History of Persian 33 rpm vinyl LPs
by: Amir Mansour
The first LPs
The first Persian LPs recorded for "AHANG" (means "song") label in early days of 1960 and produced in Germany. They were 3 LPs IRLP20001-3 containing these parts of Persian classical music (Radif & Dastgah): Dashti, Shushtari, Segah, Bayat turk, Abuata, Isfahan, Homayoon, Chahargah, Mahoor, Shoor, Afshari & Masnavi. Mrs. Delkesh (vocal), Ali Tajvidi & Parviz Yahaghghi (Violin), Farhang Sharif & Lotfollah Majd (Tar) and Hassan Kassayy (Ney) had taken part in these 30 cm LPs which distributed by Beethoven company.
Other labels of Persian LPs
Recordings for below labels was in Iran and producing LPs happened as 17.5 cm, 25cm and 30cm LPs in Iran and abroad from mid 60s to 1978.
Super Record 25cm, selection of best sellers on 78 rpm records in early 60s.
Philips (made in Holland) 25cm
Olympic 25cm & 30cm
Musical 30cm (made in Germany)
Royal 25cm, selection of best sellers on 78 rpm records in early 60s & 30cm records up to 1978.
CBS (made in Holland) 30cm, in last days of LP in Iran (1978).
EMI 30cm, a performance of Philharmonic orchestra of NIRT.
Ahang Rooz 30cm, the most important label and LP manufacturer in Iran who produced many albums and selections in late 60s and 70s in below categories:
* Female singers rec1 (Giti), rec2 (Gougoush), rec3 (Ramesh), rec4 (Hayedeh), rec5 (Mahasti)
* Male singers rec1 (Aref), rec2 (Mehrpooya), rec3 (Mahmoodi Khanssari), rec4 (Aghassi), rec5 (Shahidi)
* Persian classical solo rec1 (Bahari on Kamancheh), rec2 (Paiwar on Santoor & Tehrani on Zarb)
* Persian soundtracks and casts rec1 (Mah Pishooni), rec2 (Shahr e Ghesseh)
* Religious songs rec1 (Shahidi), rec2 (M. Soheili)
* Poems and voice of poets rec1 (Forough Farrokhzad)
NIRT (National Iranian Radio Television) 30cm, recordings of Jashn Honar (Art Celebrity) in Shiraz 1972 produced by Ahang Rooz.
Ketabkhaneh Pahlavi (Pahlavi library) 30cm, selection of Shah's speeches produced by Ahang Rooz. cover record
Kanoon Parvaresh Fekri Koodakan va Nojavanan (Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults) 17.5cm tales, stories and musicals for children, 25cm voice of poets and biography of important composers of the world & 30cm folk and classical music of Iran with artistic cover design mostly pressed in Ahang e Rooz factory.
Reproducing world music on vinyl 33 rpm LPs in Iran
There were special labels for reproducing albums or selections of world music on vinyl LPs in Iran:
Monde: some compilations and albums of late 60s and early 70's.
Royal: 30cm vinyl records for less than 100 soul, pop and rock albums. Royal Arabic and Indian LPs have matrix and catalog numbers of Farsi LPs series.
KAMA: just a few LPs and an interesting misspelling on cover of Abbey Road.
Hit: a label of Ahang Rooz company for 39 vinyl LPs, some of them albums of rock music of early 70s in Iran. This company has Oriental label for Arabic LPs.
Imperial: 25cm vinyl records for reproducing soul and R&B LPs.
Persian LPs of other countries
Austria: rec1 musical stories for children by Samin Baghchehban, named Rangin Kamoon (means rainbow) by taking part of Vienna philharmonic choir .
France: Persian folk music rec1 on Musidisc label, recordings by Majid Kiani (santour), Daryoush Talayy (tar- setar), Jamshid Shemirani (Zarb) rec2 and maestro Karimi (vocal) accompaniment Mousavi (Ney) on Ocora label and works by Aminollah (Andre) Hossein rec3.
Germany: recording and producing political songs and hymens rec1 for Confederation of Persian students in 1971.
Sweden: recordings by Kiu Haghighi the Santoor player rec1 for Candle label.
UK: recordings by Shusha Assar in Persian and English rec1 , rec2
UNESCO: musical anthology of the orient rec1 (Iran 1) , rec2 (Iran 2), produced in Germany.
USA: any kind of LPs, from Persian classical solo by Rastegarnejad on santoor rec1 . rec2 to Persian pop music by Viguen rec3 , rec4 and Shahram Parsi rec5 up to something new rec6 that is called Persian Rhythm & Blues and at last, conducting world classic music and orchestras by Rouben Gregorian rec7and Loris Tjeknavorian rec8.
* Dates are estimated
Any comments would be appreciated. Contact us
(Many thanks to Mr. Samad Rajayy, Mr. Afshin Sadeghi and Mr. Iraj Farhang who have permitted to use their LP collections)
