THE 12 INCH SINGLE
Until the rise of Night Clubs in the early 70’s the main purpose of single records was to promote the artist, and usually the album the track came from, on the radio. The 7 inch format was fine for this - a 2 or 3 minute track would transfer well enough to the radio, but the 7 inch format was restrictive in its use. Album Tracks had also generally been restricted to this format and usually consisted of 10 or 12 two to three minute songs. Producers like Norman Whitfield however had been experimenting with album tracks producing much longer versions for artists like the Temptations, Eddie Kendricks, Edwin Starr and the Undisputed Truth, and Gamble and Huff had been doing the same on their Philadelphia International label with the O’Jays and others. Usually the albums would consist of half a dozen 3 to 4 minute tracks and one or two 8 to 12 minute tracks, and these would be heavily orchestrated usually with a long instrumental part before or after the main vocals.
Eventually some of these album tracks needed to be released as singles, either to promote the album or by public demand, and this necessitated the double “a” side, usually part one being the vocal and part 2 the instrumental. This didn’t work too well in the night clubs and some of the more up front DJs started to mix two copies of the same single in order to get as near as possible to the full versions. The other reason for this practice was by the time the audience in a club realized that they wanted to dance to a particular track, if it was only 2 or 3 minutes long it could be over before they had a chance to slip on their boogie shoes!
Some companies released longer versions of singles on one side but the reduction in the size of the groove meant that the sound quality was greatly reduced, usually at the top and bottom ends, and these did not transfer well to the average disco sound system. It was because of the influence of the discos on the sales of disco music that specialist labels realized they had to do something to rectify this and eventually they devised the album sized single which could split the difference between a 7 inch inch single and an LP.
Initially these tracks were released only as promotional singles and mainly fed to the best and most influential DJs while Joe Public still only had the option of buying the 7 inch version. There was a great deal of rivalry, as there still is, in who should receive these 12 inchers and if you were the only DJ to have hold of this exclusive format, usually before it’s official release date, you would tend to plug it to death in order to prove how upfront you were. This promoted great demand for the product and eventually the record companies were forced to release tracks in this format to the public.
The public, however, were still being conned by many of the major labels, in particular Atlantic and Epic/Columbia (CBS in the UK) who would either release just the normal 3 minute single version on this 12 inch format or would restrict the issue to a limited number of copies which was, of course, intended to both create a buzz and stimulate sales. Fortunately both these practices stopped as the companies realized there was actually some money to be made in the sale of these items!
The first U.S. publicly released 12 inch single has been credited to Salsoul’s epic “Ten Per Cent” by Double Exposure, but I’m not sure what the earliest U.K. release was (any help on this would be appreciated!). The earliest I have in my collection were on the Contempo label in 1975 - both Tom Moulton mixes - “Chinese Kung Fu” by Banzai and “Breakaway” by Ernie Bush. The release of 12 inch singles really took off when the disco music phenomenon peaked in 1977.
Ultimately disco singles were designed to be played non-stop and interlinked by mixing from one break to another
12 inch singles have remained an important part of a DJ’s repertoire generally to the exclusion of other formats, and have greatly enhanced the variety of music on offer through the remixes recently available (often 6 or 7 to a single). This has also helped to spawn a whole new generation of remix DJs when often they have more input into the finished sound of a track than the artist!