Lover's Holiday in London Ontario!

Wow ~ not sure what kind of a Holiday these lovers are on.. but the cover art is for sure the best part of this album. Category’s : rethrift, orchestra & big band, lovers and duets but not quite even the top 20 cover album art.  not too much romantic about it other than the titles. What I am going to focus on is what I’ve ben noticing for the past month and a half of this project 365.. records themselves. I wondered what kind of interesting thisng woudl come of this project. SPARTON RECORDS manufactured this record and almost EVERY record I own. And where was the SPARTON factory? Why.. London, Ontario Canada.

And who was born in London, Ontario, Canada!? ME! Check out this cool time lapsed video of London, Ontario at night, filmed in 2011. click here for London video!

Take a little walk with me, if you will, through the polka dot door to the SPARTON FACTORY.   Sparton Records was a Canadian record company which was based in London, Ontario. Sparton Records was founded in 1930 by the American electronics company Sparks-Withington Corp., ofJackson, Michigan, which made Sparton radios. It manufactured and distributed Columbia Records in Canada from 1939 to 1954. It had distribution arrangements with other American record companies, most notably ABC Records. It was the first record company in Canada to manufacture stereo records in 1958. While the record company folded in 1969, Sparton Corporation is still in operation. Sparton closed its London operations in 2009.    To read more about SPARTON and Columbia and all sorts of cool stuff about how records came into being click here for SPARTON RECORDS

Sparton Records of London, Ontario manufactured and distributed Columbia 78′s in Canada since 1940 and until 1954. That year they began their own label and for the next fifteen years issued records mostly from smaller U.S. labels, but most notably ABC Paramount, later known as ABC Records. In total this company issued over 1600 releases on 45 RPM records between 1954 and 1969. Some famous artists who recorded for Sparton include Paul Anka, Ray Charles, Steve Lawrence, Tommy Roe, Annette, George Hamilton IV, Cliff Richard and Johnny Nash.

A picture of the Sparton Records plant / offices taken in the summer of 2010 by Fred Young. Sparton Records operated in this building from the 1950s onwards. The building is loacted at 99 Ash Street, London, Ontario. Sparton has manufactured TV’s, radios and records in the past. Sparton is now gone from London as of 2010 but at the end they were manufacturing top secret military gear such as sonobuoys. The plant is currently for sale and is no longer in use.

KISS KISS

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