RECORDS
Independent label: Zella Records was (formerly known as Ladbroke, or 'Ladbrooke' on some demo labels was a recording studio in Birmingham. From the late '60s until at least the mid '80s, under owner Johnny Haynes, it made custom recordings and acetates for many amateur and semi-professional artists from the Midlands. The kinds of music found on Zella - or Zel-la, as the labels from 1971 onwards put it - were as varied as the people who were prepared to pay for the company's services, and ranged from medleys from Cabaret performers to self-penned songs by bands from the local Pub Rock circuit. Organist Brian Link, from Clows Top (near Ludlow), appears to have had at least seventeen EPs out on the label. The main series of catalogue numbers had prefixes with 'JH' at the front of them; Singles had 'SP' after the 'JH', EPs 'EP', and albums 'LP'. By 1972 a letter 'M' or an 'S', indicating mono or stereo had been added at the end of the prefix. Numbering seems to have started at JHxx-1; the earliest example I have so far found is JHEP-7 which dates from 1969. All the 'JH's that I have seen were pressed by Decca. There was also a WHSP-2000 series for singles, and a WHEPS-6000 one for EPs, neither of the two examples that I have seen were Decca pressings. In addition there was a very early ZEL EP-100 series, which dated from the late '60s. 'JH' were obviously Johnny Haynes's initials; were 'WH' the initials of a different member of the Haynes family? The few early records that I have seen had white labels with red print, but by the mid '70s Zel-la's labels were appearing in a variety of colours, not all of which scan well - the orange EP shown dates from 1978, the red one from 1979. Products of the Zella studio also appeared on other labels, such as Beeswing, Jes and Merimusic. Sometimes Zel-la records didn't have the logo on them. Haynes sold the studio to Rock band Magnum in the 1980s. Thanks to Robert Lyons For The Info.
A FULL DISCOGRAPHY OF ZIL-LA 000 SERIES 1969-1989 CAN BE FOUND HERE
| 75 | Not Traced | ZEL-LA | WHEPS | 6001 | |
| 75 | Angelo | Casatchok | ZEL-LA | WHEPS | 6002 |
| 75 | Brian Link | Invitation To The Ball No.9 | ZEL-LA | WHEPS | 6003 |
| 75 | Ian Sinclair | River Deep Mountain High | ZEL-LA | WHEPS | 6004 |
| 76 | Karnail Cheema And Bhajan Germany | Daaj | ZEL-LA | WHEPS | 6005 |
| 76 | Not Traced | ZEL-LA | WHEPS | 6006 | |
| 76 | Not Traced | ZEL-LA | WHEPS | 6007 | |
| 76 | Brian Link | Invitation To The Ball No.10 | ZEL-LA | WHEPS | 6008 |
| 76 | Brian Link | Invitation To The Ball No.11 | ZEL-LA | WHEPS | 6009 |
| 76 | Brian Link | Invitation To The Ball No. 12 | ZEL-LA | WHEPS | 6010 |
| 77 | Brian Link | Invitation To The Ball No. 13 | ZEL-LA | WHEPS | 6011 |
| 77 | Moonshiners | The Four Seasons | ZEL-LA | WHSP | 2014 |
