
Harvest Records was created by EMI in 1969 to market progressive rock music and to compete with Philips' Vertigo and Decca's Harvest labels, initially under the direction of Malcolm Jones and Norman Smith.
The first album was released in July 1969, the UK issue of Deep Purple's Book Of Taliesyn which had originally been released on the U.S. Tetragrammaton label on December 11, 1968. EMI moved the band from their Parlophone label, where the first album Shades of Deep Purple was released, to start the new Harvest subsidiary.