Cover and label variants of CHESS LP-1480 'Chuck Berry On Stage'

[This article first appeared here on December 16, 2014. Just recently Thierry Chanu found yet another cover variant of LP-1480. Therefore I re-post this blog entry with Thierry's addition edited in below.]

[Now that was fast: A week ago we proudly presented our finding of the very rare sticker version of CHESS LP-1480. And we asked some questions which this finding opened. Immediately I received several emails from our French reader Thierry Chanu which not only answered our open questions but also contributed much much more. Thus we have to re-write the story of 'Chuck Berry On Stage'.]

When you read about the 'Chuck Berry On Stage' album released as CHESS LP-1480 in August 1963, such writing often comes with a photo of the album cover looking like this:



This is typically considered to be the original cover of CHESS LP-1480. As such for instance it was used for the Japanese mini-LP replica Universal Music Japan UICY-94630 we wrote about in October 2010.



While this is the best known cover for this album and certainly is the variant sold most often, it is not necessarily the 'original' album cover — if you define 'original' as the first version of this cover.

The interesting thing to look at is the line saying including "MEMPHIS" & "SURFIN' USA" above the artist name. It is printed in black letters and refers to the then current famous cover versions of Memphis, Tennessee and Sweet Little Sixteen (as Surfin' USA).

When Morten Reff described Berry's seventh CHESS album on page 60 in his Chuck Berry International Directory, Volume 1, he noted:

The original pressings of this LP had a sticker on the front cover saying 'Including "MEMPHIS" & "SURFIN' USA"'.

Thus there was no printing, just a sticker containing the same wording as the printed text, though 'Including' is written with a capital I. The text on the sticker is in blue instead of black and it uses a different font.

The sticker version is very rare. We were happy to finally get one and we proudly presented it here last week. (Click for a higher resolution image.)



A contemporary ad from Chess showed a black and white image of the sticker version of the album. And the sticker seems to be applied hastily just before the photo shooting as crooked as it is.



Thierry Chanu then wrote that he as well has a version of this album having the sticker. Though his has been sent out as a promotional advance copy to DJs and marked as such. Here's the back of Thierry's copy:



Given that the sticker is both on the advertisement and on the advance copies, we can state that the sticker version existed before the printed version. It must have been commercially available as well, since Morten's copy is not a promotional one.

[Addition 04-12-2017:
There seem to have been two variants of this sticker. The images above show that the sticker contains just the incorrect song title "Surfin' USA". There's a second version of the sticker which adds the correct song title "Sweet Little Sixteen" in small print below "Surfin' USA". Here's a photo of the second sticker version:

end addition.]

What may be under the sticker, we then asked, as it would be logical that there was no printed text there. So last week we wrote this request to all Chuck Berry collectors reading this site:

Do you have a copy of CHESS LP 1480 which has no sticker and no printing of the 'including' text? If you do, send us an image and we would be happy to show it here.

Again Thierry:

Yes, the cover exists without the sticker. I have one and the record label is black with the golden CHESS on top. It has the same label, writing, and matrix as the DJ copy.

Here's the proof from Thierry's collection:



The second part of Thierry's reply refers to the other question we had wondered about: When receiving the sticker version album, Morten had found

"The copy I bought features the second label, the black label (repress) image on page 60."

Thierry's two records make clear that the label with the golden logo is not from a later re-pressing such as Morten's book had suggested. Obviously this is the original label (left: non-sticker version, right: DJ copy), at least for the early copies.



As this was the brand-new CHESS label containing the new multi-colored logo, it's safe to assume that CHESS wanted at least the DJs see this new logo and label. Thierry however makes clear that one has to be careful to distinguish CHESS records just by their label into 'original' and 'later' pressings.

Chess used three or four pressing plants at the same time, so we can find an original record with different labels.

These are additional early labels of CHESS LP-1480. All came in the third variant of the cover, i.e. the one with the printed text. Even though these look like earlier CHESS labels, we probably shall regard them as used interchangeably at the same time.



Once more Thierry:

Here's one more regular copy with the black label and vertical Chess logo (different than the other black). This one though has been pressed using a different matrix. It was pressed by the Monarch pressing plant in July 1963. This can be told by the etching located in the run-off (dead wax) area of the record. The Monarch pressing plant is identified by an MR inside a circle, always in the trail-off area. The numbers following this symbol tell the date of mastering.

Thus we can sum up the history of CHESS LP-1480 as follows:

• The 'original' cover of 'Chuck Berry On Stage' did not have any printed text except for artist, label, and album name. At least some of these first versions had been available commercially.
• Before advertisements for this album were created and before advance copies were sent out to DJs, CHESS added a sticker referring to the most important songs. This became the second cover version.
• The third and final version must have been printed shortly after or even together with public release. This version had the song titles printed.
• The earliest copies had the multi-colored label with the chess knight logo, probably to demonstrate the new logo to DJs.
• Concurrently older design labels containing the vertical CHESS logo were used. These exist in blue as well as in different black variants.
• At least two different matrices existed to produce the bulk of the 1963 pressings.

To show just a few of these variants, Thierry arranged this photo:



Many thanks to Thierry Chanu for providing all the additional information about the 'Chuck Berry On Stage' album. If we ever find the time, we'll continue this story with the international releases of this album which have different overdubs, longer fades, completely different covers (in multiple variation) and so on... [Done: http://www.crlf.de/ChuckBerry/blog/archives/235-Vinyl-variants-of-CHESS-LP-1480-Chuck-Berry-On-Stage.html]