VINYL FETISH: rare Studio 1 LP found
No 3: Dr J Robert Spiegel How To Stop Smoking In 7 Days (Studio 1 FC7044) £?
A phone call. "I’ve found an unknown Studio 1 LP, would you like to see it?" Does a fish drink water? Let me explain. To many reggae collectors, Studio 1 is cat nip. The label is sometimes referred to as Jamaica’s Motown, because so many major artists recorded for it. However, its output is highly documented – in several amazing books, notably by Rob Chapman, and Charlie Morgan – especially the LPs. From time to time, however, something gobsmacking crops up, and this was one.
The LP arrived: an album to tell you how to stop smoking by one of the pioneers in hypnotherapy in this field. The vinyl, boasting a classic red and silver label, has just two tracks. As Matt Downs of lionvibes.co.uk, who unearthed it in Jamaica, advised with wry regret, there are no reggae rhythms behind the hypnotic voice of Dr J Robert Spiegel. Side one is How To Stop Smoking In Seven Days By Auto Suggestion; side two tells you How To Develop Your Hidden Power. Very handy, assuming you could choose what that power might be. (I’d choose making Jamaican 45s more valuable by writing "BAD" or "VALCAL" on them in black felt tip.) The LP looks early 60s, but so do many Studio 1 releases of the 1970s.
The question is, what is this LP doing on Studio 1 – the home of The Wailers, Jackie Mittoo, Alton Ellis, etc? Well, like Motown, the label did wander into other fields; there are pressings of blues records, Irish country, and notably, a super-rare album by the Indian guru Sri Chinmoy, Mother, I Bow To Thee, on the Port-O-Jam subsidiary. Doubtless Mr Dodd cut a deal with Dr Spiegel to press the anti-smoking LP for the Caribbean. The Caribbean evidently didn’t want it. The result is this deep rarity, most likely worth hundreds of pounds to the right lover of Jamaican Studio 1 vinyl. I found myself wishing that London’s legendary ‘Studio 1 Peter’ Roberts, a collector who knew as much as anyone about the label, was alive to see it.
On the back cover is a sleevenote supposedly written by the label’s boss, Clement Seymour ‘Coxsone’ Dodd. Although, unlike most of the gobbledegook that passes for sleevenotes on – and adds to the charm of – Studio 1 albums, this was clearly taken straight from an original US LP, as was the artwork, apart from the record company logo. Mr Dodd, who died in 2004 of a heart attack, aged 72, was a smoker. He once released a 7" by Ken Boothe on the Embassy label, Swinging King, as an ad for Embassy cigarettes. Ian McCann
The album will be for sale at www.lionvibes.co.uk in the summer of 2011
