Independent Canadian-owned record company, incorporated 27 October 1947 in Toronto. For the French name see Les Disques Quality Limitée.
The company was the first in Canada to manufacture cassette and eight-track tapes. It also distributed such Canadian lines as its own Quality, Birchmount and Celebration labels and the independent Broadland, Kanata, MWC (Music World Creations) and Reo labels. The company operated a New York office briefly in the mid-1970s.
Records pressed by the company can often be identified by an uppercase "Q" or "Qu" in the runouts and/or a "Q" printed on the labels. The Q on 'Quality' pressing runouts is hand-etched, often quite small, upside-down compared to the rest of the run-out etchings, and often tucked in just where the run-out hits the locked groove. See images section of this label. . More description
Quality established two publishing companies c.1970; the CAPAC affiliated Shediac Music Publishing Ltd. (a.k.a Shediac Music and Shediac), and the BMIC/BMI affiliated Qualrec Music Ltd. (a.k.a Qualrec). In August 1975 Quality took over the BMI Canada portion of Broadland Music Ltd.'s catalogue. In October 1976 Quality took over the entire Broadland operation, including publishers Doubleplay Music and Grandslam Music.
Canadian artists to record for Quality included the Young Canada Singers (who made the hit version of 'CA-NA-DA'), the Beaumarks (whose 'Clap Your Hands' was an early Canadian rock hit in the USA in 1960), Andy de Jarlis, the early Guess Who, Albert Hall, Harmonium, the Haunted, the King Beezz, Jury, Ronn Metcalfe, Skip Prokop, Hank Smith, and Sweet Blindness, all in the pop field.
Quality updated its 7" label design in 1970, moving away from the plain white background with red trim to a two-tone red label with a background made up of 80 small Qs in a checkerboard pattern. The new label was designed by the national promotion co-ordinator at the time, Mel Shaw.
'Quality Records' ceased operations in 1985, selling its vinyl pressing and tape duplication operations to Cinram in November. Cinram moved all equipment to its existing Scarborough location. The Quality name lived on through Quality Special Products and was revived in 1990 as Quality Records, Quality Music and other variations, specializing mainly in commercial dance music.
This company name is also printed on releases as 'Quality Records Ltd.' or 'Canada-Quality Records Limited', or (in French) 'Disques Quality Limitée'.
The Canadian distributor for a few independent US labels before they were purchased or absorbed into other companies.
Jive 1982 to end of 1984
Motown 1980 to end of 1985
Robert G. Haacke was head of the plating department and quality control from 1950 to 1967.
Canada corporation number: 013603-4
Ontario company number: 58583
Incorporated: 27 October 1947
Dissolved: 1 January 1983 (amalgamated into Selkirk Communications Limited)
