The label was founded by Englishman
Nat Joseph who started the company at the age of 21 after visiting the US and realizing that there was a wealth of recorded music that was unavailable in the UK. Transatlantic licensed recordings from the US, such as the jazz labels
Prestige and
Riverside and the
Tradition folk music label. From the outset, many of the covers included photography and design by Brian Shuel. Transatlantic were also instrumental in the importation of MK Records (a Russian classical label), which were then issued with the original Russian labels, but with an English printed sleeve. The company's first commercial success came not from music but from three
sex education albums. The controversy over these records led to sales approaching 100,000 and the resulting financial lift gave the company money to develop its musical base. Some of their early records included artists such as
The Dubliners, actress
Sheila Hancock, jazz singer
Annie Ross, actresses
Jean Hart and
Isla Cameron, and Shakespearean actor
Tony Britton. They managed to mix the folk music interest with the money making capacity of the sex education records by issuing
When Dalliance was in Flower – a series of bawdy songs performed by
Ed McCurdy and licensed from the American
Elektra label. As often happened, these were issued first on the Transatlantic label in the UK and then on the subsidiary label XTRA. The catalogue numbers often contained "TRA" within the prefix, thus MTRA, XTRA, and LTRA were all used. The latter prefix was used with a series of LPs produced by Bill Leader (who worked with Nat Joseph from the outset as an engineer). Amongst these "Leader" records were recordings by Nic Jones, Martin Simpson, Mick Ryan, Bandoggs (another Nic Jones group), Andrew Cronshaw, and Al O'Donnell. The XTRA imprint was launched as a discount label to release recordings licensed from the American
Folkways label and elsewhere. With the advent of
psychedelia and
flower power the Transatlantic stable of artists achieved greater success, culminating in the formation of the
supergroup Pentangle. Meanwhile, Transatlantic had been extending its eclecticism, recording such as the audio collageist
Ron Geesin, and
The Purple Gang, whose "Granny Takes A Trip" was banned by the
BBC in 1967.
CBS had released the extremely successful contemporary music budget sampler with
The Rock Machine Turns You On in 1967. Before CBS could follow up, Transatlantic released
Listen Here! early in 1968. Like
Rock Machine the record was priced at 14/11d (
£0.75) – but Transatlantic took promotion one stage further by printing not only the track listing on the front, but also the price. The record was designed to preview not only the forthcoming Pentangle double album, but solo records by members
Bert Jansch and
John Renbourn.
Listen Here! also served to introduce a new group
The Sallyangie, with siblings
Mike and
Sally Oldfield. In 1975, Joseph sold a 75% share of his company to
Sidney Bernstein's
Granada Group and the company became part of Granada. There was a culture clash between the independent-spirited Transatlantic and the corporate sensibilities of Granada and 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 catalogue were sold to
Castle Communications (now
Sanctuary Records). ==Roster (1961–1978)==