DANDELION
RECORDS

Dandelion was run by disc jockey John Peel and Clive Selwood.  It was founded in 1969 as an outlet for material by people whose music Peel liked, people who had been unable to get a recording contract elsewhere; its roster of artists therefore reflected his eclectic tastes, and ranged from singer-songwriter Bridget St. John to proto-Punk group Stack Waddy, by way of Avant-garde-Jazz-man Lol Coxhill.  It didn't sell many records at the time - its sole Singles Chart success came with Medicine Head's, 'Pictures In The Sky' (DAN-7003 / K-19002 ; 1971) - but over the years it has become a popular label with collectors.  Dandelion changed labels and distributors several times during the three years of its existence.  It started off with CBS and a dark red label, and its singles shared a catalogue sequence with those of the other CBS group companies.  A simplified white label followed, in 1970; according to Clive Selwood these white-label copies were for promotional purposes only, but while some have 'Promotion not for sale' and the release date on them others do not.  Be that as it may, the numbering was still shared with CBS's singles.   A third label, featuring on one side a picture of Peel's hamster, 'Dandelion', in the midst of a collection of flowers, appeared c.1971,when the Kinney corporation took over as distributors.  At this point company's singles were given their own numerical series, DAN-7000; though at least one, the Medicine Head record referred to above, was also numbered in the K-19000s.  Some copies of this single appeared with a white label; there is nothing on it to suggest that these were promotional copies, so perhaps the record's success caused a shortage of the usual hamster-and-flowers labels and the white ones - which were usually reserved for promos, with the appropriate overprinting - were used as a stop-gap.  The arrangement with Kinney was very short-lived, and a move to Polydor followed, in 1972.  The move saw another change of label design, to one with a dandelion plant on it; the catalogue numbers were changed also, Dandelion singles sharing a 2001-000 series with those of Polydor.  The CBS-era sleeve seems to have been used by several CBS-distributed labels, Thanks to Robert Lyons for the info.