Tale Spinners for Children
| Tale Spinners for Children | |
|---|---|
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| Parent company | United Artists |
| Founded | 1959 |
| Founder | Max E. Youngstein |
| Distributor(s) | United Artists Records (America) |
| Country of origin | GB |
Tale Spinners for Children was a series of stories and novels adapted for young audiences on vinyl records in the early 1960s. They included a collection of old fairy tales, folklore, literary classics such as Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe, and time-honored fables, with the title role sometimes played by a renowned theatrical actor or actress. (Many of the actors who appeared, however, such as Maggie Smith or Alec McCowen, became more famous for other roles years after the albums were released, and some of the actors, such as Donald Pleasence, who played Don Quixote, or John Wood, who played several villainous roles, were not even identified on the album covers.) The series gave children an exposure to timeless classic stories.
Originally only 30 records were pressed in England and France and sold as Atlas Talespinners under the Atlas Record label, and included an easy to follow story booklet. Within a few years, these records were introduced to the U.S. as Tale Spinners for Children under the United Artists Records label. What was known as the Atlas Theatre Company in England was marketed as the Famous Theatre Company in the United States. The story booklets were not included in the U.S. releases.
UA continued to produce more stories records until the early 1970s, and distribute them in the Canadian and Australian markets as well.
With popular children's record companies like Walt Disney Records already on the market, a host of other record companies followed: Mercury Storyteller series, Golden Records, Telegeneral Let's Pretend, Riverside Wonderland and Pathways of Sound.
United Artists released the 30 original stories in the US in 1962. The recording labels changed when Liberty Records (its budget subsidiary Sunset Records) and United Artists Records merged in 1968 after Transamerica bought Liberty. All labels were merged under United Artists in 1971. When Liberty was deactivated in 1971 (for the first time) both the Sunset and Talespinners series was leased by Springboard International and in the case of the Talespinners series they used the same catalog numbers until 1975. When Springboard International Records went bankrupt 1984 Gusto Records acquired some of their catalogues from Jay-Koala.
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