From
1970, The Shelby Singleton Organization out of Nashville Tennessee, owners
of the legendary SUN label from Memphis, started releasing records in Australia
through Festival on its SSS International
and the SUN label. Sun was for records by Orion, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny
Cash re-issues. Shelby Singelton was also trying to fool people with an
Elvis soundalike (Jimmy Ellis) by not putting any artist name on the label
(NK 4833 - 1972) .
In
Australia, Festival had distribution rights, but EMI had the rights to
the back catalogue. Elvis’ Sun material was released on RCA. Sun material
during the 1960’s was released on London. During the mid 1970s Festival
spent considerable time and money on prosecutions on owners of import record
shops selling overseas copies of their labels, one of them being the SUN
label. However, prosecutions on the Sun label fell through owing to the
fact that the shop owners were selling legal re-issues which Festival didn’t
have the rights to. EMI allowed their sale. This cost Festival a lot of
money and embarrassment and contributed to its downfall. Nobody had any
sympathy for Festival, and music import laws were changed so that imports
were allowed but only through local suppliers.
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