Colpix/Colgems Crossovers

The predecessor to Colgems was Colpix, also owned by Columbia Pictures. The label had a wide range of stars on the label, many leaning toward teen-pop/television crossovers, including Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen, the kid stars of The Donna Reed Show.

However, as The Monkees project was taking hold, Colpix would slowly revamp itself into Colgems, dumping most of its established artists and starting afresh with The Pre-Fab Four and a few other artists.

But the label did not fully get rid of all of its artists. Michael Nesmith (as Michael Blessing) and Davy Jones (as David Jones) had recorded for Colpix, and, of course, their output reverted to The Monkees project once that got under way. Hoyt Axton also recorded for Colpix, and seamlessly moved over to Colgems with one lone single, which will be discussed further at another time.

There actually was one album that crossed over intact from Colpix to Colgems, and that was the Lawrence of Arabia soundtrack. It has since been on a number of labels, and over the past 40 years, it has rarely--if ever--truly been out of print.