Label Guide: Transatlantic

Transatlantic Records was an independent British record label, founded in 1961 by then 21-years-old Nat Joseph. After visiting the USA Joseph realized that there was a wealth of music of interest to British music fans that was not being made available in the UK, so he started Transatlantic as an importer of American folk, blues and jazz records from labels such as Prestige, Tradition and Riverside.

Within a couple of years, Transatlantic Records started recording British artists; artists as diverse as traditional folk band The Dubliners, actress Sheila Hancock, jazz singer Annie Ross, actresses Jean Hart and Isla Cameron, and Shakespearean actor Tony Britton. Joseph also released a number of sex education records, which sold well enough to finance the label's less commercial endeavours into folk music and psychedelic folk. Transatlantic also started a subsidiary, XTRA Records, for budget-priced re-releases or new compilations of older material.

In the late 1960s, Transatlantic's brand of psychedelic folk with genre supergroup Pentangle gained popularity, and around the turn of the decade, the label released groundbreaking psychedelic and progressive rock albums by bands such as Jody Grind, Circus, Little Free Rock or The Deviants.

In 1975, Joseph sold a 75% share of his company to Sidney Bernstein's Granada Group and the company became part of Granada. Two years later Granada sold its share in Transatlantic to the Marshall Cavendish publishing company, which also acquired Joseph's 25% share. The new company was renamed Logo Records. In the 1990s Logo Records and the Transatlantic Records catalogue was sold to Castle Communications (now Sanctuary Records).