Music producer Tony Currie has ‘rescued’ an iconic record label from obscurity that epitomised ‘cool London’ in the 60s - releasing hits by The Kinks’ and Sandie Shaw.

He has bought the rights to Pye Records, set up in 1955, that helped shape the rock’n’roll era and the Swinging Sixties with groups like The Kinks who emerged from Muswell Hill onto London’s music scene in 1964, writes Allis Moss.

The Kinks recorded hits at Pye's Marble Arch studios in Great Cumberland Place, like Dedicated Follower of Fashion, Waterloo Sunset, Dead End Street and Death of a Clown.

So did Dagenham’s own Sandie Shaw with her Puppet on a String and Those Were the Days.

'Death' of a record label that produced hits by the Kinks'Death' of a record label that produced hits by the Kinks (Image: Mike Brooke)

Pye stopped trading by 1989 and the label was dropped in a wrangle over trademark renewal. Pye Records Ltd was officially liquidated in December 2013.

But now entrepreneur Tony, a former BBC regional presenter, has acquired the trademark and relaunched the label from his remote Scottish island home.

“To bring Pye back is to breathe life into something that’s been waiting to return for a long time,” the 72-year old says. “You had the big labels back then like Decca, Philips and Polydor along with EMI’s Parlophone, Columbia and Stateside — and then you had Pye.”

The Kinks who grew up in Muswell Hill recorded their hits with Pye RecordsThe Kinks who grew up in Muswell Hill recorded their hits with Pye Records (Image: Music Walk of Fame)

The label also signed Status Quo, The Searchers, Donovan, Tony Hatch, Jackie Trent, Acker Bilk and Petula Clark whose father Leslie helped set up the label. Other big names included Lonnie Donegan and Kenny Ball's jazz band.

Pye Records limped on after a name change in 1980, before sinking from view.

“The original Pye Records was huge with its studio in Great Cumberland Place,” Currie recalls. “It was the home of everything I bought when I was a teenager, anything that had the word ‘orchestra’ on it.

“Now I run Pye from a tiny building on an island in the Hebrides.”

The label has recorded its first album in 44 years at the Lady Eleanor Holles School near Twickenham. 

The trigger was Currie’s need to recover from the death of his wife Karin after 49 years.

“I needed to focus on a project to stop me drowning my sorrows watching Talking Pictures TV and eating pot noodles,” the father-of-three decided. “I reactivated the Pye label by buying the trademark and setting it off on a new journey in 2024.”

He put together a 36-piece orchestra to produce the album Race the Sun with its eclectic repertoire of classics like Fifth Avenue Walkdown — first released on the old Pye label in 1968 — and Downtown originally written for Petula Clark.  

Meanwhile, Pye Records 2.0 is burnishing its green credentials for the 21st century, with its pressings at Sea Bass Vinyl's Scottish wind-powered plant and exploring the idea of recyclable material to record on.

“More people now appreciate the quality of a vinyl,” Tony insists. “CD sales are going down, down, down and vinyl sales up, up, up because CDs filter out a lot of the warmth and emotion that you get with vinyl.”

Tony has also put Pye Records slap bang into the 21st century with its own “pyerecords.com” website where music lovers and retro vinyl fans can order the album online.