EMI/Apple contract was up.

Between 1963 and 1973, Parlophone released over 1000 singles; between 1973 and 1983, well under 100, and most of them Beatles-related, including all McCartney's official output, several opportunistic Beatles re-releases, and related curios like Rostal & Schafer's Beatles Concerto, Peter Sellers' versions of She Loves You in the style of Dr Strangelove (unfortunately not as good as his recording of Hard Day's Night in the style of Laurence Olivier, one of the outstanding novelty Beatles covers), and Scarlet Party's two very Beatlesque new wave singles.

For ease of use, I've arbitrarily split the list into "thousands". Some dates have got mangled, check with original spreadsheet.