The Beatles on Stargrove

Photo taken in 1963 by Bob Freeman (RIP)

An indie budget label in the Toronto area called Stargrove Entertainment released something too good to be true: cheap budget Beatles compilations. You'd think with ironclad rights, it'd be legally impossible?  However, in Canada, copyrights for older recordings expire after fifty years or so.  A fan club in Québec have a similar release that came out last year, and more releases have been put out in Europe to boot as rights run out there as well.  The Stargrove CDs were mainly sold in Walmart, where I bought three in Niagara Falls, ONT.  Recently, I found a couple more for a dollar each from the bargain bin at FYE in the Mohawk Valley (now owned by Canadian chain Sunrise Records, which I once visited in eastern Ontario, seeing how alike they were).  The Fab Four of all people reduced to this?  Makes what little that they put on their original US label Vee-Jay look fresh (classic David and Goliath story there).  It's only material from 1962-64 which I have anyway.  More for completist and novelty value, I guess.  I had room to spare if not as much cash when I found them.

Universals solicitors however did what they could to put a stop to these poor mans releases.  The sound quality isn't quite what you'd find from the official CDs, sounding like unnecessary needle drops.  I listen to these once since I heard it all a hundred times before and prefer to play it from LPs nowadays like it used to be done.  Other classic artists from the same era also have these cash grab items.

If they put out CDs of bootlegs recorded at the time, that would be a little more imaginative, as a number of different labels have gotten away with CDs of other people in the past several years sold new at small businesses, Amazon and a few chains alike, largely of radio shows from later decades, though a Pink Floyd bootleg LP (only the second one I got so far) says those alone are public domain after a point in the UK.  More on bootlegs another day as that's a world all its own.

I suppose you could call these grey area releases, much like interview discs that are exempt from the contract.  I sent a couple to someone out of state.  If I get back to Canada, I could buy and ship more, but maybe Stargrove could try to reissue material that's been out of print instead worth a bother instead of doing what's been done with Elton John, The Moody Blues, Shirley Bassey (lesser known in North America) and other classic artists who've been recycled to the hilt.  I've talked about who doesn't have these yet, but this is the other end of the spectrum.  It's nothing new, as I have a couple similar EU collections from the '80s or '90s with the same old songs.  As for these newer CDs, neither Walmart Canada or FYE have them on their sites, although Discogs sellers do, some at high prices (not worth it when you can just get the original albums as well as those of the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan or George Jones).  I just know I got there at the right time before they were extortionately priced where I may as well get a butcher cover or early white album pressing.